Over the last century, several developments in agriculture have taken place, such as advanced water purification technology systems, the feasibility of nitrogen-rich fertilizer production, and replacing manpower with autonomous, quicker, and more precise machinery. As a result, those developments have positively affected the nature of the agricultural sector in first-world countries, such as the USA, UK, China, and Japan. However, the global challenge of hunger and food insecurity does exist, and current trends suggest that it may be permanent for the upcoming years, but why?
Although the previously mentioned developments have already left their impact on developed countries, the ability to implement the latest state-of-the-art agricultural techniques into developing countries seems to be an impossible goal, due to the poor scientific, educational, and technological infrastructures in those countries, which leads to the existence of various hurdles to keep up with those technologies. For example, the absence of modern manufacturing plants in several developing countries makes it hard to domestically develop the required equipment and materials; therefore, such countries tend to import those machines and materials for higher prices. Subsequently, farmers find no options but to use old equipment, which leads to lower production rates relative to the population of those countries.
Moreover, the poor economic status of those countries delays and even demolishes all the efforts to enhance and develop the needed technological environments to satisfy the needs of the agriculture sector, whereby governments tend to focus more on industries that contribute to the growth of export rates, such as the textiles industry, oil and gas mining, and mechanical spare parts production. On top of that, the absence of wise leadership leads to the possibility of being dependent on other nations to supply basic crops, such as wheat and rice. As a consequence, any political instability in the importing countries raises food prices dramatically, and several countries experienced this when Ukraine faced the Russian invasion, and its crop production and export rates sharply declined.
Although food insecurity rates have been surging over the last 50 years, due to the previously mentioned factors and others, it is still possible to bring those rates down by rearranging the priorities of third-world countries, whereby it is more convenient to shift into a vertically integrated food supply chain than depending on other nations. First of all, it is a necessity to immediately start developing the needed infrastructure for achieving in-house machinery and fertilizer production. Moreover, investing in educational majors, such as agricultural sciences and irrigation engineering, will be more reasonable. Additionally, political leaderships must accept that such developments will need all the sweat, toil, tears, and time of them and their people.