Impact Of Humans On Food Security Supply Sustainability Assignment Sample

Introduction Of Impact Of Humans On Food Security Supply Sustainability Assignment

The Chinese melamine milk scandal, which occurred in 2008, revealed adulterating milk and infant formula with melamine, a chemical used to increase protein content measurements. This led to various health evils among them calcinosis and acute Kidney Injury in children with over three hundred thousand six suffering fatalities(BBC News, 2010). It also exposed weaknesses in provisions governing food safety, and consumer and economic concerns combined with issues of ethical misconduct(Chan and Lai, 2009). It makes it a model through which human actions on food provision, the sustainability implications, and the likely solution to future food insecurity threats can be assessed.

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Main Body

Critical analysis of the human impact

The Chinese Melamine Milk scandal of 2008 is a perfect example of how profound, human interference is towards food supply, a rogue practice supported by low regulatory compliant infrastructural control and the compounding medium of economic pressure that potentially undermines food security and sustainability. Stakeholder Theory focusing on the obligations of organizations to all stakeholders offers an important perspective on the interactions that arise in this context (Harrison et al., 2015). The scandal mainly involved issues related to the economic challenges that were within the operation of dairy farmers and suppliers. As production costs increased, competition was high, suppliers resorted to adding water to milk to increase quantity which led to the addition of melamine to milk to alter the protein resulting in a quality check(Soon-Sinclair, Nayak and Manning, 2024). This action demonstrated a preoccupation with the company’s profitability rather than doing the right thing for consumers – a core concept of CSR enshrined in Stakeholder Theory (Gossner et al., 2009). Lenders also failed to protect consumers and rather remained loyal to suppliers and manufacturers, pushing for their profits at the expense of customers’ safety. The scandal also raises questions about the deficiency of the system regulating them. The Chinese approach to food safety could not identify and curb massive fraud. Lack of supervision, weak implementation of policies that exist, inadequate internal monitoring mechanisms as well as corruption within watchdog agencies led to the circulation of contaminated products for close to six months. Various aspects of the Chinese food safety system are clearly illustrated by the 2008 melamine scandal. This is supported by literature in works such as Pei et al. (2011) who pointed at aspects of weak implementation of food safety policies and inadequate supervision as well as corruption within regulatory institutions as some of the factors. Yan (2012) has also pointed out several weaknesses of the watchdog institutions, including bureaucracy and lack of accountability, which have docketed embezzlement. Furthermore, Gale and Hu (2009) pointed out that internal controls to monitor the situation within companies were also insufficient, and this is why the distribution of hazardous products went on for rather a long time. In a combined sense, all these works show the structural flaws that caused the crisis harm to intensify, going against consumers and their trust. The Stakeholder Theory shows regulators as essential stakeholders who do not meet society’s expectations compromising their trust (Pei et al., 2011). The lack of strict measures and oppressive actions plus the issue of open book examinations played a direct role in nurturing the human and environmental losses of the scandal. They caused great harm to human health, 314, 620 greatest majority of which were infants who developed kidney stones or renal failure, and six fatalities(Chan and Lai, 2009). These outcomes are a testament to the massive ethical violation inherent in the lack of consumer protection. According to the Stakeholder Theory, the organizations are required to safeguard their relatively helpless customers through safe operations. The scandal eroded consumer trust in locally produced dairy foods and disrupted the domestic markets by triggering something of an impulse to patronize foreign dairy products instead (Xiu and Klein, 2010). The crisis cut across human welfare and affected environmental conservation. Polluted milk millions of tons were disposed of which produced hazardous waste; it showed that wrongdoings of human beings are as bad as natural disasters in having negative implications on ecosystems.

Critical analysis of the impact food supply and sustainability

The 2008 Chinese melamine milk scandal is a perfect example of how contamination of the food supply system undermines food sovereignty. Culinary safety in the aspects of availability, access, utilization, and stability was considerably constrained during this crisis. Justifiably, the recall and destruction of the contaminated milk products created an instantaneous shortage, absence, and scarcity of the milk products and affected vulnerable groups especially infants denying them their basic nutrition. This coupled with the fact that consumers lobbied domestic dairy products due to low quality left most people to opt for imported dairy products, despite their being relatively expensive (Qiao, Guo and Klein, 2012). One of the substitutes of Food security, namely utilization suffered a lot because the milk that people consumed led to severe health complications and was declared unfit for human consumption. Also, stability was threatened as the long-term confidence in Chinese dairy producers deteriorated which created volatility in local markets and undermined consumer confidence. For instance, Chinese dairy products, such as infant formulas contained Melamine, a chemical used to falsify protein figures. This led to a lot of health complications, deaths, six to be precise of infants, and over three hundred thousand and more children falling sick. The scandal almost eliminated the confidence of consumers in domestic products and led to fluctuations in local dairy markets since consumers sought foreign dairy products (BBC News, 2010). The scandal also pointed out that sustainability and food security are non-arriving values. The 2008 Chinese melamine milk scandal affected not only the health but also the environmental aspect of the population of the country. Mass disposal of contaminated milk led to the formation of waste which was hazardous, affected several production processes, and was an issue of the environment. Such occurrences point to the fact that there is a need for effective food safety regulations and practices to uphold human health as well as the environment. Tons of adulterated milk were dumped leading to the formation of dangerous wastes as well as interfering with various cycles of production (Gossner et al., 2009). Such practices call into realization the effects of highly commercialized food processing practice whose primary basis is pumping the pockets of the food producers while forgetting the long-run detrimental impacts on the environment and social welfare of the nation(Meadows, 2009). Understanding Systems Theory, which states that individual elements in a system are interrelated and depend on each other, shows how a certain level of exploitative behaviour can result in adverse effects at other levels(Ramos et al., 2022). The contamination of milk adulteration meant that due to weak governance and economic compulsions, this disrupted a key segment in the food chain; weak sustainability and lack of or minimal ethical considerations led to the fragility of food security as a system(The MIT Press,2024). The proven loopholes after the scandal that required mitigation included; hence, efforts to reclaim food security addressed such susceptibilities (Pei et al., 2011c). According to Systems Theory, it is crucial to implement the complexity by integrating the efforts of producers, regulators, and consumers to reconstruct broken trust and bolster the food systems. For example, better regulation and monitoring, as well as increased transparency in the processes in the supply chains, would play a critical role in keeping the appropriate stability rates untimely prevented. In conclusion, the scandal belongs to the same line of who provides food, how, and to what extent, and this challenge brings out the essence of the triangle, food supply, sustainability, and security. Sustainability and ethical practices being undermined leads to poor food system outcomes in terms of availability, access, utilization, and stability(Zhang et al., 2015).

Critical analysis of countermeasures to food supply and sustainability issues

In managing globalization food supply and sustainability concerns, countermeasures propel the structure hold security, efficiency, and equilibrium of food systems. These measures express the use of prudent approaches towards avoiding risks and the pursuit of sustainable development in contemporary society where climate change, physical human population growth, and depletion of physical resources are some of the common challenges that face organizations today. After the scandal in China, the government adopted laws such as the Food Safety Law in 2009 and cracked down on penalties for the violations that were considered as a response to other stakeholders. However, the scandal points to the urgency of a proactive stakeholder approach that insists on timely, accurate, and ethical disclosure; ethical behaviour; and collaborative management. Increased supplier training and education, improvement of a traceability system, as well as application of automated monitoring systems can protect against future risks(Yang et al., 2009). The first and which is critical countermeasure is the reform of the current food safety legislation to strengthen the enforcement mechanisms. Severely as the scandal has vividly illustrated, ineffective regulation and little supervision failed to curb risky practices leading to enormous detriment. Building up the regulatory agencies and making sure that the food safety inspections are closely conducted and reported are also critical to consumer confidence reconstruction. Further, more emphasis should be added to product traceability along the food chain, so that it is easier to identify which stage or company contributed to it or produced a food item that got contaminated. It was argued that increasing the severity of sanctions would encourage corporations not to neglect safety legislation, and boosting the functionality of monitoring and punishment would guarantee compliance with the safety regulations all across the manufacturing process (Yang et al., 2009). Environmentalism food security and sustainability are other aspects that CSR also has a contribution to. The most recent example illustrated by the hypothetical case of the melamine milk scandal exposed how the acts of companies majoring in the production of infant formula could be deliberately deceitful and destructive for consumers in their seek for profits. In other words, corporate organizations have to transition from the notion of getting quick profits to embracing sustainable as well as ethical methods of feeding the people. The implementation of CSR principles within the business realities would entail admitting liability for context consequences. This entails the quality of all processes right from manufacturing to be safe, legal, and sustainable. By CSR it could also be convenient to further develop the communication policy, according to which companies provide information on their supply sources, production techniques, and ethical aspects that they take into consideration (Xiu and Klein, 2010b). Another important countermeasure is awareness of the proper agricultural and production practices as sustainable. Inadequate monitoring of dairy farming due to economic influences contributed to melamine contamination due to overexploitation of the farming activity. The lack of proper measures to control the supply chain and encourage the farmers to cultivate naturally has led to such incidents in the future, the judicious use of sustainable agriculture techniques has to be encouraged. For instance, training farmers to appreciate the impact of consuming safe foods and granting funding for them to embrace organic farming practices might help lower the utilization of dangerous ingredients and compounds. In addition, the harmonization of effector agencies, agricultural organizations, and companies would create a customer-driven food safety system safeguarding agriculture businesses from future contamination (Yang et al., 2020). It is also important for practical reasons to involve the management of the effects of contamination in the food chain. Millions of tons of contaminated milk produced dangerous waste and altered the regional environment, thus aggravating the harm done by such food scandals. To address this problem, a countermeasure may involve the enhancement of various waste management programs in the food industry. There was the possibility that minimizing processed and contaminated food products by reprocessing and recycling could reduce environmental impacts. Further, companies must sponsor sustainable methods of waste treatment that would have a lesser impact on the environment in food production (Jia et al., 2012). Finally, consumer awareness and knowledge are the essence of addressing food challenges and supply and sustainability. The scandal brought out consumer concerns about receiving unsafe products on the market and made it possible for consumers to get adequate information about the food products’ safety and ethical practices. Governments and other non-governmental bodies should consider it a crucial task to continue educating consumers to demand food safety from companies and reject irresponsible production from firms. This could be incorporating public service announcements aimed at educating the public about the need to shop from companies that support food security and sustainability (Li et al., 2021).

Conclusion

The 2008 Chinese Melamine milk scandal for instance showed the severity of the effects that unethical behaviour, poor regulatory frameworks, and irresponsible business conduct have on food safety, health, the environment, and sustainability. This clearly shows why there is a need for policies in the food industry and more especially agriculture to be made more stringent to ensure that they regain the public trust for food production. Therefore, CSR integration, efficient and effective leveraging of available waste management systems, and consumer awareness are important progressive steps towards enhanced security of the nation’s food chain systems. What this scandal demonstrates is the symbiotic relationship between food vulnerability, morality, and ecological responsibility in the management of global food problems.

References

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