Ilana Herold
Hunger-Fighting Campaign
This photograph, taken on September 20th, 2018, depicts a sign made by the child of a National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) employee. This was taken in the NHLBI Division of Extramural Research Activities office in Bethesda, Maryland. It is advertising the Feds Feed Families Campaign, a federal-wide annual donation program to help feed American families(1). Food donations made through NHLBI support the Children’s Inn at the National Institutes of Health, the Safra Family Lodge, and the Capital Area Food Bank(2).
This photo relates to Sustainable Development Goal #2, Zero Hunger. This goal aims to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture(3). There are 6.1 million U.S. households that suffer from severe food insecurity, although the vast majority of people who suffer from hunger live in developing nations(4). This has significant societal and ecological impacts. Food insecurity is often due to poor harvesting practices, food wastage, and war, all of which negatively impact the environment and ecological systems. Additionally, without solving the issue of hunger, many of the other SDGs are difficult to achieve(3).
Although the photograph itself is related to a more human-centered SDG, there are still relevant ecological implications. Specifically, this reminded me of the ecological concept of resilience in terms of food security, described in a 2017 publication by the British Ecological Society. This is relevant to the subdiscipline of agro-ecology. Resilience in the food context can be defined as “maintaining production of sufficient and nutritious food in the face of chronic and acute environmental perturbations”(5). Ecologically-inspired approaches to increasing resilience in terms of food security include diversifying crop rotations, which help reduce soil erosion, increase soil fertility, and increase crop yield. This relates back to SDG #2 because adopting more sustainable and resilient farming methods, based in ecological principles, is critical in order to eliminate hunger.
Sources
1. Feds Feed Families. (2018). Retrieved Sept. 20, 2018, from www.capitalareafoodbank.org/feds-feed-families/
2. NIH Gives Hunger the One-Two Punch -- Feds Feed Families Update. (2018). Retrieved from www.ors.od.nih.gov/News/Pages/NIH-Gives-Hunger-the-One-Tw.... Families-Update.aspx
3. Goal 2: Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform. (n.d.). Retrieved from sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg2
4. Just the Facts About Hunger in the US & The World. (n.d.). Retrieved from whyhunger.org/just-the-facts/
5. Bullock, J. M., Dhanjal-Adams, K. L., Milne, A., Oliver, T. H., Todman, L. C., Whitmore, A. P., & Pywell, R. F. (2017). Resilience and food security: Rethinking an ecological concept. Journal of Ecology, 105(4), 880-884. doi:10.1111/1365-2745.12791
Hunger-Fighting Campaign
This photograph, taken on September 20th, 2018, depicts a sign made by the child of a National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) employee. This was taken in the NHLBI Division of Extramural Research Activities office in Bethesda, Maryland. It is advertising the Feds Feed Families Campaign, a federal-wide annual donation program to help feed American families(1). Food donations made through NHLBI support the Children’s Inn at the National Institutes of Health, the Safra Family Lodge, and the Capital Area Food Bank(2).
This photo relates to Sustainable Development Goal #2, Zero Hunger. This goal aims to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture(3). There are 6.1 million U.S. households that suffer from severe food insecurity, although the vast majority of people who suffer from hunger live in developing nations(4). This has significant societal and ecological impacts. Food insecurity is often due to poor harvesting practices, food wastage, and war, all of which negatively impact the environment and ecological systems. Additionally, without solving the issue of hunger, many of the other SDGs are difficult to achieve(3).
Although the photograph itself is related to a more human-centered SDG, there are still relevant ecological implications. Specifically, this reminded me of the ecological concept of resilience in terms of food security, described in a 2017 publication by the British Ecological Society. This is relevant to the subdiscipline of agro-ecology. Resilience in the food context can be defined as “maintaining production of sufficient and nutritious food in the face of chronic and acute environmental perturbations”(5). Ecologically-inspired approaches to increasing resilience in terms of food security include diversifying crop rotations, which help reduce soil erosion, increase soil fertility, and increase crop yield. This relates back to SDG #2 because adopting more sustainable and resilient farming methods, based in ecological principles, is critical in order to eliminate hunger.
Sources
1. Feds Feed Families. (2018). Retrieved Sept. 20, 2018, from www.capitalareafoodbank.org/feds-feed-families/
2. NIH Gives Hunger the One-Two Punch -- Feds Feed Families Update. (2018). Retrieved from www.ors.od.nih.gov/News/Pages/NIH-Gives-Hunger-the-One-Tw.... Families-Update.aspx
3. Goal 2: Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform. (n.d.). Retrieved from sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg2
4. Just the Facts About Hunger in the US & The World. (n.d.). Retrieved from whyhunger.org/just-the-facts/
5. Bullock, J. M., Dhanjal-Adams, K. L., Milne, A., Oliver, T. H., Todman, L. C., Whitmore, A. P., & Pywell, R. F. (2017). Resilience and food security: Rethinking an ecological concept. Journal of Ecology, 105(4), 880-884. doi:10.1111/1365-2745.12791