Fight world hunger, buy food locally

I am a seventh-grader at North Central Junior High and I'm learning about world hunger. Thousands of people die every day from hunger-related causes. Most are children. About 1 billion people are chronically hungry and 54 nations don't produce enough food to feed their people.

Four percent of Earth has land that we can grow crops on. The state of Iowa has 10 percent of the good farmland. We need to stop destroying the land to build houses, supermarkets, roads, malls and parking lots. Iowa loses 26,000 acres of farmland every year. Development is the only thing that we can control from taking away farmland. Eighty-eight percent of growth in Iowa happens outside of city limits.

Also, food isn't evenly distributed around the world. The amount of calories we need every day to be healthy is 2,400. Americans eat 3,300 calories a day, and people who are chronically hungry get 1,500 a day. This leads to food waste. Iowa wastes one-third of the food it gets. Imagine how much food the United States wastes.

Buying food locally makes the food more fresh and natural. Farmers use less chemicals. You can start a connection with a farmer and learn where your food is coming from.

Less fuel is used to get those foods to you, which leads to less pollution, less climate change and more energy security. There also is less packaging involved, and it's better for the economy.

Madelynn Andersen

North Liberty