The location for the development that I read up on was in the Philippines. I found the article on El Nino’s affect on the Philippines off of the website- http://www.irinnews.org/news/2016/02/19/el-nino-hits-philippines-farmers-drought-rats.
In the past couple of years El Nino has affected the Philippine’s climate greatly. El Nino is a weather phenomenon in which the climate and temperature patterns are greatly changed over a period of time. This natural phenomenon has brought immense drought and rat infestation to the Philippine’s, destroying income, crops and income. The goal of this development is to bring back food, water and healthy eating back to this country that needs it desperately. This relates to the module because of two things. One being how countries have different regions with different growing conditions for crops and also because of the Philippine’s end uses. The Philippine’s is made up of different islands with different growing capabilities. Also the end uses here are not as they should be. Due to their current lack of agriculture, their end uses do not include proper income, nutrition and tasty meals.
My second case study comes from the World Food Programme at https://www.wfp.org/news/news-release/el-nino-drought-blamed-severe-food-insecurity-doubles-6-months-haiti . This developmental case study is also about the affects of El Nino but this time in Haiti. Come this spring season of 2016 if the harvest does not produce more crops than they have the past three years, El Nino will have caused a fourth consecutive low harvest due to the droughts it has been causing worldwide. These droughts resulting in low harvest have affected the nation drastically. The farmers who normally depend on their harvest to provide for their family can no longer do so and it has resulted in high malnutrition nation wide. This relates to module 5 because f the discussion around Human impact on Haiti. It differs though because this article more speaks to the fact that instead of humans having a huge impact it is also climate change.
When I am not here at PSU, I live in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Unfortunately and fortunately where I am from there is a plethora of water to our use and disposal at any time. It is very easy to get or use water and also somewhat cheap. This differs greatly from the Philippine’s and Haiti. Another way we differ from Haiti and the Philippine’s is that we are not experiencing a drought and we generally have fertile soil for growing crops. Although our soil is more of a clay/rock mixture it is still capable of growing crops and many families do just that. The last way that Doylestown would differ from either of the locations I read about would be because it is not prone to natural disasters in any way and the climate is fairly stable year to year.
Hi Ben. I wrote my post about the issue of plastic bags and how we can reduce them. There were different strategies used in countries like Ireland, India, and US. Here’s a link http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/02/26/ban-the-bag/ . I never heard of El Nino, so I wonder if I’m not the only one. I knew Haiti lacked proper agriculture and money, but I didn’t realize it was because of this phenomenon! It makes me wonder whether there is anything their government and others can do to help rebuild their agriculture while there is still a drought. I also wonder what the Philippines could do differently in order to try to rebuild themselves and overcome this disaster. I live in NE Philly, which is not too far from Doylestown. I agree that we are somewhat lucky to live in an area where we aren’t prone to natural disasters and we don’t have to worry about how these could affect our crops or money. Interesting post!