Food Power facts for kids

Food power is when a country uses its food or farm products to influence other countries. It's a bit like how countries that produce a lot of oil can work together to control oil prices. Countries usually want what's best for their people, and people always need food!

Food power is part of something called food politics. Sometimes, countries might stop selling food to another country, which is called an embargo, to put pressure on them. For a country to use food power well, it needs a few things:

• Scarcity: This means there isn't much of a certain food available, making it valuable.
• Supply concentration: Only a few countries have a lot of that food to sell.
• Demand dispersion: Many different countries need to buy that food.
• Action independence: The country selling the food doesn't depend too much on the country buying it.

The main countries that export enough farm products to use food power are the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The U.S. has sometimes used food power to influence other nations. Some countries in Africa have also used food power in smaller conflicts within their own borders.

Images for kids

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  Harvesting corn in Iowa, United States.

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  Food imports in 2005.

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  Fidel Castro at a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.

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  Barley is a major animal feed crop.

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  Satellite image of Sudan.

See also

In Spanish: Poder de los alimentos para niños