Food Insecurity | English Lesson

Check out this headline, which was published by the United Nations on their UN News page on June 06, 2022.

Let’s break this headline down to see what it means, and see which vocabulary can be useful for you to use.

The first word is ‘overlapping’. That is from the verb ‘overlap’, which means extending over and covering partly. So, in this case, there is more than one crisis that is having an impact. It is one crisis on top of another.

The second word I want you to pay attention to is ‘crises’. That is the plural of ‘crisis’. Listen to the pronunciation. One crisis, two or more ‘crises’. Crisis / Crises.

The third word is ‘acute’. That means ‘to a severe of intense degree’. Acute food insecurity? That’s severe food insecurity. Acute.

The article describes how local conflicts, climate change –– and now the impact on food prices and supply as a result of the war in Ukraine –– are combining with one another to create a situation of food insecurity in 20 ‘hunger hotspots’, including countries in Central and Sub-Saharan Africa, Haiti and Afghanistan, among other places.

Okay, economists, in summary, ‘overlapping’ means to extend over and cover partly. ‘Crises’ is the plural of ‘crisis’ and ‘acute’ means extreme, or intense.

That’s all for this lesson.

Here is a link to the UN News article on Food Insecurity and a link to the United Nations audio news broadcast. That’s very good listening practice for English students like you.

That’s all for now. Please give this lesson a ‘like’. I would appreciate that very much.

I am Alan Robert. Goodbye for now.