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Fall 2014
Resource Economics 121
Hunger in a Global Economy

Preparing Your Case 1
Post your Work in Posting Area on Moodle by 7 p.m. on Tuesday, 9/16
No late work will be accepted.

Bring a copy of your posting to class on Wednesday, 9/17 for Group Day 1.
Bring a laptop (if you have one) to capture group work on Group Day 1.

General Guidance on Preparing Your Case:
You must include full citations to any sources used (e.g., websites, including those provided in
this preparation sheet). Cite sources within the text [e.g., Food safety has been improving within
the United States (Caswell 2013).] and then provide a reference list at the end of your posting
using any standard referencing format.
You will be posting your work to Moodle as a Word or pdf file.

Case 1:

1. Write a paragraph introducing you.

Information and Data Sources Notes:
Your Luck of the Draw is determined by your ribbon color on your syllabus.
For your data source use: 2014 World Population Data Sheet.
It is available on Moodle.
o If your country group is Asia Except China & India, report the population
number given in the Luck of the Draw Table 2014 posted on our Moodle in the
top section in the middle, and use the life expectancy, GNI PPP per capita (US$),
and percent the population urban for Asia from the 2014 World Population Data
Sheet.

Your paragraph should introduce you by:
a. Telling your country group or country (from the Luck of the Draw).
b. Presenting key demographic data for your country group as a whole or country (in case of
China or India):
i. Total population.
ii. Life expectancy at birth (years) for both sexes, males, and females.
iii. GNI PPP (gross national income in purchasing power parity) per capita (US$).
(Review the definition of GNI PPP shown on the World Population Data Sheet
and be sure you understand it.)
iv. Percent of the Population Urban.



2. Build a Diet on a Limited Budget.

Information and Data Sources Notes:
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Many of the billion or so people in the world at the bottom of the economic ladder live on
less than $1.25 per day (about $450 a year) and spend about 80% (about $360) of their
meager incomes on food.
To build your diet, assume that you are a poor person with $360 to spend on food per
year.
Your diet must include these foods each day. (These are your dietary requirements.)
o 1 pound grain (wheat, millet, or rice) (approx. 2 cups dry=4 cups cooked)
o 1/3 pound lentils (protein source) (approx. cup cooked)
o 3 cents worth of salt per day
o 2 cent worth of spices per day
You can spend the rest of your food budget on other items as desired within the budget
limit of $360.
In your local market the food prices are:



















Build, present, and discuss your diet:
a) Build a diet for a year for yourself knowing that you can spend $360, have the dietary
requirements shown above, and face the prices listed above. Present you diet showing:
i. The amount in pounds (or other unit of measure) of each food product you intend
to consume for the year.
ii. How much money you will spend on each food product during the year.
iii. The total cost of your diet for the year (this should be very close to $360).
b) In a paragraph or two, describe the reasoning you used to put together your diet. For
example, what strategy did you use to insure that you consumed a sufficient amount of
grain and the other dietary requirements of lentils, salt, and spices? How and why did you
choose to allocate to other foods the money, if any, you had left over after meeting the
daily requirements?
c) When you complete your diet, please analyze it in a paragraph indicating how:
i. Nutritionally adequate the diet would be. (I recommended that you consult a
website such as http://www.ChooseMyPlate.gov to help you evaluate your diet
nutritionally. If you set up a profile, you can choose track food & activity
and then choose My Combo to enter and analyze your average day's
diet.)
ii. How satisfied you would be with a diet of the type you are able to buy on this
budget.
Commodity Price per Pound
Wheat (unground) $0.50
Millet (unground) $0.35
Rice $0.60
Lentils $0.75
Potatoes $0.70
Vegetables $0.75
Fruit $1.00
Milk (1 lb=1 pint) $0.50
Meat $3.00
Sugar $0.45
Price per Day
Salt $0.03
Spices $0.02
Price per Cup
Tea (with milk and sugar) $0.25
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Now, decide how you would adjust your diet if the price of three grain staple products rises significantly,
as happened for many poor people in 2010-2011. Say the prices per pound of these grains will increase by
15% to the prices shown below:
Wheat (unground) $0.58
Millett $0.41
Rice $0.70
i. How would you change your diet if food prices moved in this direction? Indicate
what you would consume more of, what you would consume less of, and by how
much (lbs. or other unit of measure and dollars per year).
ii. Why would you change your diet in the direction you indicate? What would you
expect the impact of these changes to be on your overall nutritional status?