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It is a bone-chilling sight: children, wandering the dirty aisle of the market, with no purpose or direction. Dressed in rags, barefoot, and hungry, they have nowhere to turn to. Most likely orphaned at an early age, because of AIDS, malnutrition, or war. The future for such a child looks bleak, because without support, an early end to a young life is the only escape from reality.

In the Third World, such is the case. People are faced with extreme poverty, because there are almost no jobs, a near complete lack of public services, and lastly, because of a weak and corrupted central government.

The consequences of this situation are staggering. Millions of people are homeless, disease is rampant, and starvation is a common occurrence. People die from preventable diseases that here in the West, don't think they would be fatal. Examples include malaria, or diarrhea. Lack of food is a primary cause, as it leads to malnutrition, vitamin deficiency, and ultimately, a painful death.

Even more important is water. Just as oil was the most important commodity in the twentieth century, water will take its place in the twenty-first. With increased pollution of sources of fresh water, global warming, and the growing demand for fresh water by a constantly swelling world population, competition for this valuable resource will be fierce.

As is the case, access to clean drinking water is rare and precious. The human body needs water to function properly, but in many places in the Third World, to fulfill that need is an impossible task. In Africa, particularly, the increasing size of the Sahara desert makes rainfall less frequent. As a result, farming becomes increasingly difficult, and the yield is not plentiful, nor nutritious. The issue of overcrowding is also important, because there are many people concentrated in a small area, and the lack of resources leads to high rates of disease and mortality.

There is, however, a solution to extreme poverty, and generally, all poverty in the Third World. Presently, food is supplied via relief agencies and the United Nations, by shipping surplus produce from the First World to needy countries. It is precisely that difference in productivity, which is a contributing factor to the plight of those people.

In economic terms, it means that on a unit of land in the First World, the yield is of higher quality and quantity than the same plot of land in the Third World would be. On the world agricultural market, the most efficiently produced goods

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