Yes, S'poreans are living longer

3 February 2008
By Keith Lin

BY HIS own estimation, 50-year-old Chua Seng Kee has always expected to live till the age of 70.
'That's if nothing goes wrong,' the security officer hastens to add.
So he was pleasantly surprised when The Straits Times told him that having made it to 50, he stands a good chance of crossing the 80-year mark.
New life expectancy data from the Department of Statistics say Mr Chua can expect to live for another 29.5 years.
'I've always wondered what it's like to be a great-grandpa,' said the father of a 13-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy with a laugh. 'Maybe I'll get the chance to find out!'
Singapore's life expectancy for men and women of older ages have also improved. For Mr Chua, that means his 75-year-old mother is looking at another dozen years.
Said Mr Chua, whose mother is supported financially by his elder brother: 'She has devoted so much time to taking care of my children, so I hope they get a chance to look after her when she grows old.'
The life expectancy of Singaporeans has changed over the decades. Babies born in 1963 could expect to live to age 63, according to the Department of Statistics. But today, the latest figures available indicate that life expectancy is 78 years for boys and 82.8 years for girls.
This compares favourably with other developed countries in Asia and beyond.
For instance, boys born in South Korea today can expect to live to age 75, and girls to around 82, while in the United States the current life expectancy is 75.2 for baby boys and 80.4 for girls.
Living longer is not all plain sailing, and that is something Mr Chua appreciates.
He earns around $1,700 a month and intends soldiering on in his current job until he is 70 if all goes well.
The slim-built man dismisses the notion that full-time work in later years is a back-breaking prospect.
'I think I can still take it, because I get to exercise almost every day at work,' said Mr Chua, who patrols the Enterprise Hub industrial park at Toh Guan Road East daily on a bicycle.
To cope with the additional living and medical expenses that will come with living longer, he is prepared to scrap dreams of seeing places like South Korea and Japan for vacations. South-east Asian destinations will do.
He welcomes the new CPF Life scheme and wants to take up a plan that will start offering payouts at age 70 so he can continue having a steady income stream even when he stops working regularly.
'As long as I continue to spend my money wisely and not splurge on unnecessary items, I'll be fine,' he said.

klin@sph.com.sg

For the Sec 3s, we just finished the topic on ageing population. Read this article and ask yourself why ageing population is a concern for the nation. How soon do you need to start planning for retirement? How much is enough for your retirement? Are you healthy enough to enjoy your retirement?

POPULATION DRY SEASONS

Karamojans wait in line during a food distribution, one of the driest and least developed areas in this east African country and also one with a lack of infrastructure and basic services. Scientists on the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned last September that the effects of global warming are already being felt in Africa. Africans are expected to face a severe lack of food and drinkable water by the end of the century.
-- PHOTO: AFP /Walter Astrada

Price "rice"

REPLENISHED: Staff at the same NTUC outlet at Toa Payoh Hub restocking shelves with rice. Rice sales continue to be brisk despite government assurances that there is an ample stockpile of the grain. -- ST PHOTOS: LIM SIN THAI, BRYAN VAN DER BEEK

Is your mother one of those who stock up rice? There is a mad rush to buy rice in view that there will be a shortage. However, the Singapore government assured that there will be enough rice for Singaporeans.

THAI SUPPLIES SECURE Singapore is a small importer and buys mainly higher grades of Thai rice not subject to export curbs. 'As long as we can pay the market price, we will be able to get supplies,' said Mr Iswaran.

Food is about affordability. Therefore there is variation in food consumption because of different purchasing power of countries.

A potent mix of growing populations and economies; a switch from food to biofuel crops; droughts and diseases; and a lack of new technology in crop yields, have hit the poor hardest.


BASIC NEED: The Philippines, the world's biggest buyer of rice, has been hardest hit in Asia, by its rocketing price. -- AFP


FACTORS CAUSING PRICE SPIKES
EXPERTS pinpoint a host of reasons for the food crisis, besides speculation and hoarding:

BOOM IN DEMAND
Rising affluence in India and China has increased demand.
'China's population is proportionately much larger than the countries that industrialised in earlier periods and is almost double that of the current G-7 nations combined,' the Australian central bank said last year.
The Chinese, whose rise began in earnest in 2001, ate just 20kg of meat per capita in 1985. They now eat 50kg a year. Each kilogram of beef takes about 7kg of grain to produce, which means land that could be used to grow food for humans is being diverted to growing animal feed.

BIOFUEL TROUBLE
As the West seeks to tackle the risk of global warming, a race towards greener fuels is compounding the world's food woes. The US has a mandate to produce nine billion gallons of ethanol, made from corn, this year and 10 billion gallons in 2009.
'Turning food into fuel for cars is a major mistake on many fronts,' said Ms Janet Larsen, director of research at the Earth Policy Institute. It has led to higher food prices in the US and in developing countries 'where it's escalated as far as people rioting in the streets', she said.
Similarly, palm oil is at record prices because of demand to use it for biofuel, hurting low-income families in Indonesia and Malaysia, where it is a staple.

UNFAVOURABLE WEATHER
Erratic weather, perhaps due to climate change in grain-producing countries has played havoc with crops.
A severe 10-year drought in major wheat exporter Australia lit a fire under the wheat market.
Harvests have been affected by drought and heatwaves in South Asia, Europe, China, Sudan, Mozambique and Uruguay, the UN's World Food Programme said in November last year.

RISING OIL PRICES
Record oil prices have boosted the cost of fertiliser and freight for bulk commodities. Stung by the high transportation costs, food makers have passed some of the high crop prices to consumers.
The oil price spike has also turned up the pressure for countries to switch to biofuels, which the FAO says will drive up the cost of corn, sugar and soya beans.

CURB ON EXPORTS
A number of governments, including Egypt, Argentina, Kazakhstan, Vietnam, Thailand, India and China, have imposed restrictions to limit grain exports and keep more of their food at home and guarantee domestic supply.
The Vietnam Food Association has asked its members to stop signing new rice export contracts. Malaysia plans to import rice from other South-east Asian nations to build reserves.
The Philippines is buying the grain from an emergency regional stockpile and taking additional supplies from the US.

NOT ENOUGH INVESTMENT
The farm sector has failed to invest enough in production over the past five years. With the US credit squeeze getting worse by the day, securing borrowings has become harder for farmers in the world's biggest grain exporter.
Also, grain elevators - companies that buy from farmers and remarket to processors - are seeing losses because they have committed to provide grains to processors at much lower prices.

DISEASED CROPS
Vietnam's farm sector faces the prospect of a return of the deadly crop disease which affected its crop yield badly last year. A viral disease called tungro and infestations of the brown plant-hopper insect in its fields have also led to global supplies being drained.
Scientists are also worried about the spread of a wheat-killing fungus, known as Ug99, from Africa to Pakistan and India.
The spread of the deadly virus, against which an effective fungicide does not exist, threatens the vital Asian Bread Basket, including the Punjab region.

Sec 3 SS SEQ on "Population"

Dear 3EA and 3EB,

This is the SS question you need to do.

To what extent is having family support effective in coping with an ageing population in Singapore? Explain your answer. [12]

L1 Writes on the ageing population without focus. (1-2m)
L2 Describes family support without linking to ageing population. (2-3m)
L3 Explains having family support will be effective in coping with an ageing population in Singapore. (4-6m)
L4 Explains the given factor AND two other factors.
Award 7m for explaining the given factor and another factor. 8m for an additional factor and additional mark for further details up to a max of 10m. (7-10m)
L5 Arrives at a balanced conclusion/ Explicit consideration of “to what extent” the factors ensure are effective in coping with an ageing population. (11-12m)

My Environsax bag

Hey, I'm so happy that I finally found my ideal environmental bag and it's so cheap, only $10. You can get it from a local online shop too. I was searching for a long while for a bag of this design. The story goes that one day I was out shopping with my friend and we went to the supermarket to buy some stuff. After we bought our stuff, she suddenly fished out an environmental bag from her tiny handbag to put all her items in. She said "no" to plastic bag. I was very inspired by her and decided to get one myself but I searched for a long while and couldn't find the design I want. I want it to be a sling bag and not a hand-carry version. The bag is equivalent to the size of two supermarket plastic bags.

The bag can be folded into a small pouch. When you need to use it, just open up. It's so cool to be environmental. No more plastic bag!

Urgent appeal by UN food agency for funds

March 25, 2008

WFP says rations will be cut unless donor nations give $700m by end of April
LONDON - THE UN agency charged with relieving world hunger has launched an 'extraordinary emergency appeal' for at least US$500 million (S$700 million), it was reported yesterday.

A letter sent to donor countries by the World Food Programme (WFP) at the weekend said the money was required by the end of April, otherwise it would have to reduce food rations because of rapidly increasing commodity prices, the Financial Times (FT) reported.
'We urge your government to be as generous as possible in helping us to close this gap - which stood at US$500 million on Feb 25 and has been growing daily,' WFP executive director Josette Sheeran wrote in the letter obtained by the FT.
She added that if sufficient money was not received by May 1, the WFP may have to cut 'the rations for those who rely on the world to stand by them during times of abject need'.
The letter also quoted UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, who said: 'This is the new face of hunger, increasingly affecting communities that had previously been protected.'

Food prices have been spiralling higher globally because of rising population, strong demand from developing countries, the use of certain foods in biofuels to combat climate change and the increasing frequency of floods and droughts as a result of climate change.

The FT, citing unnamed officials, said the WFP's funding gap was now between US$600 million and US$700 million.
The WFP provided nearly 88 million people in 78 countries with food aid in 2006.

Echoing the concerns of the UN experts, the head of Nestle, the world's biggest food and beverage company, warned in Zurich on Sunday that the growing use of crops such as wheat and corn to make biofuels is putting world food supplies in peril.

'If, as predicted, we look to use biofuels to satisfy 20 per cent of the growing demand for oil products, there will be nothing left to eat,' chairman and chief executive Peter Brabeck-Letmathe said.

While the competition is driving up the price of maize, soya and wheat, land for cultivation is becoming rare and water sources are also under threat, he said.

UN food expert Jean Ziegler had made an appeal at the UN General Assembly that a five-year moratorium be imposed on all initiatives to develop biofuels in order to avert what he said might be 'horrible' food shortages.

But diplomats from countries pursuing such fuels, such as Brazil and Colombia, disputed his forecast.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

This article shows you another example of international cooperation. Remember we learn about strategies to alleviate uneven development in the world? World Food Programme (WFP) is an international organisation under United Nations, focusing on fighting hunger in the world. With rising food prices due to the many factors mentioned above, WFP is appealing for more funds especially from the DCs to help support the LDCs. With rising fuel prices, many LDCs also tend to use plant crops as fuel which are also food for the people. This is another reason why there is increasing shortage of food. As you study more and more, you'll realise that the topics on development and food are deep and complex and therefore very interesting.

Earthlings

In response to 4N2's request, I'm putting a link to the documentary called "Earthlings".
Today we were talking of the changing preference of food in DCs and LDCs during ASLP, and I don't know how we went into the topic on vegetarian diet. I told the class about this documentary and they were very interested, so here is the synopsis:
"Earthlings is a documentary about factory farming and mankind's dependence on animals for food, clothing, entertainment and use in experimentation.
With an in-depth study into pet stores, puppy mills and animal shelters, as well as factory farms, the leather and fur trades, sports and entertainment industries, and finally the medical and scientific profession, Earthlings uses hidden cameras and footage to chronicle the day-to-day practices of some of the largest industries in the world which rely on animals for profit."

For pupils who cannot take violence, watch this with caution because some of the images can be disturbing.

For those who want to find out why eating meat is a threat to the environment, you can read more from here.