Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

livingontheland - [Livingontheland] The Food Crisis is Not About a Shortage of Food

livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] The Food Crisis is Not About a Shortage of Food
  • Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2010 23:01:24 -0600


The Food Crisis is Not About a Shortage of Food
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/09/17-1
by Jim Goodman Friday, September 17, 2010 by CommonDreams.org

The food crisis of 2008 never really ended, it was ignored and forgotten. The
rich and powerful are well fed; they had no food crisis, no shortage, so in
the West, it was little more than a short lived sound bite, tragic but
forgettable. To the poor in the developing world, whose ability to afford
food is no better now than in 2008, the hunger continues.

Hunger can have many contributing factors; natural disaster, discrimination,
war, poor infrastructure. So why, regardless of the situation, is high tech
agriculture always assumed to be the only the solution? This premise is put
forward and supported by those who would benefit financially if their
“solution” were implemented. Corporations peddle their high technology
genetically engineered seed and chemical packages, their genetically altered
animals, always with the “promise” of feeding the world.

Politicians and philanthropists, who may mean well, jump on the high
technology band wagon. Could the promise of financial support or investment
return fuel their apparent compassion?

The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) an initiative of the
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation supposedly
works to achieve a food secure and prosperous Africa. While these sentiments
and goals may be philanthropy at its best, some of the coalition partners
have a different agenda.

One of the key players in AGRA, Monsanto, hopes to spread its genetically
engineered seed throughout Africa by promising better yields, drought
resistance, an end to hunger, etc. etc. Could a New Green Revolution succeed
where the original Green Revolution had failed? Or was the whole concept of a
Green Revolution a pig in a poke to begin with?

Monsanto giving free seed to poor small holder farmers sounds great, or are
they just setting the hook? Remember, next year those farmers will have to
buy their seed. Interesting to note that the Gates Foundation purchased $23.1
million worth of Monsanto stock in the second quarter of 2010. Do they also
see the food crisis in Africa as a potential to turn a nice profit? Every
corporation has one overriding interest--- self-interest, but surely not
charitable foundations?

Food shortages are seldom about a lack of food, there is plenty of food in
the world, the shortages occur because of the inability to get food where it
is needed and the inability of the hungry to afford it. These two problems
are principally caused by, as Francis Moore Lappe' put it, a lack of justice.
There are also ethical considerations, a higher value should be placed on
people than on corporate profit, this must be at the forefront, not an
afterthought.

In 2008, there were shortages of food, in some places, for some people. There
was never a shortage of food in 2008 on a global basis, nor is there
currently. True, some countries, in Africa for example, do not have enough
food where it is needed, yet people with money have their fill no matter
where they live. Poverty and inequality cause hunger.

The current food riots in Mozambique were a result of increased wheat prices
on the world market. The UN Food and Agriculture organization, (FAO)
estimates the world is on course to the third largest wheat harvest in
history, so increasing wheat prices were not caused by actual shortages, but
rather by speculation on the price of wheat in the international market.

While millions of people go hungry in India, thousands of kilos of grain rot
in storage. Unable to afford the grain, the hungry depend on the government
to distribute food. Apparently that's not going so well.

Not everyone living in a poor country goes hungry, those with money eat. Not
everyone living in rich country is well fed, those without money go hungry.
We in the US are said to have the safest and most abundant food supply in the
world, yet even here, surrounded by an over abundance of food, there are
plenty of hungry people and their numbers are growing. Do we too have a food
crisis, concurrent with an obesity crisis?

Why is there widespread hunger? Is food a right? Is profit taking through
speculation that drives food prices out of the reach of the poor a right? Is
pushing high technology agriculture on an entire continent at that could feed
itself a (corporate) right?

In developing countries, those with hunger and poor food distribution, the
small farmers, most of whom are women, have little say in agricultural
policy. The framework of international trade and the rules imposed by the
International Monetary Fund and World Bank on developing countries, places
emphasis on crops for export, not crops for feeding a hungry population.

Despite what we hope are the best intentions of the Gates Foundation, a New
Green Revolution based on genetically engineered crops, imported fertilizer
and government imposed agricultural policy will not feed the world. Women,
not Monsanto, feed most of the worlds population, and the greatest portion of
the worlds diet still relies on crops and farming systems developed and
cultivated by the indigenous for centuries, systems that still work, systems
that offer real promise.

The report of 400 experts from around the world, The International Assessment
of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), is ignored
by the proponents of a New Green Revolution, precisely because it shows that
the best hope for ending hunger lies with local, traditional, farmer
controlled agricultural production, not high tech industrial agriculture.

To feed the world, fair methods of land distribution must be considered. A
fair and just food system depends on small holder farmers having access to
land. The function of a just farming system is to insure that everyone gets
to eat, industrial agriculture functions to insure those corporations
controlling the system make a profit.

The ultimate cause of hunger is not a lack of Western agricultural
technology, rather hunger results when people are not allowed to participate
in a food system of their choosing. Civil wars, structural adjustment
policies, inadequate distribution systems, international commodity
speculation and corporate control of food from seed to table--- these are the
causes of hunger, the stimulus for food crises.

If the Gates Foundation is serious about ending hunger in Africa, they need
to read the IAASTD report, not Monsanto's quarterly profit report. Then they
can decide how their money might best be spent.

Jim Goodman is a dairy farmer and activist from Wonewoc, WI and a WK Kellogg
Food and Society Policy Fellow.





  • [Livingontheland] The Food Crisis is Not About a Shortage of Food, Tradingpost, 09/18/2010

Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page