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Food Policies Leave People Hungry
Last week the U.N. convened world leaders in Rome to hammer out solutions to the food crisis.
Once again policy leaders are forgetting that food is about people. Over the past few months, 30 countries have been wracked by food riots. The government of Haiti has been toppled. Rice reserves in the Philippines are now under armed guard.
And U.S. corporate agribusinesses have a starring role in this disaster. Farmers in poor countries have gone broke by the millions because they can't compete with the artificially low prices of U.S. food imports.
Take Mexico, for example. Under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the U.S. demanded that Mexico open up its markets to cheap U.S. corn. Since NAFTA took effect, U.S. corn exports to Mexico have tripled, flooding the Mexican market and causing domestic corn prices to drop by more than 70 percent. As a result, most of the country's 15 million corn farmers have gone from being poor -- but getting by -- to watching their children go hungry. Mexican President Felipe Calderon explains the food crisis in his country as a direct outcome of U.S. food policy.
The same story is repeated in nearly every country where the food crisis is raging. Millions of rural families from Colombia to Cameroon have been forced to go from growing their own food to buying imported staple items, putting them at the mercy of global markets. In the past year, the cost of basics like corn, rice and wheat has doubled and tripled. Farming families whose livelihoods were destroyed by U.S. agribusiness can no longer afford to buy food from these same companies.
That injustice -- not any absolute "food shortage" -- is at the heart of today's crisis.
Meanwhile, U.S. agribusiness is making a killing. Last month Cargill announced that its third-quarter profits were up 86 percent. They've already raked in over $1 billion this year, in about the same amount of time that another 100 million people were pushed into extreme poverty (surviving on less than $1 a day) because of rising food costs.
Clearly, our global food system is broken. So what would fix it?
It seems that small-holder, sustainable agriculture -- precisely the type of farming that's been devastated by agribusiness -- has the best potential to resolve the global food crisis. That, in a nutshell, is the conclusion of a four-year United Nations study by 400 experts on agriculture and development released in April.
But if local, sustainable agriculture is the way to go, there's another, overlooked dimension to solving the food crisis: The majority of the world's small-scale farmers are women. In the poorest countries, where the food crisis is at its worst, women grow and produce 80 percent of all food.
That means that policies aiming to resolve the food crisis need to also weed out the widespread discrimination that bars women farmers from owning land and from accessing credit, seeds, tools and training. Agricultural subsidies were originally conceived to protect small-scale farmers from poverty. We still need to do that -- and on a global scale. Today, subsidies can play a positive role in building the capacity of women farmers to grow food sustainably.
It's high time to put the human rights and productive capacity of small farmers at the center of agriculture policy. The Rome summit presented us with an opportunity to rethink food policy. Unfortunately the outcome continues the same misguided polices of free trade instead of investing in local food production. It's time to realize that the world's small farmers and especially women -- are our best hope for feeding people and protecting the planet.
Yifat Susskind is communications director for MADRE: Rights, Resources and Results for Women Worldwide.
Copyright © 2008 by the American Forum. 6/08
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Show AllCorporate/government food policies have always left people hungry, and it's way past time to "put the human rights and productive capacity of small farmers at the center of agricultural policy." So long as it's poor people in third world countries who are doing the starving, nothing will be done about it.
Needed change will not happen, unfortunately, until people who are used to not worrying about where their next meal is coming from find they suddenly do have to worry.
Raj Patel or Mark Winne, can't remember now, tell a different story about NAFTA. They mention that it was the Mexican Government that wanted agricultural liberalisation of markets against the wishes of the US Government.
Now I don't know what to believe...
Except that as the old song goes,
It's the rich wots get the pleasure
and the poor wots gets the blame
Raj Patel or Mark Winne, can't remember now, tell a different story about NAFTA. They mention that it was the Mexican Government that wanted agricultural liberalisation of markets against the wishes of the US Government.
Now I don't know what to believe...
Except that as the old song goes,
It's the rich wots get the pleasure
and the poor wots gets the blame
Yawn.
So it turns out local subsistence farms really are the key to solving world hunger. I've been saying that for years. What else is new?
Organic farming saves the planet.
It is the poor who pay for everything, and lest we forget, the working class who creates all wealth.
"U.S. agribusiness is making a killing."
How true. This is a premediated killing, paid for with money borrowed in the name of American taxpayers. Our corporate government is using us as a 'throwaway' society just as Robert Mugabe and his gang have done in Zimbabwe. There will be just the filthy rich chosen few and everyone else will be nothing but road kill on the Hypocrite's Highway to Hegemony. And so it goes, not with a bang but with a whimper...
Yes, it is disgusting that agribusiness has cheated women out of being peasants and toiling away out in the fields the way they used to back in the good old days of farming. It was such a rewarding and fun life, just ask anyone 75 years old about all of the great advantages of small sustainable ( or unsustainable) agriculture. It was so rewarding that all of our society should go back to that lifestyle without any modern conveniences to worry about and no distractions such as TV, computers, fancy autos, and all this capitalistic engineered junk.
Kernel
Not sure if I understand you correctly but you appear to confuse sustainable, or modern day organic farming with age old traditional farming.
They are chalk and cheese.
Sustainable agriculture is the opposite of the harmful and economically unsustainable farming methods that are practiced on the majority of US farms. If US agriculture were economically sustainable it would not need to be subsidised, and would be good for both human health and the environment.
For more information: "The lost export trade as a result of GM crops was thus said to have caused a fall in crop prices and a need for increased government subsidies, estimated at an extra US$3-5 billion annually." See - GM CROPS ARE "ECONOMIC DISASTER", NEW REPORT SAYS http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/service32.htm
Converting from age old traditional methods to sustainable organic methods are increasing yields between 100% and 300% in the developing world.
By putting the productive capacity of small farmers at the center of agriculture policy, we would all starve. They don't grow enough food to sustain us. If it weren't for agribusiness, our food prices would be as expensive as our local co-ops. There's a reason families don't shop there, only single yuppies with idealistic dreams do, because they can't afford to.
agribusiness foods are cheaper because we don't pay all the hidden costs -- big 'farmers' (they are actually more like miners than farmers) get big subsidies, they have crop protection programs in the event of crop failure, they get huge no-interest loans for monstrous equipment, etc. etc. . . all of this government help is pretty much not available to the small farmer, who is struggling with higher land taxes because often his property is desirable subdivision property, can't afford or won't use the migrant help available to the big boys, etc. etc.
there are also major environmental costs involved in big ag, particularly fertilizer/herbicide/pesticide issues as well as more land degradation and long-distance transportation issues. . . these costs are not always factored into the end product . . . i sell at our local farmers market and i can assure you that most of our customers are not 'single yuppies with idealistic dreams', they are a complete cross section of our local population and they are at our market because they want fresh, locally grown produce which has not been herbicided and insecticided and trucked for thousands of miles and which does not cost much more than the supermarket offerings and yes, also because they believe in our local agricultural efforts and want to support us. . .
KERNEL: Er, just which of the folks freed from a life of unremitting toil by Cargill and friends is now enjoying "TV, computers, fancy autos, and all this capitalistic engineered junk?" Seems like that would be tough to do on $1 (or less) a day. On the other hand, if you know someone who managed it, there are several billion people about who'd like to talk to them.
There are romantics about small farming who think we should all return to the land. But the question now isn't one of should. Unless you know about an endless supply of oil or some other fuel, we don't have much choice in the matter. Petro-farming is a dinosaur just waiting to be supplanted by those furry little mammals.
ANNIEYOUNGMN: Thai and Balinese rice farmers work plots of 3-5 acres in largely traditional ways. Thai rice feeds much of the rest of SE Asia; Balinese rice feeds a fair amount of Indonesia. (KERNEL: The farmers in both these places have more time without hard physical toil, as did most peasants historically, than EU workers. Planting and harvest demand hard work for long hours, but otherwise these folks are better of than an office drone or assembly line worker.)
Best rice I've ever eaten was in Barrio, Sarawak, Malaysia. Each farmer's padi is about 3 acres and are worked by humans and water buffalo, who kindly renew the soil with their droppings. The experts came in with fertilizer so the farmers could increase their yield. Oops! The plants grew twice their normal size, the yield was down a bit, but no one wanted to eat the rice. Don't think we'll pay something for less. The experts' second try was double cropping: got less from two than had from one with the old ways. The farmers continue to grow their rice in the traditional way, manage to feed the people of their valley and export some. And taste matters. Last summer, in Kuala Lumpur, a kg of Thai premium rice cost $1.30, of Malaysian rice about $.90, of Barrio rice $2.30.
Amazing what folks can do with a little grit and determination. Check out the dry river farmers in the eastern (pretty safe) part of Pakistan's Northern Territories. Those folks make their soil by pounding rocks to dust, then feed themselves and export a bit of fruit.
Small farmers, despised peasants, fed the world by themselves from the agricultural revolution until about WWII. No doubt they could again if they weren't being crushed by bidnessmen growing subsidized crops using environment killing petrochemical fertilizers pesticides herbicides and insecticides on mortgaged land with quickly written off machines run by artificially cheap fuel and a little help from a passle of political enforcement goons.
annieyoungmn
You are wrong about small scale farmers.
SOME FACTS:
A 1,000 acre U.S. corporate farm growing genetically engineered crops nets an average of $39 an acre.
In contrast, a four-acre family farm nets, on average, $1,400 per acre.
Small organic farms are proving to be even more profitable.
With oil prices on the rise, growing food without petroleum-based pesticides/fertilizers, and delivering that food to local markets will quickly prove to be the most affordable food available.
Read full article:
http://anniegreenjeans.com/small-farms-are-more-productive-and-profitable/
Myth 1
Not Enough Food to Go Around
Reality: Abundance, not scarcity, best describes the world's food supply. Enough wheat, rice and other grains are produced to provide every human being with 3,500 calories a day. That doesn't even count many other commonly eaten foods - vegetables, beans, nuts, root crops, fruits, grass-fed meats, and fish. Enough food is available to provide at least 4.3 pounds of food per person a day worldwide: two and half pounds of grain, beans and nuts, about a pound of fruits and vegetables, and nearly another pound of meat, milk and eggs-enough to make most people fat! The problem is that many people are too poor to buy readily available food. Even most "hungry countries" have enough food for all their people right now. Many are net exporters of food and other agricultural products.
Myth 2
Nature's to Blame for Famine
Reality: It's too easy to blame nature. Human-made forces are making people increasingly vulnerable to nature's vagaries. Food is always available for those who can afford it—starvation during hard times hits only the poorest. Millions live on the brink of disaster in south Asia, Africa and elsewhere, because they are deprived of land by a powerful few, trapped in the unremitting grip of debt, or miserably paid. Natural events rarely explain deaths; they are simply the final push over the brink. Human institutions and policies determine who eats and who starves during hard times. Likewise, in America many homeless die from the cold every winter, yet ultimate responsibility doesn't lie with the weather. The real culprits are an economy that fails to offer everyone opportunities, and a society that places economic efficiency over compassion.
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