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A new report from Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy states that artificially cheap food on the world market makes hungry people hungrier. The report, entitled “Going Local on a Global Scale: Rethinking Food Trade in the Era of Climate Change, Dumping, and Rural Poverty,” makes the point that 50 percent of the world’s poor and hungry are actually farmers, and argues that addressing global hunger means building small-scale farmers' access to their own local markets. “It’s ironic,” said Kirsten Schwind, Policy Director at Food First and author of the report. “You would think cheap imported food would help alleviate hunger. But often it doesn’t. It devastates the livelihoods of local farmers, who then face the choice of migrating to cities to work in sweatshops.” This migration actually drives down wages in urban areas and adds to the number of poor people in cities who cannot afford even cheap food. The phenomenon of selling artificially cheap food overseas is called “dumping,” and it’s only one of the fatal flaws in our current global food trading system, according to Schwind. Other flaws include a reliance on fossil fuel transport, which feeds global climate change; a consolidation in food processing and reselling that drives smaller, local firms out of business and sucks money out of local economies; and a set of trade rules that are rigidly enforced against weaker and poorer countries but followed selectively by more powerful countries. The report goes on to highlight a growing alternative to these ills: local food. Food grown and consumed locally builds local economies. It lets small-scale farmers stay on the land and out of the vast urban slums. It helps poor people keep control of their food supply—so they can afford to eat. It reduces the emissions that drive climate change. “The local food movement unites a huge variety of people,” said Schwind. “They are developing better alternatives to trade rules that hurt family farmers and our food supply. Together they have huge potential to transform our food system into something healthy, ecologically friendly, and economically viable for everyone.” Read “Going Local on a Global Scale” at http://www.foodfirst.org/files/pdf/backgrounders/goinglocal. Download the PDF at http://www.foodfirst.org/files/pdf/backgrounders/goinglocal.pdf ###
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