Time for A Radical ReStructuring of the Global Food System
"Power above all determines who eats and who does not." - Oxfam publication, May 31, 2011, p. 6
Unless you are heartless and cruel, as a human, you probably feel some level of heartbreak when you think about the 1 billion other humans in the world who suffer daily from hunger. As a human, you probably feel even worse when you here statistics like nearly one in two children in Nigeria is malnourished and one in six dies before reaching the age of five, largely because of hunger.
As an American though, you are probably busy, eating on the go, not taking too much time to think about how your food system, affects and destroys the lives of people in the world. You probably aren't thinking about the corporate land grabs, the commodity trading, or the American and EU farm subsidy systems. As you are eating your packaged grab-and-go food, you maybe have a thought about how expensive food is, yet you don't think about how much you waste and how that might impact the other 1 billion humans who's children are dying because they simply can't feed them - because the system of global power has made it impossible for them to feed their children.
Oxfam's May 2011 report (see below) argues for a new world order where land and food production is managed more equitably. Backyard Agrarian agrees that there is no hope for sustainability without a large scale shift in who owns land, who produces food, and how that food and other farm related resources are allocated. What the corporate food system has shown us is that we, as humans, cannot rely on them for our basic needs. Sure, it's nice to get a luxury corporate food item now and again, but for real survival, for real sustenance, the power of the food system can not remain in the hands of the few.
Oxfam rightly notes...
"Hunger, along with obesity, obscene waste, and appalling environmental degradation, is a by-product of our broken food system. A system constructed by and on behalf of a tiny minority—its primary purpose to deliver profit for them. Bloated rich-country farm lobbies, hooked on handouts that tip the terms of trade against farmers in the developing world and force rich-country consumers to pay more in tax and more for food. Self-serving elites who amass resources at the expense of impoverished rural populations. Powerful investors who play commodities markets like casinos, for whom food is just another financial asset—like stocks and shares or mortgage-backed securities. Enormous agribusiness companies hidden from public view that function as global oligopolies, governing value chains, ruling markets, accountable to no one. The list goes on." Oxfam Publication: Growing a Better Future, Food Justice In A Resource Constrained World, May 2011, p. 6.
"The new era of crisis started in 2008. Lehman Brothers collapsed, oil reached $147 a barrel, and food prices leapt, precipitating protests in 61 countries, with riots or violent protests in 23.5 By 2009, the number of hungry people passed one billion for the first time.6 Rich-country governments responded with hypocrisy, professing alarm while continuing to throw billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money at their bloated biofuel industries, diverting food from mouths to gas tanks. In a vacuum of trust, governments one after another imposed export bans, pushing up prices further.
Meanwhile the profits of global agribusiness companies rocketed, the returns of speculators soared, and a new wave of land-grabbing kicked off in the developing world, as private and state investors sought to cash in or to secure supply.
Now, as climate chaos sends us stumbling into our second food price crisis in three years, little has changed to suggest that the global system will manage any better this time around. Power remains concentrated in the hands of a self-interested few.
... We have pushed ourselves into the “Anthropocene Epoch”—the geological era in which human activity is the main driver of planetary change." - Oxfam Publication: Growing a Better Future, Food Justice In A Resource Constrained World, May 2011, p. 7.
As an American though, you are probably busy, eating on the go, not taking too much time to think about how your food system, affects and destroys the lives of people in the world. You probably aren't thinking about the corporate land grabs, the commodity trading, or the American and EU farm subsidy systems. As you are eating your packaged grab-and-go food, you maybe have a thought about how expensive food is, yet you don't think about how much you waste and how that might impact the other 1 billion humans who's children are dying because they simply can't feed them - because the system of global power has made it impossible for them to feed their children.
Oxfam's May 2011 report (see below) argues for a new world order where land and food production is managed more equitably. Backyard Agrarian agrees that there is no hope for sustainability without a large scale shift in who owns land, who produces food, and how that food and other farm related resources are allocated. What the corporate food system has shown us is that we, as humans, cannot rely on them for our basic needs. Sure, it's nice to get a luxury corporate food item now and again, but for real survival, for real sustenance, the power of the food system can not remain in the hands of the few.
Oxfam rightly notes...
"Hunger, along with obesity, obscene waste, and appalling environmental degradation, is a by-product of our broken food system. A system constructed by and on behalf of a tiny minority—its primary purpose to deliver profit for them. Bloated rich-country farm lobbies, hooked on handouts that tip the terms of trade against farmers in the developing world and force rich-country consumers to pay more in tax and more for food. Self-serving elites who amass resources at the expense of impoverished rural populations. Powerful investors who play commodities markets like casinos, for whom food is just another financial asset—like stocks and shares or mortgage-backed securities. Enormous agribusiness companies hidden from public view that function as global oligopolies, governing value chains, ruling markets, accountable to no one. The list goes on." Oxfam Publication: Growing a Better Future, Food Justice In A Resource Constrained World, May 2011, p. 6.
"The new era of crisis started in 2008. Lehman Brothers collapsed, oil reached $147 a barrel, and food prices leapt, precipitating protests in 61 countries, with riots or violent protests in 23.5 By 2009, the number of hungry people passed one billion for the first time.6 Rich-country governments responded with hypocrisy, professing alarm while continuing to throw billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money at their bloated biofuel industries, diverting food from mouths to gas tanks. In a vacuum of trust, governments one after another imposed export bans, pushing up prices further.
Meanwhile the profits of global agribusiness companies rocketed, the returns of speculators soared, and a new wave of land-grabbing kicked off in the developing world, as private and state investors sought to cash in or to secure supply.
Now, as climate chaos sends us stumbling into our second food price crisis in three years, little has changed to suggest that the global system will manage any better this time around. Power remains concentrated in the hands of a self-interested few.
... We have pushed ourselves into the “Anthropocene Epoch”—the geological era in which human activity is the main driver of planetary change." - Oxfam Publication: Growing a Better Future, Food Justice In A Resource Constrained World, May 2011, p. 7.
Oxfam Publication, May 2011
Growing a Better Future, Food Justice In A Resource Constrained World
Food Security
Food Forests Across the World.
It IS possible to feed ourselves. We do not need to rely on today's mechanized, poisonous farmers and gigantic corporate junk food makers. We can actually grow our own food, in our own communities. In some places, property laws and land use regulations will have to change. But that is doable if we can just identify the dramatic need for eco-localization of the food. Organic food surpluses that go beyond organic, that create vibrant ecosystems, that rejuvenate the community while providing rejuvenating food and habitat. Community Gardens... on Steroids. Perennial Edible Food forests everywhere.
Food for the people.
Food for the people.
WHITE PAPER:
How US Food & Agriculture Policy
Cause Hunger & Inequality Around the World
Addendum, 2011
Ten years later, I would add that poisons in our food supply are at least as important as malnutrition. The paper was an indictment of the processed food industry for its role in the World's decreasing physical health due to malnutrition and obesity induced by an over-consumption of deadened food stripped of its nutrients. It also was an indictment of the forces monopolizing agricultural lands and markets pushing small farmers out of business. The big Ag industry was at the same time pushing small farmers out of the sector and replacing honest food with processed crap which was causing diabetes, depression, ADD and a range of modern illnesses. (PHOTO).
As basically true as I still find that premise, it is now also overwhelmingly clear that all of this processed food being consumed, and it is statistically more now than it was then, not only fails to provide the required nutrition, it is also filled with poison. The packaging is filled with poisons that leach into the food. The food was grown with poison and then sprayed with more to keep it fresh. The wrapper was made with poison flushed onto a waterway somewhere. Then dyes and artificial colors and preservatives and enhancers and binders, all more poison, are added to the food as it is turned into the toy food people are becoming more and more accustomed to.
Why are there so many endocrine disrupters in our food? Why are there so many carcinogens in our food? Why are there so many things that are not food in our food?
So now our malnourished bodies are also fighting off poison. Our bodies are inflamed and in pain and not functioning properly because they are in a constant battle against all of the poison we feed them. And then we bathe ourselves in more poison. Someone is slowly killing us, and we are eating it right up.
So this is why the people have to take back the food system. It is because we cannot get fed well otherwise. Big Ag poisons us. It poisons our rivers, our birds and it destroys our ecosystems. It ruins any chance at sustainability and for health.
As basically true as I still find that premise, it is now also overwhelmingly clear that all of this processed food being consumed, and it is statistically more now than it was then, not only fails to provide the required nutrition, it is also filled with poison. The packaging is filled with poisons that leach into the food. The food was grown with poison and then sprayed with more to keep it fresh. The wrapper was made with poison flushed onto a waterway somewhere. Then dyes and artificial colors and preservatives and enhancers and binders, all more poison, are added to the food as it is turned into the toy food people are becoming more and more accustomed to.
Why are there so many endocrine disrupters in our food? Why are there so many carcinogens in our food? Why are there so many things that are not food in our food?
So now our malnourished bodies are also fighting off poison. Our bodies are inflamed and in pain and not functioning properly because they are in a constant battle against all of the poison we feed them. And then we bathe ourselves in more poison. Someone is slowly killing us, and we are eating it right up.
So this is why the people have to take back the food system. It is because we cannot get fed well otherwise. Big Ag poisons us. It poisons our rivers, our birds and it destroys our ecosystems. It ruins any chance at sustainability and for health.
Start With Yourself, to End World Hunger.
People across the planet need to ban together and stop supporting the types of food that cause hunger and malnutrition and food insecurity. We need to stop buying Big Ag corporate food. It is bad for us. It is bad for the planet.
People need to stop buying junk, and start buying local, real, organic food.
People need to stop buying junk, and start buying local, real, organic food.
