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'The global food market is neither free nor fair'

  2. dearmat23
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IN APRIL, Haiti's prime minister became one of the first political
casualties of the global food crisis, when he was forced to stand down in
the aftermath of violent food riots. Around the world, people are beginning
to fear that such events are a harbinger of things to come. Skyrocketing
prices for many of the world's food staples have triggered social unrest in
more than 32 countries, and a global summit of world leaders met last month
in Rome, Italy, to hash out an emergency response.

Both The End of Food and Eat Your Heart Out went to press before the present
crisis made headlines, yet their dissections of our global food system help
explain why there is mounting hunger despite the fact that the planet
produces enough food to make us all chubby. Think the food crisis is due to
bad weather in Australia or flooding in the US Midwest? Read these books.

Both authors describe a food system that has been shaped not by a "random and inevitable process" but by "one of the most powerful and brutally efficient of all human forces - the market," as Roberts says. This is not the market ripped from the pages of an economics textbook, though. It is neither free nor fair. Instead, the market for food
is distorted by powerful players, creating an "increasingly centralised, uniform and concentrated" system in which a handful of companies control much of the food supply for the world.

Some of these players are more familiar than others. Cargill, for instance, may not be a household name, but as one of the world's largest agribusinesses its fingerprints can be found on most foods at the supermarket. Lawrence quotes a Cargill brochure: "We are the flour in your bread, the salt on your fries, the chicken you eat for dinner, the cotton in your clothing."
dearmat23

10 responses // 'The global food market is neither free nor fair'

  • http://current.com/items/88905628_nutricide_criminalizi...
    This post double concerns me having watched this video a few weeks back. At the time I was extremely skeptical of the machinations of the food industry that the speaker spoke about. Articles such as this one lend a chilling credibility to her critique of Codex Alimentarius.

    If anyone has skeptical views of this video, please post them. I need to sleep a little better between now and December 31, 2009.
    beedee
    1 response to this
  • In one of her more fascinating chapters, Lawrence traces Cargill's influence throughout the food chain and around the world, illustrating how multinational corporations manage to extract profits from developing countries despite the impoverishment of their economies. Wal-Mart and Nestle, two companies Roberts investigates, are more familiar names, but we nevertheless know little of their behind-the-scenes operations. Roberts offers some illumination. He explains why advertising for cereal is so ubiquitous, for example. And how Wal-Mart can afford to sell food so cheaply.

    The books also dig into history, showing how food is so often leveraged as a political weapon. Of the $13 billion in US Marshall Plan aid given to Europe between 1947 and 1952, for instance, more than $3 billion was spent on imports of food, animal feed and fertiliser from the US. By providing a stark contrast to the austerity of eastern Europe, Lawrence argues, this aid "nipped nascent communist stirrings in the bud".

    By the 1950s, Roberts explains, most of the billions that the US handed out to developing countries was coming right back, used to buy America's surplus food. In other words, food aid was not an altruistic donation programme for the world's poor, but a clever subsidy system for American farmers. By expanding markets for these farmers, US food aid and trade policies decimated agricultural production in other countries. In the wake of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994, domestic corn production in Mexico has fallen by an estimated two-thirds, Roberts says.
    dearmat23
  • The Dictionary.com word of the day fits perfectly with this crisis: Cupidity.

    Excessive desire, especially for wealth gives us this grand problem that shouldn't even be one.
    J_Jammer
  • This stuff's no joke, and the only way to beat it is to grow our own food and refuse to buy all that crap made by those companies, which pretty much cuts Safeways and Krogers out of the picture entirely. Check out local farmer's markets, CSA's and learn about eating locally and seasonally. Michael Pollan's 'Omnivore's Dilemma' and Barbara Kingsolver's 'Animal, Vegetable, Miracle' are good reads.

    This is our food, people, if the corporations are allowed to control it under near-monopoly conditions, we're all screwed.
    Kati_kat
  • Something is going to have to happen, most of us are alright but think about the poor people around the world
    thekingbeyond
    1 response to this
  • the idea that "I can just grow my own food" or "we can just grow our own food" and not check out the validity of these charges and act upon them if need be, to stop this and protect all people. Is the same selfish attitude that has gotten the world into all of its attrocities.
    soberwood
  • These books sound fascinating I will track them down. This is an issue that I have been mind-boggled about for some time.

    The idea that what is going on with food control is manipulated by these evil greedy corporations and individuals is very hard for me to accept. Even when I know all the stuff that Monsanto has done and is doing. When I was in the war crimes museum in Ho Chi Minh City and saw all the mutated embryos and babies that were the direct result of Agent Orange, one of Monsanto's first chemicals.

    Everything points to it being a well thought out orchestrated theft of health and liberty. But I still can't understand why these people want so ruthlessly to create the world in this manner. Perhaps they really do believe that they are doing something beneficial to mankind and the world? How blind and greedy can they possibly be?

    I guess I just don't want to believe it, even though I have being seeing clear evidence for the last few years I still don't want to believe it. But yes, soberwood is so right, we do need to do something to make sure that this stops once and for all.

    I also think growing a garden is a step that everyone should take, for their own health as well as to get directly in touch with the Earth. Listening to her helps us to find ways to come together and resist the paranoid and obsessed control freaks who have established this self-destructive system.
    HellaDelicious
  • I agree with you 100% soberwood, something needs to be done. I just think taking the money away from the corporations is the first thing we can realistically do. Research into the corruption that overshadows us in this world at every turn is paramount, but taking the food supply back into our own hands is imperative as well.

    Plus, helladelicious has a good point--working with the earth and being a part of our ecosystems helps shed light onto the problems, and gives us peace of mind to continue on.

    I hate to think people are just selfish, but sometimes they act that way. Power and greed drive a lot of people, but the problems we are facing today (especially in agriculture) are rooted in our dominant western culture of the day. We are impounded with certain beliefs about the world around us every day of our lives such as nature is something to be dominated and subdued, and that mind set, that paradigm (like modern ideas about "progress") is in serious need of reevaluation.
    Kati_kat

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