A Bitter Taste of:

 Stuffed and Starved by Raj Patel

         As of the publication of Stuffed and Starved (2008), one of every ten people on earth goes hungry – more than 800 million hungry persons! Yet, a greater number of persons are overweight, one billion, which is the first time in world history that that has occurred. The reason for this alarming dichotomy is the overarching web of trade known as the global food system.

        Farmers in poor countries who are producing for export are being squeezed cent by cent until they can barely survive, which is especially evident in the coffee trade. Ugandan farmers are paid 14 cents/kg. for coffee beans. Next, Ugandan coffee middlemen sell the bean at the mill for 19 cents/kg. Transporters receive 26 cents/kg. of coffee beans from international shippers. The shippers drop the beans at the Nestle factory for $1.26/kg. And, Nestle sells the finished coffee for $26.40/kg! As a Ugandan coffee farmer says, “I’d like you to tell people in your place that the drink they are now drinking is the cause of all our problems.”

        Farmers in massive debt to the harsh winds of free trade and dumped commodities from the Global North are increasingly resorting to suicide. Lee Hyung Kae, a Korean farmer and peasant organizer and successful rancher, lost his ranch, as did many South Korean ranchers, due to cheap imported beef allowed by a free trade agreement. Korean ranchers resorted to bank loans, and upon not receiving a continuation of loans, they created an inter-farmer loan network that forestalled but inevitably failed to keep the ranchers from losing their land. In 2003, Lee committed suicide at the WTO Committee meeting in Cancun to draw attention to small farmers’ plight in this new globalized economy. 

        Hunger levels in Africa are worse than on any other continent for a variety of reasons: armed conflict, resource shortage, “blood” diamond/mineral trade, recovery from the Cold War, and the social program dismantling pushed by international financial institutions. While hunger in Southern Africa reached famine levels in 2002 after two consecutive dismal harvests, there had been a decade of hunger since 1992. For instance, 39% of children in Zamibia were chronicly malnourished in 1992. During the height of the famine, that figure had reached 55%! Similarly, 49% of Malawi children were chronically malnourished in 1990 – levels that persisted into the new millennium. In Lesotho, two-thirds of the population is impoverished and half are completely destitute! Famine is ready to strike, under such conditions, because 70% of the population has no remaining cereal grain for an emergency. Moreover, international financial institutions, such as the IMF, have exacerbated hunger by making loans to poor countries, such as Malawi and other African countries, contingent on slashing social programs that insulate against food shortages and famines.

        Brazilian landless peasants and their advocates in Brazil have started a massive and successful movement for ameliorating their condition, called the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST). Nucleos, MST community units, consist of 2 to 3 dozen families on a shared parcel that allows for agricultural and political education and even university partnership. The more than 5 million landless families in Brazil, as of 2002, and 150,000 landless families encamped on the roadside, are in need of an expansion of the rural land movement. Unfortunately, rural folks around the globe have been increasingly pushed off their farmland into the swelling cities, often into slums.

           Solutions to these problems run the gamut from conscious consumption, conscious philanthropy, and activism for justice in the creation of a non-exploitative trade policy. As MST and a multitude of other farmer/peasant movements indicate, those most affected are committed to helping themselves, just require much constructive assistance in the form of funding and activism.

Summary of: Five Global Threats to the Survival of Family Farms in the International Year of the Family Farmer
An Informational Backgrounder by Food First

See the article: http://foodfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/2013-14-Winter-Backgrounder-International-Year-of-Family-Farming11.pdf

        Land grabs are a threat to smallholder farmers in the Global North and especially in the Global South. Since the "food, fuel, and financial crises" of 2007-2008, land acquisition by pension funds, corporations, and other speculators have gobbled some 212 million acres of farmland. Europe, like the US before, is experiencing the agribusiness push and the demise of family farming, too. Peasant farmers in the Global South have been pushed off the land and into cities, and often the slums.
       Trade liberalization and financial deregulation has ruined local agricultural trade networks in the Global South. Already, a lack of food self-sufficiency has been created in many countries due to policies of the World Bank and free trade agreements (FTAs) that push against local small-farming towards export agribusiness. The US-Colombian FTA gives monopoly rights of seeds to US and European corporations, which threatens the affordable practice of seed preservation. Colombian farmers have been hurt by the US dumping its taxpayer-subsidized grain on the Colombian market. Also, deregulation of the financial and banking industry in the Global North has created incentives for investment in industrial agriculture and land acquisition. Moreover, proposed FTAs such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership between twelve Pacific Rim nations and TAFTA between the US and the EU will punish nations for using tariff and non-tariff measures to protect smallholder farmers.
         Military conflicts and farmer movement criminilizations have created perilous conditions for food producers in a number of countries. Mass displacement in Northern Mali and Southern Senegal, among other regions, has caused farmers to work in refugee zones and warzones. Land mines and ruined infrastructure make even basic food production all but impossible, yet women's groups in the village of Gao, Mali are producing vegetables amidst the chaos. Similarly, Iraqi producers, in places such as Basra, have been producing in locations with dangerous levels of radiation, dioxins, and depleted uranium. In Honduras' Aguan Valley, 92 peasant farmers protesting their displacement due to land grabs have been killed between 2009 and 2012.
        Climate Change and resource scarcity is causing de-stablilization of agricultural producers. In island nations of the Global South, salinization of acquifers, intensification of storms, and wind/water erosion of soils, and more, is very troubling to their future food security. As mineral prices climb, struggling farmers in areas such as highland Peru are enticed by employent in nearby mines, which leads to pollution of adjacent lands. While diversified small parcels are resistant to pest, disease, and weather issues caused by Climate Change, monocultural production and biodiversity loss has been pushed by the Green Revolution of the late 20th Century and the GMO Revolution of the 21st Century. For instance, the Phillipines had 1,400 rice varietals previously, but now has only four varietals due to incentives of the Green Revolution.  
        Big philanthropy and foreign aid commonly aim for "top-down" projects that feature little to no input from target communities, which cause worse outcomes much of the time. "Green grabbing" in the name of ecotourism, agrifuel production, and drought tolerant GMO crops has marginalized peasant farmers in poor nations. Policies that discourage peasant food production cause male out-migration to cities, which leaves women alone to raise families and farm in rural areas. In many Global South countries, 60-80% of the food is produced by women. 
       The Via Campesina, a leading peasant farmers coalition, notes, " 'Peasants and family farmers have a food producing vocation. Agribusiness [pushed by the development agencies] has an export vocation.' " A movement against the coercive agreements and market effects that hurt small producers is essential to the continuance of food production and food security.

    

Food Justice CSA 
Solutions to World Hunger

This blog is an attempt to share what I learn about the conditions that create world hunger and the ideas that can stop world hunger! 
I will be posting synopses of articles, essays, books, and other media presentations that are relevant to this goal of realizing food systems that are sustainable and food secure for everybody.
Also, I will be sharing my thoughts on being a small-scale organic farmer in the Sacramento Valley. Especially as to how my experience may relate to the overarching goal of "Food Justice."