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.