RINF.COM: EL ALTERNATIVA DE LAS NOTICIAS QUE SE ROMPE
Sábado 2 de agosto de 2008
RINF.COM: EL ALTERNATIVA DE LAS NOTICIAS QUE SE ROMPE
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ROMPER NOTICIAS |
La crisis asoma mientras que las corporaciones agarran el control de materias
Sábado 2 de agosto de 2008 Discuta este informe en los foros de RINF > Por Barbara L. Minton | La crisis de alimento global no saldrá en caulquier momento pronto. El capitalismo tiene el consumidor medio al lado del vientre. En medio de muestras cada vez mayor del hambre y del ultraje, la cadena entera de materias y los recursos del mundo ahora están siendo arrinconados por corporaciones gigantes. Las tierras de labrantío, el agua, el fertilizante, la semilla, la energía, y la mayor parte de las necesidades básicas de la vida están cayendo bajo control corporativo, proporcionando abundancia y energía crecientes a la élite predominante mientras que lucha el resto de humanidad. Escasez de la materia adentro La India fue reflejado recientemente en la necesidad de distribuir fertilizante de la comisaría de policías en Hingoli. Ahora el policía tiene que controlar las líneas que forman fuera de los enchufes del distribuidor, porque los distribuidores no se abrirán para el negocio de otra manera. Sin esta intervención no habría fertilizante para plantar que debe ocurrir antes de que venga la lluvia. En Akola y Nanded, la implicación del policía también se necesita. Los oficiales de la agricultura han huido sus lugares de trabajo al escape enojado granjeros. En Karnataka, tiraron a un granjero absolutamente durante protestas, mientras que los granjeros stormed reuniones e instalaron bloques del camino en otros districtos. A pesar de el éxito del algodón genético dirigido de Bt cosechas, la tendencia en la India ahora está de nuevo a sojas porque costaron menos para crecer y para necesitar menos fertilizante que algodón. Y no es el fertilizante justo que es escaso. Las semillas son también difíciles de obtener que se está culpando en la agitación que ha interferido con tráfico del tren de la carga. Sin embargo, el déficit adentro semillas es 60 por ciento, un nivel más indicativo de la intervención corporativa a conducir encima de precios que las acciones de granjeros impotentes. Como los granjeros fume, Wall Street Journal anuncia el salto whopping de 42 por ciento en los beneficios fiscales del tercer cuarto de enorme agricultura Midland gigante del archer-Daniels. Este aumento incluye una subida del sevenfold en nueva renta en las unidades que almacenan, transportan y califican granos tales como trigo, maíz y sojas. Los beneficios altísimos del fabricante Potash Corporation del fertilizante de Saskatchewan se reflejan en el movimiento parabólico de su precio común de un punto bajo anual de $70.35 a su pago corriente de $238.22 por la parte. Partes del productor Mosaic Corp. del fertilizante y del pienso. have risen from a yearly low of $32.50 to a current price of $159.38. Similar windfall profits are reported by GMO seed and herbicide king Monsanto whose last quarterly earnings surged by 45%. Some onlookers blame the financial speculators for driving up the prices of commodities related to agriculture as wealthy investors have piled on looking to cash in on the rising stock prices. And in many ways, today’s commodity market resembles the dot.com boom seen at the turn of the century, as well as the housing boom now in the throws of its bust. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission recently held a hearing to investigate the role that index funds and hedge funds are playing in driving up the prices of agricultural commodities. Total public fund investment in corn, soybean, wheat, cattle and hogs has risen by 37 billion dollars since 2006. This figure does not include the huge investments of hedge funds which don’t have to make such disclosure. It also doesn’t include the massive world wide investments in farmland made by the wealthy. The corporate spin is that these investments are helpful to humanity because they will ultimately result in increased food production at a time of rising world demand. They cite the need for increased corporate profits to invest in and develop new technologies that will help farmers improve productivity. This is how GMO seeds are being driven down the throats of farmers, who are told that the modified seeds can squeeze even more yield from each acre of planting. India has joined other developing countries in the decision to invest less in agriculture as advised by the World Bank-IMF, whose agenda has been to discourage crops for domestic consumption while encouraging production to spur export driven growth. This advice coupled with corporate sponsored deregulation has paved the way for corporate control of the farming process from seed to market. Research and development that was once the domain of universities has also fallen into corporate control. Farmers in India are caught in a credit crunch. Even if they are able to get the needed fertilizer, they will not have the credit to pay for it. With no increase in farmer income, larger loans are not advanced. The outlook for the small farmer there is much the same as it was in the U.S. thirty years ago, during the height of the small farms falling to big agribusiness. Corporations blame food shortages and rising prices on the people of China and India whose burgeoning income from manufacturing has allowed the average worker to increase both the amount and quality of his food consumption. But for the corporations, the increased demand for food is a guarantee of super profits to come. Of course the other commodity you can’t get along without is water, which is now the focus of huge multinational companies seeking to privatize water world wide, perhaps even patent it as Monsanto did with seeds. The fight over water may bring chaos, conflict and misery on a scale never seen before as corporations and governments go so far as to grab the wells from under people’s houses. And then there’s oil. To produce chemical fertilizer you must make use of fossil fuel. So rising oil prices and rising food prices are joined at the hip. The behavior of corporations in the oil business has been so egregious that there is talk of a windfall profits tax here and abroad. No, the food crisis will not go away anytime soon. North Korea, Burma and Western Sudan are currently feeling a real threat of starvation while western governments manipulated by corporations continue to promote the diversion of food into biofuels to further exacerbate the upward movement in food prices. Almost all U.S. corn production between 2004 and 2007 has gone into the production of ethanol. European production of ethanol has more than tripled during the same period. This has led to a fall off in grains relative to overall demand which is not a market phenomenon but is the direct result of the government sponsored, corporate backed programs. This comes at the expense of people looking for something to eat, particularly the world’s poor who are now effectively priced out of the food market. Sources: P. Sainath, The Hindu, “Fertilizing profit, sowing misery” Bogdan C. Enache, China Confidential, “Biofuels and the threat of starvation” Yahoo Finance Discuss this report in the RINF forums > Have Your Say: Crisis Looms as Corporations Seize Control of Commodities This entry was posted on Saturday, August 2nd, 2008 at 8:19 pm and is filed under Political News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. |
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