{"id":142009,"date":"2014-11-17T12:50:47","date_gmt":"2014-11-17T12:50:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=142009"},"modified":"2014-11-17T18:00:22","modified_gmt":"2014-11-17T18:00:22","slug":"food-security-hostage-wall-street-us-global-hegemony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/food-security-hostage-wall-street-us-global-hegemony\/","title":{"rendered":"Food Security a Hostage to Wall Street and US Global Hegemony"},"content":{"rendered":"

Colin Todhunter<\/em><\/p>\n

Last month, World Food Day celebrated \u2018Family Farming: Feeding the world, caring for the earth\u2019. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization\u2019s website:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThe 2014 World Food Day theme \u2014 Family Farming: \u201cFeeding the world, caring for the earth\u201d \u2014 has been chosen to raise the profile of family farming and smallholder farmers. It focuses world attention on the significant role of family farming in eradicating hunger and poverty, providing food security and nutrition, improving livelihoods, managing natural resources, protecting the environment, and achieving sustainable development, in particular in rural areas.\u201d [1]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Family farming should indeed be celebrated because it really does feed the world. This claim is supported by a 2014 report by GRAIN, which revealed that small farms produce most of the world\u2019s food [2].<\/p>\n

Around 56% of\u00a0Russia\u00a0‘s agricultural output comes from family farms which occupy less than 9% of arable land. These farms produce\u00a090% of the country\u2019s potatoes, 83% of its vegetables, 55% of its of milk, 39% of its meat and 22% of its cereals [3].<\/p>\n

In\u00a0Brazil, 84% of farms are small and control 24% of the land, yet they produce: 87% of cassava, 69% of beans, 67% of goat milk, 59% of pork, 58% of cow milk, 50% of chickens, 46% of maize, 38% of coffee, 33.8% of rice and 30% of cattle [4].<\/p>\n

In\u00a0Cuba,\u00a0with 27% of the land, small farmers produce: 98% of fruits, 95% of beans, 80% of maize, 75% of pork, 65% of vegetables, 55% of cow milk, 55% of cattle and 35% of rice [5].<\/p>\n

In\u00a0Ukraine, small farmers operate 16% of agricultural land, but provide 55% of agricultural output, including: 97% of potatoes, 97% of honey, 88% of vegetables, 83% of fruits and berries and 80% of milk [6].<\/p>\n

Similar impressive figures are available for\u00a0Chile,\u00a0Hungary,\u00a0Belarus, Romania,\u00a0Kenya,\u00a0El Salvador\u00a0and many other countries.<\/p>\n

The evidence shows that small peasant\/family farms are the bedrock of global food production. The bad news is that they are being squeezed onto less than a quarter of the world\u2019s farmland and such land is under threat. The world is fast losing farms and farmers through the concentration of land into the hands of rich and powerful speculators and corporations.<\/p>\n

The report by GRAIN also revealed that small farmers are often much more productive than large corporate farms, despite the latter\u2019s access to various expensive technologies. For example, if all of\u00a0Kenya\u2019s farms matched the output of its small farms, the nation\u2019s agricultural productivity would double. In\u00a0Central America, it would nearly triple. In\u00a0Russia, it would be six fold.<\/p>\n

Yet in many places, small farmers are being criminalised, taken to court and even made to disappear when it comes to the struggle for land. They are constantly exposed to systematic expulsion from their land by foreign corporations [7], some of which are fronted by fraudulent individuals who specialise in corrupt deals and practices to rake in enormous profits to the detriment of small farmers and food production [8].<\/p>\n

Imagine what small farmers could achieve if they had access to more land and could work in a supportive policy environment, rather than under the siege conditions they too often face. For example, the vast majority of farms in\u00a0Zimbabwe\u00a0belong to smallholders and their average farm size has increased as a result of the Fast Track Land Reform Programme. Small farmers in the country now produce over 90% of diverse agricultural food crops, while they only provided 60 to 70% of the national food before land redistribution.<\/p>\n

Throughout much of the world, however, agricultural land is being taken over by large corporations. GRAIN concludes that, in the last 50 years, 140 million hectares – well more than all the farmland in\u00a0China\u00a0– have been taken over for soybean, oil palm, rapeseed and sugar cane alone.<\/p>\n

By definition, peasant agriculture prioritises food production for local and national markets as well as for farmers\u2019 own families. Big agritech corporations take over scarce fertile land and prioritise commodities or export crops for profit and markets far away that cater for the needs of the affluent.\u00a0This process impoverishes local communities and brings about food insecurity. The concentration of fertile agricultural land in fewer and fewer hands is therefore directly related to the increasing number of people going hungry every day and is undermining global food security.<\/p>\n

The issue of land ownership was also picked up on by another report this year. A report by the\u00a0Oakland Institute stated that the first years of the 21st century will\u00a0be remembered for a global land rush of nearly unprecedented scale [9]. An estimated 500 million acres,\u00a0an area eight times the size of\u00a0Britain\u00a0, was reported bought or leased across the developing world\u00a0between 2000 and 2011, often at the expense of local food security\u00a0and land rights.<\/p>\n

A new generation of\u00a0institutional investors, including hedge funds, private equity,\u00a0pension funds and university endowments, is eager to capitalise on\u00a0global farmland as a new and highly desirable asset class. Financial returns, not food security, are what matter. In the\u00a0US, for instance, with rising interest from investors and surging land prices, giant\u00a0pension funds are committing billions to buy agricultural land.<\/p>\n

The Oakland Institute argues that the\u00a0US\u00a0could experience an unprecedented crisis\u00a0of retiring farmers over the next 20 years, leading to ample opportunities for these actors\u00a0to expand their holdings as an estimated 400 million acres changes\u00a0generational hands.<\/p>\n

The corporate consolidation of agriculture is happening as much in\u00a0Iowa\u00a0and\u00a0California\u00a0as it is in the\u00a0Philippines, Mozambique\u00a0and not least in\u00a0Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Imperialism and the control of agriculture<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ukraine\u2019s small farms are delivering impressive outputs, despite being squeezed onto just 16% of arable land. But the US-backed toppling of that country\u2019s government and its ongoing orchestration of a murderous attack on the eastern part of Ukraine may change all that. Indeed, part of the reason behind destabilizing\u00a0Ukraine\u00a0and installing a puppet regime was for US agritech concerns like Monsanto to gain access to its agriculture sector, which is what we are now witnessing.<\/p>\n

Current \u2018aid\u2019 packages, contingent on the plundering of the economy under the guise of \u2018austerity reforms\u2019, will have a devastating impact on Ukrainians\u2019 standard of living and increase poverty in the country [10]. Reforms mandated by the EU-backed loan include agricultural deregulation that is intended to benefit agribusiness corporations. Natural resource and land policy shifts are intended to facilitate the foreign corporate takeover of enormous tracts of land. The EU Association Agreement includes a clause requiring both parties to cooperate to extend the use of biotechnology. Frederic Mousseau, Policy Director of the Oakland Institute states:<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir (World Bank and IMF) intent is blatant: to open up foreign markets to Western corporations\u2026 The high stakes around control of\u00a0Ukraine\u2019s vast agricultural sector, the world\u2019s third largest exporter of corn and fifth largest exporter of wheat, constitute an oft-overlooked critical factor. In recent years, foreign corporations have acquired more than 1.6 million hectares of Ukrainian land.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Chemical-industrial agriculture and the original \u2018green revolution\u2019 has proved extremely lucrative for the oil and chemical industry and has served to maintain and promote US hegemony, not least via the uprooting of traditional farming practices in favour of cash crop\/export-oriented policies, dam building to cater for what became a highly water intensive industry, loans, indebtedness, dependency on the dollar, the control of seeds, etc.<\/p>\n

Whether through \u2018free trade\u2019 agreements, commodity market price manipulations, loan packages, the co-optation of political leaders or the hijack of strategic policy-making bodies, corporate profits are being secured and food sovereignty surrendered to the US, which has always used agriculture as a tool with which to control countries [11].<\/p>\n

(The GMO issue has to be regarded within such a geopolitical framework too: it has less to do with \u2018feeding the world\u2019 and more about controlling it [12,13,14].)<\/p>\n

While celebrating of the role of the family farm in feeding the world in 2014, rich speculators and powerful\u00a0US\u00a0agritech corporations continue to colonise agriculture and undermine the existence of small farms and global food security.<\/p>\n

Choosing to ignore the research, however, much mainstream thinking rests on the fallacious assumption that uprooting small farms and displacing rural populations is a good thing. The report by GRAIN (and others [15, 16]) suggests otherwise.<\/p>\n

This assumption stems from an ethnocentric mindset that legitimises the plunder we are witnessing across the globe. Environmentalist Vandana Shiva sums it up as follows:<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are perceived as \u2018poor\u2019 if they eat food they have grown rather than commercially distributed junk foods sold by global agri-business. They are seen as poor if they live in self-built housing made from ecologically well-adapted materials like bamboo and mud rather than in cinder block or cement houses. They are seen as poor if they wear garments manufactured from handmade natural fibres rather than synthetics.\u201d [17]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is an ideology that fuels the myth that the \u2018poor\u2019 are poor due to their own fault and must be lifted up by the West and its corporations and billionaire ‘philanthropists’. It is the ideology that attempts to legitimise imperialism and economic colonialism, which causes economic devastation and ecological destruction in the first place. From Africa to India and beyond, the disease is being offered as the cure [18-21].<\/p>\n

Notes<\/strong><\/p>\n

1]\u00a0http:\/\/www.fao.org\/world-food-day\/home\/en\/<\/a><\/p>\n

2]\u00a0http:\/\/www.grain.org\/article\/entries\/4929-hungry-for-land-small-farmers-feed-the-world-with-less-than-a-quarter-of-all-farmland<\/a><\/p>\n

3]\u00a0Russian Federation\u00a0Federal\u00a0State\u00a0Statistics\u00a0Service,\u00a0Russia<\/a>\u00a0in Figures 2011<\/a>.<\/p>\n

4] Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estadistica, “Censo Agropecuario 2006”,http:\/\/tinyurl.com\/m376s82<\/a><\/p>\n

5] Braulio Machin Sosa et al., ANAP-Via Campesina, “Revoluci\u00c3\u00b3n agroecol\u00c3\u00b3gica, resumen ejecutivo”<\/p>\n

6] State Statistics Service of\u00a0Ukraine. “Main agricultural characteristics of households in rural areas in 2011”<\/p>\n

7]http:\/\/www.theecologist.org\/News\/news_analysis\/2267255\/gm_crops_are_driving_genocide_and_ecocide_keep_them_out_of_the_eu.html<\/a><\/p>\n

8]\u00a0http:\/\/www.grain.org\/article\/entries\/5048-feeding-the-1-percent<\/a><\/p>\n

9]\u00a0http:\/\/www.oaklandinstitute.org\/sites\/oaklandinstitute.org\/files\/OI_Report_Down_on_the_Farm.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

10]\u00a0http:\/\/www.oaklandinstitute.org\/walking-west-side-world-bank-and-imf-ukraine-conflict<\/a><\/p>\n

11] http:\/\/www.prosper.org.au\/2014\/10\/10\/think-tank-times\/<\/a><\/p>\n

12]\u00a0http:\/\/www.globalresearch.ca\/seeds-of-destruction-the-hidden-agenda-of-genetic-manipulation-2\/9379<\/a><\/p>\n

13]\u00a0http:\/\/www.globalresearch.ca\/behind-the-mask-of-altruism-imperialism-monsanto-and-the-gates-foundation-in-africa\/5408242<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

14] http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/countering-gmo-lobbys-emotional-blackmail-bogus-claims\/<\/a><\/p>\n

http:\/\/unctad.org\/en\/PublicationsLibrary\/tdr2013_en.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

15] http:\/\/www.un.org\/apps\/news\/story.asp?NewsID=45076#.VGnVEzTF-So<\/a><\/p>\n

16] http:\/\/www.ifad.org\/climate\/resources\/smallholders_report.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

17] http:\/\/www.organicconsumers.org\/btc\/shiva112305.cfm<\/a><\/p>\n

18]\u00a0http:\/\/www.globalresearch.ca\/war-economic-catastrophe-and-environmental-degradation-under-the-guise-of-progress-and-development\/5379424<\/a><\/p>\n

19]\u00a0http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/subjugation-india-us-rests-monsantos-control-agriculture\/<\/a><\/p>\n

20]\u00a0http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/behind-mask-altruism-monsanto-gates-foundation-africa\/<\/a><\/p>\n

21]\u00a0http:\/\/www.countercurrents.org\/todhunter230614.htm<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Colin Todhunter Last month, World Food Day celebrated \u2018Family Farming: Feeding the world, caring for the earth\u2019. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization\u2019s website: \u201cThe 2014 World Food Day theme \u2014 Family Farming: \u201cFeeding the world, caring for the earth\u201d \u2014 has been chosen to raise the profile of family farming and smallholder […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1214,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-142009","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-editorials"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1214"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142009\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}