Hunger: Food as Business

Leonardo Boff

04/05/2008

Opinión

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The world is growing alarmed at the rise in the cost of food and the predictions of increasing hunger in the world. Hunger is an ethical problem that was denounced by Gandhi: "Hunger is an insult that humiliates, dehumanizes and destroys the body and the spirit; it is the most assassinating thing that exists." But it is also the result of an economic policy. Food is changed into an opportunity for profit and agricultural processing becomes a profitable enterprise. The basic view that had predominated until the coming of industrialization has changed — the concept of Earth seen as the Great Mother. There was a relationship of respect and mutual collaboration between Earth and humankind. The process of industrial production sees the Earth only as a trunk full of resources to be exploited until they run out.

Instead of an art, production technique and means of life, agriculture has been transformed into a profit-making enterprise. Through mechanization and high technology more can be produced on less land. The "Green Revolution", introduced in the 70s in the 20th century and spread throughout the world, chemicalized almost all production. The effects are now being felt: impoverishment of the soil, devastating erosion, deforestation and the loss of billions of natural seed varieties which would have been a reserve against future crises.

Animal husbandry has been profoundly modified due to growth stimulants, intensive techniques, vaccines, antibiotics, artificial insemination and cloning.

Traditional farmers have been replaced by rural businessmen. This whole picture has been aggravated by the accelerated urbanization of the world, along with the consequent emptying of the rural areas. The city demands food that it does not produce and depends on the country.

There is a real commercial war around food. The rich countries subsidize entire harvests, or meat production, to put them on the world market at the best price, hurting poor countries whose main wealth comes from the production and export of agricultural products and meat. Often, in order to be economically viable, they have to export cereal and grain that go to feed cattle in the industrialized countries, when they could serve as food for their populations on the domestic market.

Because of the zeal to guarantee profits, there is a global trend in the capitalist mode of production to privatize everything, especially seeds. Fewer than a dozen multinational companies control the world seed market. They have introduced transgenic seeds that do not reproduce themselves in the harvests and must be bought each time, at greater benefit to the companies. The purchase of seed is part of a larger package that includes technology, pesticides, machinery, and financing — tying the producers to the agribusiness interests of multinational companies.

Basically, what matters most is guaranteeing earnings for the businesses, and feeding people matters least. If this order is not reversed — for example an economy that is subordinate to a policy guided by ethics and ethics that are inspired by basic humanitarian sentiments — there will not be a solution to world hunger and malnutrition. The barbarism that scars the current globalization process will continue. The heartbreaking cries of the millions of starving people rise continuously to heaven without any effective answers coming from anywhere to silence this clamor. It is time for humanitarian compassion, translated into global policies to systematically combat hunger.

Free translation from the Spanish provided by Anne Fullerton. Done in Arlington, VA in cooperation with Refugio del Rio Grande, Texas.

https://www.alainet.org/en/articulo/127761