You know what that means.....it's time for the English speaking world and the rest of the West to pretend they actually give a flying pig about the plight of the starving black and brown poor peoples all over the third world. According to the World Food Program, 1 in 7 people in the world will go to bed hungry tonight. There's more, according to the WFP, hunger "is the number one health risk. It kills more people than AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis combined." Well I think what they really mean is starvation. Because after all, we ALL get hungry. But not all of us, have the means of having food on the table day in and day out. If you want more hunger stats, you can find them here(World Hunger Problem: Fact, Figures, and Statistics), here (Stopthehunger.com), and here (bread.org), and many more. Throwing statistics about starvation to you all day long is simply redundant. It is safe to assume every adult in the world is aware that there is a global starvation crisis and there has been one for a very long time. Even the disingenuous U.N has acknowledged this in an article by Reuters.
But why are so many people starving? Coincidence will be a dishonest (as well as lazy) answer. So will "untended consequences." Some people will say that overpopulation is one contributing factor. When we go deeper into world starvation, as I'd rather call it, we see that the problem isn't an issue of spontaneity, or naive agricultural policy. Rather it's designed to be this way. There is a systematic meddling by the major financial institutions of the West, to rip up developing nation's economies. The IMF, the World Bank, and other major Western financial institutions have played a major role in the destruction of the food security of many developing countries.
Neo-Liberalism
In an article by Walden Bello titled, Africa's Food Crisis, the Handiwork of IMF, World Bank, Bello asserts that these institutions would infiltrate weaker governments to dictate their role in economic affairs, such as "how fast subsidies should be phased out," or even in the case of Malawi, "how much of the country's grain reserve should be sold, and to whom." Bello also mentions how these weaker African governments (of the West and South) had their markets pried open to European and U.S exploitation by allowing "low-priced-subsidized European beef to enter and drive many West African and South African cattle raisers to ruin." "These dismal outcomes were not accidental," Bello asserts. This is just an example, as Bello asserts many. This is known as Structural Adjustment, as the IMF and World like to call it. It is basically prying open the markets of developing nations to Western vulture capitalism, eventually phasing that nation into a neo-feudalistic corporate state. This is the neo-liberal "free market" doctrine. Also known as Globalism. This is when a nation extradites it's sovereignty to off-shore or supranational entities. The West has been phasing out peasant-based farming systems, replacing it with commercial farming. By obviating the state from the administration of farming, the World Bank and IMF took away "access to land, credit, insurance inputs, and cooperative organization" for farmers. As Bello also points out in a report by Oxfam, the number of Africans living on two dollars a day "more than doubled" between 1981 and 2001. This is 46 percent of the whole continent.
U.S Agricultural Secretary John Blocke, in 1986 at the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations stated: "The idea that the developing countries should feed themselves is an anachronism from a bygone era. They could better ensure their food security by relying on U.S agricultural products, which are available, in most cases at lower cost." So in other words, he is presenting the problem as the solution. If one pays attention, he is actually contradicting himself. "Food security" and the reliance on imports are a juxtaposition of contrasting terms. So one can suspect the West through narrative and policy, to encourage importation and discourage self-sufficiency. To make matters worse, the U.S has decided to start burning corn for fuel (a source of alternative energy not even reliable), a disastrous policy since many countries are inclined to rely on importation. This is contributing to the global food shortage. I believe you get the idea.
The Example of Malawi
Malawi clearly exemplifies the topic. The article, How to Manufacture a Global Food Crisis: Lessons learned from the IMF, World Bank, and WTO, explains how in 1998-99, Malawi engaged in a subsidy program to provide the poorest of families with a "starter pack" of free fertilizers and seeds. This resulted in a surplus of corn. But then something happened.
The World Bank and other donors to the government forced it to slash this program. The IMF even convinced the food reserve agency to" sell off its strategic food reserves to settle it's commercial debts" (a proven tactic of the IMF). A famine resulted in 2001-02. And one can only imagine since the government didn't have any reserves to go to. Nearly 1500 people died of starvation. Subsequently, an even worse food crisis emerged in 2005. The government finally rejected the IMF's policy. It reinstated the subsidy program under its new president, making fertilizers "about a third of the retail price, and seeds at a discount." This returned the food surplus. Malawi is now a supplier of corn to other Southern African countries.
Refusing to own up to its discredited policy, the World Bank's country director insisted that the re-instated subsidy program was "better for food security, but even worse for market development." He is of course wrong. There is hardly any historical evidence or basis that a country dependent heavily on food importation has ever developed a strong economy. These types of catastrophes are not only present in Africa, but also in places like India and parts of Asia.
What should be done
There is a reason why many of the major corporations of the West and other neo-colonial foundations have always had a disdain for a strong Nation-State. Because they can resist the parasitical influences of these vulture institutions, and often eventually do. The IMF, World Bank and other Western financial institutions are not what they seem, as they have shown time and time again to be an anti-thesis to their very thesis---economic development. They represent a neo-feudal model, based on the impediment of growth of developing countries.
Agricultural self-sufficiency can do many things. Surpluses can be counted on to occur. This will encourage trade among nations and could eventually lead to economic cooperation (and possibly extended forms of diplomacy). It could drive down the number of cases of nutrition-related diseases, birth-defects, and so on. It could help avoid civil unrest, or other forms of social disruption. As any one knows, control a nation's food, and you essentially control the nation. These nations can start coming together and creating their own alternatives together, boycotting and phasing out Western dictates over the agricultural (and subsequently economic) future of their countries.
The IMF and World Bank should not only be replaced, but their doctrine of neo-liberalism must also be rejected. These institutions and the policies they represent, are at the heart of many of the economic and social hardships that are so incumbent upon third world nations, and in turn the world. My golden rule for any developing country, is to first attain self-sufficiency in agriculture before they can ever attain true development. Our world starvation crisis is not an accident.
Hopefully more and more people can come to understand that.
No comments:
Post a Comment