Food and Famine

It's not often that food is mentioned in the news. The production of food is something we as Americans obviously don't think too hard on, which may be how we have ended up marginalizing farming to the poor and uneducated, outsourcing and mechanizing its production whenever possible. As our poor quality food kills millions by heart disease and obesity, we usually just shove it down.

But recently, the market is in turmoil. A dramatic fall in the world supply of grain (corn, wheat, soy), an increase in the cost of fuels required to produce them, and increasing demands from China and other rapidly developing countries means that price has skyrocketed for basic crops, meat and cooking oils. While we see this in the higher price of goldfish crackers (now over $2 a bag...), guess who loses again. “The urban poor, rural landless, and small and marginal farmers stand to lose the most from the upset.” (NYT 1/19/08) While in America an average family only spends 1/10 of its budget on food, in poor countries this fraction can be more than half. While American farmers are doing quite well from the change, rural small farmers can no longer afford the fertilizer or seeds to plant more, and can't get good credit to cover their needs.

When the destitute poor are starving, they riot. What started out as an American biofuel policy blunder has shown all of the current shortcomings of the system. With the heavily distorted trade we've made with tariffs, subsidies, and power imbalances since the Green Revolution, our system is falling apart. Now, food has been mentioned on the front page of the New York Times 4 days in a row, claims the front page of this week's Economist, and is the cause of political upheaval in almost 33 countries... The issue is bringing light to the facts: factory farming is not sustainable, actively destructive to the soil and water, dependent on water and cheap fossil fuel inputs, and requires large technology investments to be viable.

And it's hard to believe there's an alternative system coming that will solve it all...

Issue overview:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/19/business/worldbusiness/19palmoil.html?_r=2&emc=eta1&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11049284&errm=bf&bredirected=1


And the alternative:
http://www.organic-center.org/science.comment.php

Keep your eyes out for developments.

-Eddie