Going global

The focus of this blog is really how I try and approach food and information about food, and how we can all find our path in this mess of misinformation and lack of disinterestedness all the way up the chain. But once in a while I think it's important to recognize just how relevant food policies are to the world, and how people who can't afford computers to read a blog like this and certainly don't consider shopping at Whole Foods, are often the most devastated by food policies. (Of course the poor are generally the most vulnerable to any policy shifts.)

Bangladeshi Nobel prize winner, professor and micro-finance inventor Muhammad Yunus has written about international food policies and their impact on the poor in less countries. What is happening is incredibly tragic. Food prices are going through the roof. As we focused our attention on a worldwide financial crisis, an equally or more dangerous food crisis was occuring. Wheat prices increased 200% in 8 years and many other staples were close behind. It is not unusual for the poor in developing countries to spend as much as two-thirds of their income on food. (As I've discussed before, Americans spend under 10% on food.) Increased oil prices leads to more expensive fertilizer. Changes in trade policies can result in the flooding of markets by foreign produce. Policies favoring ethanol and the like make less room for edible crops driving up the prices of crops like corn -- as even if the type of corn used for ethanol is essentially inedible for humans, it is taking up space that was otherwise used for edible crops. The grain used to full an SUV's tank could feed one person for a full year. And of course meat consumption has increased as billions of people have gotten a bit richer year after year. Animals are an inefficient form of food as it takes thousands of pounds of food to make a couple hundred pound cow. (Some estimates claim 1/3 of all grain production and 1/3 of all fish catch globally is used to feed livestock.) At the same time as billions eat more meat, the bottom few billion are increasingly vulnerable to huger and malnutrition.

Further, small scale farming is simply being unsustainable in these area, largely due to the influence of multinational corporations and countries such as the United States. When international loans are made or aid is given, it often comes with conditions. Such conditions would not uncommonly require the opening up of markets, particularly agricultural markets. Multinational corporations have also attempted push farmers towards seeds and planting that requires fertilizers and pesticides, while the supplies of such products increase. Fertilizer has increased in price by approx. 150% over the last 5 years alone according to the World Bank. Small farmers are also increasingly unable to compete with large-scale operations, often partially foreign owned.

Farming has become so difficult that one study indicates over 25,000 farmers committed suicide in India alone in the year 2007. Just consider that for a moment. After all, farming is one of the oldest professionals on earth, and one of the few that can truly lead one to be self-sustaining.

And global warming (or just current climatic shifts if you're a Glenn Beck fan) just makes everything worse. More and more certain crops sensitive to sun, rain, and otherwise are having terrible seasons around the globe. Changes in temperature and damage caused by drought and deforestation is estimated to turn an area the equivalent of the Ukraine from farmable to unfarmable land every year. Pesticide resistant bugs are further concern, as is the impact on third-world countries from genetically modified organisms -- such as GM corn, soy, wheat and rice. (I have discussed that more in depth here.)

So where does this leave us? Depressed, I suppose. But beyond that it leaves me further convinced that food matters. Food choices and food policies are really the stuff of life. When we give aid to Pakistan and add some language about trade that could impact their agriculture, perhaps we should be more skeptical of how great this will be for both the Pakistani people and our farmers. And certainly companies like Monsanto need to be kept in check. Their ties to the highest levels of the U.S. government (luckily less so under Obama) run deep, and their international and legal influence is massive. They will, in searching for further profits, literally be resposible for the death of millions (god forbid billions) of people if we continue down our current path. To that end, pesiticides and fertilizer for more dense farming are not the answer. And while it is possible that GM crops hold some promise where a simple change in a rice gene could cure a disease affecting millions of people (and I don't want to jump on organizations like the Gates Foundation for pursuing their use), the current risks far outway any possible gains.

So if nothing else, I can go to bed thankful that the most I have to worry about on a daily basis is whether my plum is organic and if my beef came from an industrialized farm.