Study 3: Ecodestruction and the Right to Food: The Cases of Water ...

Starving the Future Study 3
farm agriculture and capturing state subsidies: Farm subsidies were linked to a farm's volume of
production, hence bigger farms (suitable for corporate agriculture) were heavily subsidized and became
even bigger. Moreover some 75% of total agricultural subsidies in the EU did not even go to farms, but
into storing, processing and marketing of surpluses in the hands of agribusiness. 31
In the 1970s corporate agriculture made first inroads in the Global South by way of the Green
Revolution. Both in the North and South agribusiness cooperates with groups of ex-feudalists and large
landlords remaining from medieval or colonial times. In the 1990s corporate agriculture geared up for
global takeover.
People in the North are increasingly critical of agribusiness. The quality of food is deteriorating and
some food has even become dangerous: Beef is hormone-treated or even infected with BSE, grains and
vegetables carry pesticides, the nutritious content of fruits withers away, food additives (artificial colour
and flavour) and advertising substitute for nutritional value. Inadequate food is the single most important
root cause for health problems in the North.
Corporate advertising boasts of the increasing food production under corporate agriculture and claims
that agribusiness is necessary to feed the people and in particular to feed the hungry in the South.
The eradiction of hunger and malnutrition, however, is not a question of insufficient global or national
food production. The "problem" of the big food producers and traders today is too much food, not too
little: Too much food destroys profits, with prices dropping faster than sales going up. New markets have
to be conquered for new profits. Globalisation of agribusiness is a strategy to capture or generate
markets in the South and access its natural resources. Food gluts are wellknown in the North. How
about the South? India is the country with the largest number of malnourished people: More than 350
million. India's granaries, however, have been overflowing. In 1999 yet another 25 million tons (of its
farm produce of 200 mio tons) went to the buffer stocks. At the same time the poor are too poor to even
buy the subsidized food of the public distribution system.
Subsaharan Africa is the other hunger-prone subcontinent, and increasingly so. Its farmers (many if not
most of them women) face an uphill battle against urban-biased policies that strongly discriminate small
farmer agriculture. The region has abundant agricultural resources (with few exceptions, e.g. the Sahel).
Insufficient agricultural techniques provide a great scope for improvement and for ample production
once proper agrarian policies and extension services for small farmers are available.
There are some 800 million hungry people in the world. Who are they? To give a rough estimate: Some
300 million of them are small farmers, 200 million landless agricultural workers, 200 million urban
unemployed, and 100 million rural non-agriculturalists (village artisans etc.). 32 Among these
malnourished groups, women are particularly badly affected.
Why are these people hungry? They are hungry because they are deprived of land, or of inputs and
other resources to grow their food or because they cannot buy food for lack of money. In order to
overcome hunger and malnutrition people have to be provided with access to productive resources to
grow their food, or with employment, with minimum wages, with a basic income. The market offers no
magic to transport corporate food to people who cannot buy it.
Agribusiness offers no solution, but is part of the problem: Corporate agriculture provides no land to the
poor, but takes it away. Small farmers cannot participate in capital intensive corporate agriculture for
lack of funds: They have to take on heavy debts, become even more vulnerable and lose the little land
they have. Moreover corporate agriculture offers hardly any employment, but tries to cut labour cost.
How about population growth? More people will mean a larger need for food in future. Will the
increasing yields of corporate agriculture (including GMOs 33) be necessary? Increasing yields will
certainly be necessary, but where and by whom? The "middle scenario" of the UN predicts for 2075 a
stable global population of 12 billion. Most of the population growth will take place in the South, and
there among the poor. This means that we deal with a poverty problem that cannot be overcome by
global food production and markets, unless this production takes place by the poor masses themselves,
FIAN International 132
June 2002