Politics of Hunger

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Politics of Hunger

• PAN Asia and Pacific
• For the World Foodless Day

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World Food Crisis

• Wheat has increased by 130 over the last year
• The price of Rice has doubled in the last few
  months of 2008
• Cost of all other food items including meat,
  vegetables, fruits, dairy, cooking oil have
  increased tremendously
• Impact
• Food riots in many developing countries
• Grain exporting countries are closing their
  borders
• Importing countries are panic buying and
• Around 290 million people are losing their
  livelihoods

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Who has profited from this crisis?
The worlds largest grain traders
Source Making a killing from hunger, GRAIN,
2008
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Who has profitted

• Every corporation in the global food chain is
  making a killing
• On 14 April 2008, Cargill announced that its
  profits from commodity trading for the first
  quarter of 2008 were 86 higher than the same
  period in 2007
• Thailands Charoen Pokphand Foods is forecasting
  revenue growth of 237 this year.
• UK supermarket Tesco reports profits up 12.3
  from last year, a record rise.
• Syngenta saw profits rise 28 in the first
  quarter of 2008.

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What the policy-makers are saying is causing the
crisis

• Drought and other problems affecting production
  and harvest
• People in India and China are consuming more
  meats and eggs
• Crop lands have been diverted into biofuel
  production and other uses
• Increasing oil prices

• These are CONTRIBUTING FACTORS BUT DO NOT ACCOUNT
  FOR THE FULL PROBLEM

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BUT Is there a REAL Food Shortage?

• Farmers across the world produced 2.3 billion
  tons of grain in 2007, up 4 percent on the
  previous year.
• Since 1961 cereal production has tripled but
  population has doubled
• Looking at actual consumption in 2007
• consumption of rice was a little below production
• consumption of meat and oilseeds remained well
  below production, and
• consumption of dairy remained stable against
  increasing production.
• But only in wheat, corn and other coarse grains
  consumption outpaced production, although similar
  thing already happened in 2004 and other years.
  Stocks are low but there is enough produced in
  the world to feed the population
• Source Making a killing from hunger, GRAIN,
  2008

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So if the World Food Crisis is not a problem of
food production then what is causing the problem
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The Real Causes

• Price Speculation
• Imperialist Globalisation process
• Colonisation
• Development Era
• - In 1980s the Structural Adjustments
  Programmes of World Bank/International Monetary
  Fund and other International Financial
  Institutions intensified the globalization
  process through liberalisation and lowered
  government spending on public services, i.e.
  health, agriculture and educational services
• - In 1970s the Green revolution indirectly
  opened the markets for the inputs industry in the
  food and agriculture

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Price speculation

• Hallmarks of capitalist exploitation.
• Billions of dollars are being poured in as hot
  money into food commodities to escape sliding
  stock markets and the credit crunch.
• Based on estimates, investment funds now control
  up to 60 of the wheat traded on the worlds
  biggest commodity markets.
• According to the Globe and Mail, a Toronto-based
  publication, the amount of speculative money in
  commodities futures has ballooned from US5
  billion in 2000 to US175 billion to 2007.(1)

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Globalization is a Process

• The first wave was the colonialism period with
  control over land and governance. In many
  countries the land conversion saw the emergence
  of corporate agriculture with development of
  plantations.
• Use of Immigrant labour classic examples are
  Sri Lanka with tea plantations and Malaysia with
  rubber plantations.
• Women brought to create permanent labour force of
  man patriarchal notions.
• Use of women as reserve labour force became
  weeders, pickers, cheap form of labour with
  unequal wages capital and patriarchal value
  base of female labour.

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Second phase Post second world war/ Independence
The Development Era

• Development of the Green Revolution corporate
  agriculture takes root in farms with introduction
  of machines and hazardous technologies
• Emergence of displacement of labour, high
  internal migration with high unemployment.
• Increase in women pesticide sprayers and women
  agriculture workers exposed to pesticides, low
  wages and heavy work.
• Development of contractual/ informal labour

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Green revolution and hunger

• Production increased in rice and wheat but only
  for short time.
• Chemical used degraded the land, poisoned the
  water sources and poisoned thousands of farmers
  and destroyed diverse food sources in the fields
  turned saline,
• Ground water levels dropped due to overuse of
  water,
• Soil fertility declined
• Small farmers and workers were facing increasing
  hunger and landlessness

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Third Phase Globalization with Trade as Focus
and Determinant for Liberalization

• Formation of World Trade Organization (WTO).
• Integration into global market opening of
  markets for trade.
• Deregulation processes to induce liberalization
  into trade and investment.
• Restructuring of economies to meet trade
  conditions.
• Changing face of production goals no more for
  local market and consumption.
• PRIVATISATION
• Technological growth especially information
  technology

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Globalisation corporatisation of food and
agriculture

• GLOBALISATION including WTO
• Increase Cash Crop Production and Less Food Crop
  Production
• Increasing corporate agriculture including
  contract farming loss of access and control of
  land and productive resources including seeds,
  cash cropping, export oriented crops
• Increase monopoly control of Agrochemical TNCs
  through inputs pesticides, GE, seeds
  intensified through IPRs and control of chain of
  production from farm to table

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• Collusion of our elites and landlords corrupt
  politicians, government bureaucrats and local
  industries supporting of these developments for
  their own benefits
• The lack of peoples participation in decision
  making in food and agriculture policies
• Flooding of subsidized agricultural products from
  foreign markets or dumping

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Corporate Agriculture

• In Pakistan
• Corporate Agriculture Farming (CAF) no land
  ceiling
• Labour laws not applicable
• No duty for importation of machinery and
  equipemnt
• State land leased for 50 years extended for
  another 49 years
• Du Pont, Monsanto, Novartis, Pioneer Group,
  AgriVo, and ICI (seeds, pesticides)
• Malaysia Northern Corrider Economic Region -
  expansion of oil palm plantations and hybrid
  seeds
• India contract farming (Andhra, Punjab,
  Gujarat)

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GLOBALISATION

• Crucial to recognize that globalization is NOT
  incidental. It is planned and designed at every
  stage for control, power and dominance.
• Today it is very vile and arrogant with absolute
  no concern for the human person, for the nation
  state and for rights.
• The only and ONE concern is Capital accumulation
  and profit of transnational corporations (TNCs)
  and the developed nations.

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Monopoly control of food and agriculture by TNCs
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Market concentration 1994-2003 in the pesticide
industry
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(No Transcript)
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So what do they control?

• Total pesticide sales in 2006 ? US30.4
  billion? 85 by big six
• Total GE seeds sales in 2006 ? US6 billion ?
  97 by big 3(6)? Monsanto (1), DuPont,
  Syngenta? Over 57 are herbicide tolerant
• Control of the crop Genome-
• ? Rice genome controlled by Syngenta

• Total seeds sales in 2005
• US 21 billion
• 10 companies control 50 worlds commercial seed
  sales.
• Monsanto, Dupont, Syngenta lead the pack.

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It is clear that these policies are benefiting
the TNCs But how have these policies affected
the small producers and consumers
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Of the millions of the hungry worldwide, 80 are
small scale farmers and the landless and the rest
are the urban poor
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FARM CRISIS PEASANT INDEBTEDNESS

• In India, farmer suicides are increasing yearly
• In Thailand, the proportion of farming houesehold
  debt rose from 46 in 1993 to 70 in 2002 and as
  a result 30 of rice farmers go hungry
• In the Philippines, agriculture is deemed
  non-lucrative as evidenced by half the rural
  families living below poverty level.

• Adivamma at the bedside of her husband Muppidi
  Marayya of Yeasaingudem village of Kattangur
  mandal as he battles for life at the Government
  Hospital in Nalgonda after consuming pesticide

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• In Punjab, the mono-cultivation of paddy-wheat
  rotation ever since the advent of the green
  revolution technology in the mid-1960s, has
  resulted in
• degradation of land, water and environment
• the sustainability of the current pattern of
  agricultural practices is now under question.
• Debt burden of the farmers

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PESTICIDE POISONINGS

• Pesticide poisoning, acute and chronic effects
  --- future generations affected
• In the South, an estimated 25 million
  agricultural workers may suffer one incident of
  pesticide poisoning each year.
• Accurate statistics on health effects of
  pesticides are not available, but estimates range
  from one million to 41 million people affected
  every year.

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Impact on the People

• South net importers of food -- Today, 70 of
  so-called developing countries are net food
  importers.
• Local food production is destroyed and local
  knowledge and skills

• Land conversion, land grabbing, bankruptcies
• Displacement
• Loss of livelihoods
• People made redundant (mass of unemployed)
• increase poverty, increase hunger and decreasing
  self worth --- leading to migration

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• Low price of farmers produce
• ?bankruptcies ? increased
• landlessness ? pushed to marginal areas or
  migrate to cities and to international
  migration ? jobless ? INCREASED
  poverty and hunger

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And yet the same solutions are being promoted
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The same solutions promoted by World Bank/IMF,
FAO and the UN Task Force will intensify food
crisis

• Increase agricultural productivity by funding
  improved seeds- hybrid and Genetically Engineered
  (GE) seeds and increase pesticide use.
• The Problem
• - These technologies build dependency of farmers
  for costly inputs.
• - There are health and environmental concerns
  about GE seeds.
• - Pesticides poison hundreds of thousands of
  people every year.
• The Reality
• The profits for increasing productivity do not
  go to the small farmers and the poor but to
  corporations, traders, and retailers
• Food and Agriculture Organisation

• Intensify the liberalistion process and eliminate
  tariffs on chemicals inputs to support
  plantations and to accelerate the WTO Doha Round
• The Problem
• - Increasing dumping of subsidised food products
  bankrupts the small producers in developing
  countries
• - Increasing promotion of corporate agriculture
  and contract farming creates monopoly control of
  food and agricultural products
• Privatisation of inputs industry and food trading
  and stocking agencies
• World Trade Organisation

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Assertion of rights and peoples solutions to the
food crisis
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Reclaiming our Rights FOOD SOVEREIGNTY AND
DEMOCRACY

• To Land and Resources
• To Adequate and Safe Food
• To secure livelihoods
• To Self Determination at the Farm Level to
  National Levels
• To Democracy
• Fair wages
• To health
• Decision making
• Ecological agriculture

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RESISTANCE to

• Control and Dominance of TNCs
• WTO and globalisation
• Feudalism
• Patriarchy
• Fundamentalism
• Casteism
• Racism
• Discrimination
• Corporate Agriculture / Contract farming
• Militarisation and State violence

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Demand CORPORATE ACCOUNTABILITY
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Support Biodiversity based Ecological Agriculture

• Ecological Agriculture has been proven and it can
  ensure food security
• Ensure community based seed and grain storage
  systems
• The International Assessment on Agricultural
  Knowledge, Science and Technology (IAASTD),
  carried out by hundreds of scientist under the UN
  banner, recently concluded that the needs of
  small scale farmers in diverse ecosystems must be
  addressed and that they should access to land and
  other resources.

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Promote the Rights, empowerment and Liberation of
Women
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People United, Will Never Be Defeated!