UN and Agriculture

Written - June 7, 2008

This week the United Nations announced that agriculture was in crisis and to avert starvation for the worlds poor, food production increases and trade systems integration need to be better supported by global funds and strategy. Unfortunately, the UN missed the point. Agriculture is in crisis because of demands for increases in production by a centralized system. Moreover, the starvation of the poor has more to do with consumption by the rich than with lack of local food in the affected countries.

The UN suggested that decreasing barriers to trade such as agricultural subsidies and tariffs would facilitate better international trade in food stuffs, however, there are few instances where reducing barriers to trade have helped poor people – rather they defeat the ability to maintain any form of a local or regional economy and are replaced by global corporations with no responsibility except to rich shareholders. It should be no surprise that corporations in rich Western countries are the primary advocates of this solution.

Further, the ability to increase agricultural production is a myth. Whether its topsoil loss, freshwater contamination/loss, oil depletion or increasing agricultural fragility because of monoculture cropping – farming is at a maximum on the most productive land in the world. Well, that is not entirely true, 10% of arable land in the US has been paved over by cities. However, developing the world’s remaining land for agriculture means destroying the last areas of biodiversity for generally unproductive land, an option that is ludicrous for several reasons.

This is not to be callous to the poor and starving, indeed starvation is one of the most appalling realities of global capitalism, or rather ‘globalization.’ However, in order to do something effective about this requires a real awakening and commitment on from the North and West. Poor people exist because we over consume and demand cheap products/foods from our leaders, be they government or corporate (assuming there is a difference). In order to really help the global poor - over 2 billion people - we need to stop taking their resources at ridiculously cheap prices and stop supporting the companies that do so, whether through stocks or purchases. The agricultural crisis doesn’t have a technical fix – it requires a cultural fix.