The
World Bank has issued a global hunger warning after food prices soared by 10%
in a single month from June to July. But this is disingenuous to say the least
since the agency’s own policies backing corporate greed, are major contributors
to hunger.
Maize
and soybeans reached all time peaks due to an unprecedented summer of droughts
and high temperatures in the United States
and Eastern Europe , according to the World Bank’s
latest food price watch report.
From
June to July, maize and wheat rose by 25% and soybeans by 17%. The lives of
millions of people are threatened, particularly in Africa and the Middle East . For example maize prices rose 113% in Mozambique in July and sorghum by 220% in South Sudan .
Drought
in the US
damaged crops of maize and soybeans, for which it is the world’s largest
exporter. The dry summer in the Russian
Federation , Ukraine ,
and Kazakhstan
reduced the productivity of wheat.
“We
cannot allow these historic price hikes to turn into a lifetime of perils as
families take their children out of school and eat less nutritious food to
compensate for the high prices,” said World Bank Group president Jim Yong Kim.
“Countries must strengthen their targeted programmes to ease the pressure on
the most vulnerable population, and implement the right policies.”
But this
is hypocritical since the Bank’s own policies, supporting the requirements of
the corporations and the rest of the global élite, are major contributors to
hunger.
For
example, the global land grab is entirely endorsed by the agency’s free market approach.
Instead of bringing in rules to end this new brutal colonialism, the Bank and
the UN developed a code of practice to facilitate it.
Governments
are supported to treat traditional lands as state land with the right to sell
it off to the highest bidder. Their own people are driven off to work for low
wages from the new masters or to join the populations in the slums and barrios
of the cities.
The
mono-crops grown for export, using large quantities of water and fertilizer
have negative effects on local markets. Water is being pumped to support the
new large-scale agri-businesses, leaving family allotments, often planted by
women, without adequate supply. And when the land is bled dry – literally – the
land grabbers will move on, using investment funds from corporations like
Goldman Sachs, to buy cheap somewhere else.
So far over 83 million hectares of land have been part
of the global rush for land - 56.2 million hectares in Africa ,
5% of the continent’s total agricultural land. Worldwide, 20 million hectares of land are growing crops to feed people who
live a thousand miles away or more. And of course these intensive farming
methods, clearing scrub land and pumping it full of fertiliser only serve to
add to greenhouse gas emissions.
The
World Bank’s much-vaunted focus on developing drought-resistant grains is all
about profit – these will be grown on grabbed land and then exported to feed
the beef that ends up in globo-burgers, or to burn up as bio-diesel.
La Via Campesina, the global movement of
peasant farmers, sums it up by saying that the so-called agrarian reform
supported by institutions like the World Bank, is all about sustaining
capitalism:
“Because
of the global crises, taking control of the earth’s remaining resources – land,
water, forests, biodiversity – has become crucial to the survival of
capitalism and the corporations. At the recently concluded Earth Summit in
Rio de Janeiro , Brazil
Ending
hunger means returning the land to the people to work in ways that mitigate the
impacts of climate change that are now unavoidable. That would certainly
involve abolishing capitalist agencies like the World Bank in favour of democratic local, regional, national and
international assemblies. Scientists could then help the majority develop ways
to maintain themselves by sustaining the eco-systems they are a part of.
Penny
Cole
Environment
editor
No comments:
Post a Comment