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If we produce enough food to feed everyone in the world, why don't we? by aquariusamy |
postings
Andries Botha: It would seem to me that food production is simply an economic vector. Food is a marketable commodity, not a human essentiality. Not only don’t we feed people, but when we do feed them, we overfeed them. I am not exactly sure how to answer that properly. I guess we don’t feed enough people in the world because the impact of people’s hunger never seems to touch those who are well fed. The hungry -- those who are well fed never understand what it feels like to be hungry. I suppose if we were able to work on that, the urgency to distribute food around the world would become more urgent. We need to understand about the nature of our surplus in order to understand the politics of deprivation. |
Angaangaq Lyberth: Here we are again in terms of being able to feed the world. It is true, maybe, that we feed enough food to feed everyone but we don’t distribute the food that we produce. Everything is based on being able to sell it. And the governments do not allow to sell it if they don’t get the money. So all that extra productions goes to waste and do not arrive into the homes who need it most. And thus we have so many thousands and thousands of young people, children actually, who die of starvation every single day. Every single year. So what did we do? Nothing, really. We have excesses beyond belief in North America and Europe and other parts of the world whereas we have tremendous needs everywhere else. So where is the equality of those food we produce? Yes, the Earth has enough food but the man needs to be able to distribute it equally to everyone. And if he doesn’t do it, yes, we see the results. Right now in Darfur, in Sudan, look at the starvation, and many other parts of Africa. And look at the excesses I have witnessed here in Germany in the last few days. Food unlimited to be eaten by those who stay in hotels. Far beyond the capacity of the stomach or the need of the body. Still today thousands of people will starve to death. Isn't it sad, Amy? For me it is so. |
Anthony Arnove: I think discussion gets at the heart of what is the matter with capitalism in the world today. That the question of food is a question not of human need in our world, but it's a question of profit. It's a question of how companies, how corporations can make money from the distribution and sale and production of food, and we routinely confront the fact that in our world there's more than enough food to feed everyone in the world adequately; to house and clothe everyone in the world; to eliminate diseases of poverty that kill hundreds of thousands and millions, in fact, of people every year and that limit and stunt the growth and life of so many people beyond that. And we find that the reason that these ills are not dealt with, the reason these basic needs are not met, is that it's not profitable to do so. Corporations would rather warehouse goods than distribute them under conditions where distribution of food, distribution of other basic services would cut into their profit margin, or cut into their ability to make money. And the decisions in our society are made on that basis; the basis of profit, the basis of short-term profit regardless of the economic; regardless of the human; regardless of the social; regardless of the environmental consequences. It's not a question of individual will. It's a question of a basic framework of economic distribution and decision making, which is now a global system that's in place and it's threatening the sustainability of the planet, and which every day is leading to growing inequality and is leading to millions of people going without food, going hungry, when there's absolutely no need to do so. And I think really this exposes so much about what is wrong with capitalism, with the system of profit making, rather than making decisions based on human need, cooperation, democratic sharing, taking care of the needs of people, the basic fundamental human needs. And indeed, I think we have to be clear that the right to food is a fundamental, basic human right that has to be fought for today. |
Anuradha Koirala: If you stop producing arms and ammunition and stockpiles, we will be able to feed everyone in the world. |
Anuradha Mittal: Well, it is true that we produce enough food to feed everyone in the world. We produce enough food to be able to provide over 2,720 kilocalories per person per day around the world; it is enough to make each one of us fat. And yet, despite the amount of food we have hunger, growing hunger in this world where over 858 million people are considered chronically malnourished. And the reason for that is because it’s not the shortage of food production; it’s the shortage of purchasing power. I could ask the question, why do people in the United States have to make the choice of putting food on the table or having a roof over their head? It’s the absence of lowing weight jobs, or one could look at the Third World country like Brazil, which produces enough food that it could feed the world and yet 40,000 people die each year from hunger related diseases. So, the answer to “Why do we still have hunger in the world of plenty” is really because of inequities. It really is about the need for land reform; it is about farmer’s rights to seeds; it’s about seeing food and agriculture as about feeding our communities instead of seeing food and agriculture as about trade-in commodities. And as long as we see food as something to do traded, we will see these inequities. We will see children around the world going to bed hungry. |
Ashok Gangadean: Again, to follow-up with the previous question, our cultures are dominated by powerful egocentric forces that go against the global wisdom that have taught us to cross into a more integral holistic whole systems approach. An egocentric cultures and economics and productivity tend to be myopic and fragmented and not tend to the whole, the welfare and well being of the whole. So, we get gross distortions. So, we might find certain cultures, certain economics, overproducing great amounts of resources and food in particular, while other cultures, other people in the world are in starvation and poverty and in inequity. This is because the consciousness that dominates our productivity and production in market economies is not the integral whole systems consciousness that’s grounded in the wisdom -- collective wisdom of the planet, which comes out of connectivity and mutual care and tending to the welfare of the whole. So, we are going to find deep distortions and inequities to the extent that our economies and ways of life are governed and dominated by egocentric patterns that do not and cannot tend to the whole picture. And, to the extent that we can really cross into a more awakened culture in which we tend to the welfare of the whole, in that kind of economy, that kind of productivity, we will tend to the poverty and the starvation and the hunger and the imbalances and the distribution of our resources and productions. And in that kind of economic marketplace and culture, all people will be cared for and there will no longer be starvation and there will be a proper distribution of wealth, productivity and all of our resources in a shared way as one human family on this planet. |
Audrey Kitagawa: Lack of food, lack of access to resources really, ultimately, are, is a political issue, a political question. We do have sufficient capability and capacity to feed everyone in the world. But it's really the politics of the country as well as the market that dictates ultimately food distribution and the processes of that distribution. So we have to look at ultimately the entire geopolitical as well as economic structure that we currently exist under in the world to see how we can have disproportionate populations that on the one hand spend billions of dollars trying to lose weight, reduce obesity, while on the other hand, you have greater numbers of people who are starving, who are malnourished, and children who are dying from lack of proper nutrition. So it's not a matter of capacity to feed everyone. We have that capacity. It's a matter of politics, and it's a matter of the current economic structure under which we live. |
Benjamin Fahrer: We do produce enough food in the world to feed everyone. It is a political reason why we don’t distribute it. And there’s many diversity of reasons, if their political reason for those who produce are strategic to whom they ate and how? But we must also look at how this food is produced with a multinational corporation that want to be in control. And they are at the helm, and the interest is in the bottom line not in the common good, nor in saving life, nor the planet. We are a global nation that can produce food in a very responsible and localized way. But in order to do so, it uses huge corporations, must allow for local people, the local people to grow their own food, and not privatized or control, to control their lands that which is theirs. They have no reason to control their lands and most of this land is being used to grow export crops of high value to bring the country out of its increasing debt that it is in because of this privatization. If we will return the power back to the indigenous people of the land to grow their own food, and power them with the right seeds and the right information, because there is a need to remember the techniques and the ways in which to grow the food, for we have seen a loss in this information in this knowledge because of the privatization, because of the control over the land and the property. We need to design ethically responsible systems that hold ethics and practices that will create an abundance of food. This is a very simple thing; it's cutting edge of 10,000 year technology, to be good land stewards and indigenous people of this world have that information and they know. We need to listen and be receptive. |
Benson Venegas: OK. The first- I think the first question we need to make up to ourselves is what food mean for us. Food is a very strong and deep concept that’s not only imply what to take to your mouth, it’s also implies your soul, your mind. So, from that perspective I think there is where we have a big problem in the world. Because food, as [though] we think about it, [inaudible] becoming to be a selling - as a commodity. For instance, some governments consider that for you as a citizen to be able to have your food security, you need to have money in your pocket. And then decision has been made where small-scale farmers, agricultural, in their countries, are disappear out of the production system. So, the point here is that maybe we need to reconsider our concept of food and the way food is distributed. So, just to give an example: if we eat less meat, probably there would be more grain to feed more people. And probably there would be more land to produce more food. So this dimension, of what we’re talking about food, is just a way that we really need to review the ethics around food production and I consider we have the capacity to produce the food that can feed all the people in the world. But we have to make major decisions to be able to do so. Thank you. |
Beverly Schwartz: Economically there are disadvantages to transporting food and giving food. Most food is done to sustain people in the rural areas, but in the other areas where many people live, it is a commodity and it could be a problem of a capitalist or a non-democratic society in taking food for those who can pay for it. I think it's very tied in to a value system where we value more what we trade food for, be it money or goods, then how we value human life. And I think somehow our values are misplaced in that we would rather people starve and let food go waste, then give it to people who could use it. And so the system of growing food and transporting food and giving food and cooking food all gets mixed up with bartering for goods and services, for money; and somehow, somewhere, people start changing that system in places around the world, and maybe we need to do a values-based food economy versus a food economy in a growing economy based on the things you can buy for the food you grow and the food you sell. |
Currently video only.
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by Bianca Jagger | 1 vote | 
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Bianca Jagger: Answertext will be available soon. |
Bill Joy: There are many reasons why people go hungry even though there is food, enough food in the world to feed them. I think the first reason is economic, that the food is in areas and need to be transported to regions where people don’t have the money to buy the food. And for whatever reason, factors like climate change or war, the food isn’t being produced locally. So it’s both an economic problem and a distribution problem. But the larger reason is just I think a lack of will. We haven’t made the decision that it’s unacceptable for people to go hungry. And if we made that decision then we could find an even modest amount of resources to provide people the know-how to grow crops that would be drought tolerant in the regions where there are drought, and make the regions of the world not dependent on exports but much more self-sufficient, dealing with problems like water and the soils and finding appropriate local agriculture. So we can hope in this century that we find the collective will. It would be a strong force for peace for people to feel secure in their food. And it wouldn’t cost us very much at all and that would be a wonderful thing to happen. by Bill Joy |
Bora Cosic: Since you Amy Johnson, are asking this question from U.S.A., you will have to answer your self’s why do you do that. by Bora Cosic |
Brian J. Weller: Well, I think the reason we don’t do that is because what we have is a very iniquitous, unbalanced idea about the notion of food. If you think about it, centralized mass agriculture, these conglomerates, have overridden nature’s locally-rooted and sustainable processes. This is best exemplified in monoculture. I think monoculture is the curse of our modern times. It takes a lot of energy and it’s very unsustainable. So much of what we call modern agriculture is using vast amounts of energy particularly in the transportation of food around the world. So, these imbalances only serve to feed the “haves” who can pay by creating these huge surpluses. I think to feed the world we must create new rules of trade that recognize that food production should be for and by local communities. They should be really at the top of the hierarchy of values in agriculture. We have to return to the local; local self-reliance, diversity of seed stocks rather than patenting seed stocks, which I believe is a very bad idea. We need to return to safe foods and I believe all of this is a basic right. Shorter trade distances. So, getting back to the local is the theme, I believe, that we have to explore here and I believe that day is coming and there are now about 105 communities around the world moving in the direction of economic localization. One other aspect of food, so much of the food we call “food” is actually junk food. Junk food, again, is a curse of modern times. Think about it, “junk food gives rise to a junk brain” and this is self-evident when we see the health of our children being compromised. So feeding the world, we have to get back to growing food where we live, in balance with our local geography, our local climate and our local tastes. I believe that is the way forward towards a true diversity and feeding the world. |
Catherine David: This is a question for Susan Georges. |
China Keitetsi: I think the rich countries have forgotten Africa. And the human beings are becoming more of me, me, me, and we forget that the other person is hungry. I think if you're hungry, then you'll know that the other person is hungry. But if you are full it's difficult to know that the other person is hungry. For me, it was amazing, for example, when I was in America, so much waste of food. So much food, yet in Africa people are dying of hunger. Yet in Africa, there are women sitting and looking at their children die. Yet in many countries in Europe or in all those rich countries, nearly the food which could even feed many countries in the poor countries are thrown away. They become waste. I think it's not a question of we have not enough food, but we can also take the chance or opportunity and try to teach the other African people, the poor country, how to plant and how to produce food. Then we having to feed them because it's not really helping if you have to feed me and feed me all the time. I think you should teach me how to fish so I can depend on myself and not depend always on you feeding me. And it's very sad. It's very sad to see how much food is wasted and how much is produced, only a few countries. Yet millions of children and women are starving to death. |
Constantin von Barloewen: The food industry today is essentially also an agribusiness and we know how much the agricultural exports from the so called peripheral states, I'm thinking of Brazil, of India, of Africa, too, how much agribusiness nowadays depends on the import quota of the European Union and of America, how firmly the industrial states insist on only reducing agricultural aids if they see a possibility to export industrial goods. We do have enough possibilities to distribute foodstuff, this is a question of the principles of distribution, which are unfair, and not a question of the mere quantity of foodstuff available in the world. We need to think again, as a matter of principle, so that the states of the so called first world show more responsibility and cooperation towards agribusiness, I'm thinking of India. In India, 47% of the population still suffer from malnutrition and this in a state with an economic volume of 3.2 trillions of dollars. At the same time, India is the biggest importer of weapon technology from the western world. As we can see, it is a question of preference, not of the quantity of foodstuff, a question of political preference to distribute foodstuff in a better way and not just to invest in technology and weapon industry. Food could be distributed, there is a problem of distribution between the states of the first world and the so called peripheral states, which is absolutely inequal and so far has been solved irresponsibly. We can only ask that the World Trade Organization, WTO, and the APEC states and the states of Africa, Latin America, Europe and North America solve this problem of distribution in a different way. So far they have failed. As I said, this is not a question of the combined quantity of foodstuff in the world, but exclusively a question of the preferences of distribution. |
Cornel West: We certainly produce enough food to feed every precious human being on this globe. But, we have an economic system which puts a premium on profits, efficiency tag to the augmenting of those profits rather than a satisfaction of the needs of everyday people. Corporate globalization puts a premium on not just profits but on greed, generates lifestyles that reinforce the obscene inegalitarian distribution of food and other very precious goods and services that human beings need in order to survive with dignity. So, with so many ways it’s a matter of power. It’s a matter of institutional and structural power that makes it difficult for billions of precious fellow human beings on this globe not to have access to something as basic as food or water. So, the question of why it is we have enough food to feed everybody but don’t is a political question, it’s a moral question and has everything to do with the economic organization of capital and capitalism and we are here to radically call that inegalitarian distribution of power into question. by Cornel West |
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by Dedi Baron | 0 votes |
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Dedi Baron: Answertext will be available soon. by Dedi Baron |
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