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If we produce enough food to feed everyone in the world, why don't we? by aquariusamy |
postings
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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Currently video only.
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by Dedi Baron | 0 votes |
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Dedi Baron: Answertext will be available soon. by Dedi Baron |
Donato Bayu Bay Bumacas: God gave each and every one of us the rights to have enough food in this world, but the problem is only few controls the world resources. 75% of the world resources are being controlled by few people, and this greediness is the hindrance to produce food for everybody to give decent life for everybody. And, therefore, I think this question should be asked and directed towards those people who are controlling the 75% of the world resources in such a way that they should look into sharing this resource that they have to everybody and that I think is what God planned for us to create the world in such a way that everybody will benefit. And, I think that’s the beauty of having each and everybody in this world to have access for food. So, if the question is, can we produce? Yes, we can produce food. |
Dritëro Kasapi: Hello, Amy. I think part of why is greed. I think it is part of why we don’t give food to the whole world because we can produce it in the western hemisphere. This way we can produce enough food to distribute it, but I think it’s greed. But the other part is that even if we do it I don’t think it doesn’t solve the problem. I think if we eventually go back to the point where we have to ask ourselves, “Is it better to give someone a fish or enable someone to catch a fish?” I think that’s the responsibility and duty and obligation of the rich hemisphere of the world is to create ways for the poor part of the world to be self-sustained and produce its own food. In that way, I think we have a long-term solution to poverty, and I don’t think distributing food to the whole world is a long-term solution. I think it is a short-term solution; we should do it to avoid catastrophes, to avoid situations like Biafra, like Somalia, like Ethiopia, like Sudan where people die of hunger and thirst. We should be able to do that very fast, faster than we do it now but also we should work very, very strongly into creating circumstances for these countries in this part of the world to create their own food because the resources are there, the capacity within the country is there. It’s just actually, I feel for us in the rich world is just to do the right thing is to give what we have basically taken away. That's it, I think. |
Eliane Potiguara: We really have a lot of food in the world. Nevertheless, making profits has been the most important factor in the globalizing, capitalist society. When food is produced, they don’t think about feeding the starving, they think about making more and more and more profits. The human being has never been the target, the oppressed one has never been questioned. Profit and what we can do with profit is the most important. Then, until the governments don’t decide whom they should help, and with whom they should solidarize, we will never have politics of feeding poor people in the world and mainly for our indigenous people. We have a lot of food, but many times this food can’t reach, for instance, a community. We have lots of seeds, but we don’t have how to keep them safe from insects, for example, so that these seeds can preserve their room temperature. Then, there are no mechanisms of deployment and feeding production, because there’s no interest in people and consumers themselves to produce their own food. And the poor population of the world must submit itself to the industrial food, to the food imposed by the government. That’s why we can’t create our own food nor get a healthy one. And we observe that all this food which is put in the world is not healthy. This food is full of agrotoxin, full of poison, full of hormones, full of disinfectants, which is not healthy for us. Us, indigenous people. We want healthy food. |
Eliot Weinberger: Well, it’s an absolute scandal that you and I come from a country where we pay farmers not to farm, where we routinely destroy crops, destroy harvests when in fact – when you have so many people in the world who are hungry. Obviously, in an ideal word, we would start reconsidering our priorities and start exporting butter instead of guns in the traditional formula, the billions of dollars that we give in military aid should obviously be aid to feed the hungry. And I think it’s a – it’s one of those cases where once you start asking the question, it has the effect of having people begin to think about these answers. |
Elisabet Sahtouris: Thank you, Amy from Chicago for your question about why we are not feeding everyone if we're producing enough food to do so. It is true that the United Nations periodically tells us that we are growing enough food to feed every man, woman, and child on the planet an adequate diet. The reason that we don’t do so of course, is that land is owned mostly, privately and on that private land corporations can grow food, employ people to grow food and sometimes the very people who grow the food aren’t permitted to eat it. So, it traces to an economic system that doesn’t work to feed everyone. I am an Evolution Biologist and I, in terms of evolving living systems and one of the most highly evolved one on our planet is our own bodies made of a hundred trillion cells in working cooperation. Now, if you try to do global economics in your body, the way we are doing them in the world, it might look something like this. We will call that northern industrial organs those north of the diaphragm, the heart lung system and give them the power of ownership over the rest of the body so that they can exploit the raw material blood cells that are actually formed in bones all over the body and bring those raw materials up to the heart lung system, process the blood, add oxygen, purify it and then the heart distribution center might say, the body price for blood is so much today. Who will buy? And so the heart would ship the blood only to the organs that could afford it. Now, you can see right away that our bodies wouldn’t [clusterate] on into that system and the poor bones who had produced the raw material blood cells that had been mined by the northern industrial organs might not be able to afford the finished blood. So, by looking at highly evolved natural living systems, we can see what’s wrong with our own world economy. And of course, there is a relationship between bodies, individuals, families, communities, nations, and the world every level is a living system and every level must function like a healthy living system if it’s going to be healthy itself. We have a World Trade Organization trying to run the world sometimes at the expense of local economies, that can’t work. It would be like trying to run your body at the expense of its cells. So, if we study living systems, we can see the answer to the problem. We need more equitable economics in our world. |
Ervin Laszlo: Not only do we produce enough food to feed everyone in the world, we produce more. There is an excess that’s being destroyed and there is an excess that is being wasted. The problem is not production, the problem is distribution and the problem is access. On the people whose money have access to food and people with much money waste a great deal of it. Poor people don’t have access and they go hungry. by Ervin Laszlo |
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