Massive food imports into formerly self-sufficient Third World countries has to do with neo-liberal, free trade models of growth imposed on these countries by the IMF and other financial institutions. Much of this strategy has to do with the removal of capital controls that protect the poorer economies from exchange rate instability and capital flight. By the end of the 1990s, the total foreign, dollar denominated debt of the Third World exceeded $2.5 trillion. Today it is far higher. Much of the reason is open capital markets. This has served to discipline Third World economies into adopting an economic strategy commensurate with transnational corporate profits rather than basic local development needs.

Open capital markets work differently in the US vs. the Third World. The US sells dollar denominated assets both financial and real to foreign investors allowing the US to finance a massive consumer spending boom to sustain its otherwise stagnant economy. When a Third World country opens its domestic capital markets to foreign investment it must guarantee exchange rate stability with the dollar to encourage capital flows that will not become locked into a depreciating currency. To do this massive amounts of foreign exchange must be held in local central banks to buy back local currencies on the global market to maintain stability. Accumulating such reserves in the first place requires running trade surpluses through exports, privatization of public assets like utilities, borrowing from private banks or selling government bonds whose international ratings depend on strict monetary austerity. Such financial liberalization has led to the kind of austerity that has drained capital from the Third World, created debt dependancy, led to the foreign takeover of the local productive economy and led to development strategies based on foreign capital for lack of growing internal markets constrained by poverty and stagnation.

Food self-sufficiency has suffered in the era of globalization. The dumping of subsidized food under US programs such as PL 480 has put Third World farmers out of business making the Third World dependent on US food exports. The resulting rural to urban migration creates an expanding army of surplus labor for foreign sweatshops. It is no wonder that global inequality has worsened. What is needed is a new strategy for internal development in the third world based on full employment, food self sufficiency and local human needs.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Subsidies (Korean, EU, U.S., and Chinese) are killing the ability of third world--agricultural--economies to compete. We have computer programmers subsidizing--through their taxes--millionaire farmers, who dump grains in wherever the least price will garner them a profit.

There's nothing wrong with profit mind you--however, there is something wrong with collectivism that leverages the entire economy of a superpower behind one or a few industrial agribusinessmen/women.

Third world countries can compete and their citizens can make a living growing food versus Western/Asian advanced nations...but not versus the entire nation, in the form of collectivist subsidies.

End farm subsidies, promote equality.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

about the factors that are contributing to the food crisis, as I learned in "Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism" by Ha-Joon Chang. I highly recommend this book as an argument against the last 25 years of pursuing the free trade/capitalist agenda.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

"It is a massacre of the world's poor. The problem is not the production of food. It is the economic, social and political model of the world. The capitalist model is in crisis." -Hugo Chavez

Even Oxfam has called for institutional change

Globalization and Its Discontents is a great book by Joseph Stiglitz, former chief economist at the World Bank. His newer book on the subject, which I have not read, is Making Globalization Work

30 years ago Haiti grew all the rice it needed... What happened? What happened is speculation against commodities which drive inflation up, even when supplies are at acceptable levels.

ps- The best source I know of for news from Haiti is HaitiAction.net, and you can help out here.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

The powers that be are now going to exercise their ability to starve countries into agreeing to the Doha concessions to further line the pockets of the transnational corporations.

The underlying problem is that with peak oil, food will have to be grown locally. Agreeing to Doha will only lead to a much more severe starvation later as even more local farming goes away. When the next round of food price increases hits the food disaster will be many times worse.

This is the same remedy the US is using for their trade deficit; curing the deficit with more free trade agreements. We see how that worked.

This will work about the same for the third world; creating even more reliance on imported food when reliance on imported food is causing the problem.

Example Haiti :

"Rice has been grown in Haiti for centuries, and until twenty years ago Haitian farmers produced about 170,000 tonnes of rice a year, enough to cover 95% of domestic consumption. Rice farmers received no government subsidies, but, as in every other rice-producing country at the time, their access to local markets was protected by import tariffs.

In 1995, as a condition of providing a desperately needed loan, the International Monetary Fund required Haiti to cut its tariff on imported rice from 35% to 3%, the lowest in the Caribbean. The result was a massive influx of U.S. rice that sold for half the price of Haitian-grown rice. Thousands of rice farmers lost their lands and livelihoods, and today three-quarters of the rice eaten in Haiti comes from the U.S.[6]

U.S. rice didn't take over the Haitian market because it tastes better, or because U.S. rice growers are more efficient. It won out because rice exports are heavily subsidized by the U.S. government. In 2003, U.S. rice growers received $1.7 billion in government subsidies, an average of $232 per hectare of rice grown.[7] That money, most of which went to a handful of very large landowners and agribusiness corporations, allowed U.S. exporters to sell rice at 30% to 50% below their real production costs.

In short, Haiti was forced to abandon government protection of domestic agriculture — and the U.S. then used its government protection schemes to take over the market."

Food Crisis: "The greatest demonstration of the historical failure of the capitalist model"

A great article but I disagree with the title. We don't have capitalism working here. We have crony capitalism with its subsidies, favors and closed market economics. The transnationals are using the money, power and military might of their host countries to subjugate the world markets to their control and they will stop at nothing, not even mass starvation.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

If you are sick and tired of this mess, why not give real progressives and liberals such as Ralph Nader, Cynthia McKinney, Cindy Sheehan, etc ... a chance? Voting Republican or Democrat these days is as good as saying "I want my politicians to keep ABUSING my vote." Throw out both parties and make room for non-corporate-controlled candidacies. You won't regret it. You'll just wish that you had done it earlier.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Do this exercise: watch for news items (especially the BBC, but in fact, all channels) - you will notice that they never mention the real reasons behind the food crisis: namely, farm subsidies in the wealthier countries and excessive use of land for meat production. They will, instead, make a passing mention of biofuels (which is a stupid idea to attempt in a large scale anyway), and IN THE SAME BREATH, mention increased consumption in India and China. This is a clever, but disgusting ploy. They never mention the numbers. China, for example, produces close to 90% of its grains, and India used to be self-sufficient in grain production until recently - even now the import percentage is minuscule there. Of course, if millions of people start eating two meals a day instead of one meal before, it's going to cause "increased consumption". But the per capita meat consumption in India, for example, is probably less than what's fed to a US house cat. The reason I mention meat consumption is because it's a highly inefficient form of food production - it takes far more land, water and other resources to produce a pound of flesh than to produce plant food of equivalent nutrition.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

is a result of all this Milton Freidman free trade and 'monetary policy' rubbish. Every economist for the past 40 years was educated in junk economic science....including Paul Krugman.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

These surpluses consisted mostly of cash crop exports such as coffee, cocoa, bananas, cotton, sugar and tobacco at the expense of affordable locally consumed foodstuffs and often controlled by local oligarchs or foreign multinational corporations. Critics such as Francis Moore Lappe of Food First discuss the way in which rising global beef prices in the 1960s led to massive corporate purchases of rich lands in places like Guatemala formerly used for local corn production. The land was quickly converted to cattle grazing area for beef production to be sold on world markets. Expensive imports replaced local staple crop output by village based agriculture. Corporate globalization has restructured global food markets for profit instead of human needs. There is even more hunger now than years ago when the Third World was even less integrated into the world market system.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

The best authority on this topic is not the academic agricultural scientists in the U.S. public and private university system, nor the large corporations like Monsanto and Archer Daniels Midland, nor the corporate press reports on agribusiness, nor the owned politicians from agribusiness commodity districts.

These institutions and corporations have been sponsoring a huge PR campaign for decades now, that goes under the banner of "The Green Revolution" - perhaps the world's first major greenwashing campaign, which also served as the corporate petrochemical agribusiness response to Rachel Carlson's "Silent Spring."

The story is one we've all heard - "at the end of World War II, agricultural scientists working closely with major corporations devised new and efficient methods of crop production that, in combination with improved crop strains and government support for farmers, lead to a huge increase in food production and efficiency - and that is why the world's population has increased from 2 billion to 6+ billion in only fifty years or so."

First, the primary reason for the boom in population is better medical care and hygiene - vaccines, antibiotics and sewage treatment, in other words. Look at the death statistics from 100 years ago - by far, the biggest killer was infectious disease. Just ask everyone you know - how many of you were on antibiotics at some point because of a serious infection?

Second, you can grow plenty of food without industrial chemical methods - but you do need fertilizer and water and clean soil to do so. The fertilizer can be organic, but you need it no matter what. You can make nitrogen fertilizer from natural gas and air, or you can make it from water, solar power and air.

What about the quality of the food? If the soil has lead and jet fuel residues in it, so will your food. If the water is full of PCBs, MTBE, chromium, pesticides, then you'll absorb them into your body. However, if you are stuck with seriously polluted soil, there is a whole field devoted to methods of cleaning it up. Growing biofuel crops is one method - a little jet fuel residue in a biofuel crop is no big deal.

So, who are you going to turn to for advice? Try Vananda Shiva, who will be speaking tomorrow at UC Irvine, if you happen to be in the region:

http://media-newswire.com/release_1064882.html
The increasing global unrest surrounding basic food shortages and rising food prices will be the topic of UC Irvine's Center for Global Peace & Conflict Studies' 17th Annual Margolis Lecture. Vandana Shiva, a leading physicist, ecologist, activist and author of Earth Democracy and Water Wars, will discuss proposals for overcoming the mounting international crisis through sustainable and equitable food production and land usage.

Basically, she promotes farmers growing about twelve crops, most of them for local food use, and a smaller fraction for export or trade, with strong economic and legal protections for basic food production, but no subsidies for export agribusiness, as I understand it.

That's the exact opposite of the current U.S. situation - organic farmers here get zero subsidies, meaning that they are undercut by government subsidies directly soley to export agribusiness corporations - the #1 user of underpaid & exploited illegal immigrant labor in the United States.

It's not a topic the New York Times or the Washington Post would dream of addressing, however.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

The Bilderberg Group wanted all this, they planned for it, they called for oil to hit $100.00 per barrel back in March of 2004..and they knew the ramifications of this as well as the kill off of much of the worlds poorest who they view as excess humans, even more than they need as their wages slaves in their one world, New World Order bankers fascist international oligarchy..

It's David Rockefeller's need to spread misery world wide so he and his ilk feel richer, they couldn't get any richer so it's important to make the poor poorer and suffer it's all about the misery factor...

If the average individual is happy and content with their lives while these billionaires are all collectively miserable then the only solution is to create misery destroy the middle class which they are doing vote for Wars such as their vote to attack Iran and push up oil prices as they have already done and voted to do in 2004..

So we will see the four horsemen of the Apocalypse soon riding over every hill and comin around each bend..with David Rockefeller on the lead horse..

Bush even Cheney are just puppets for these guys and all the top media moguls and big deals attend their meetings and obey every edict by this secret world government they never ever even admit exists or ever dare mention..

Feeling pain..economic insecurity..?

It's the Bilderberg Group..!

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Pursue the Bush administration beyond January 20 until they are brought to justice.

Direct Democracy

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

The people, not unpeople, like me and you, have decide that there are too many people on the planet. They refuse to change the methods that they use to do business. They know about global environmental change. They have found the solution. There is no real shortage of oil or food. It is time to cull the herds. It is time get rid of a lot of people through massive starvation. When that happens, the wealthiest will become monopolies. Countries will rebel. We will have global warfare. More than half the worlds population will be destroyed. Problems are solved. That is the green revolution. Can't you see it comming?

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

He paid the driver of the Corvair in 1967 to steer the car erratically on bias ply tires.
This is what began his career.
After radial tires were introduced the Corvair had no problem with handling, which was a good car designed to compete with the first Japanese and European economy cars hitting the US market, with a powerful engine to boot.
I believe Cindy Sheenan would be a great replacement for Pelopsi, so when other like minded Congress people are willing to impeach Bu$h & Co. Then have trial of Treason before the Hague issues War Crimes charges these Fascist's "Goon's & Thug's" will spend their life sentences at Gitmo enduring what "Enemy Combatant's" have.
Take a look at Mike Gavlin, who is a congressman from Alaska, and the only candidate willing to withdrawal from Iraq once elected.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

When America (let alone the world, anyone with an electoral voice) gets tired enough of this nonstop RIP-OFF -- special treatment paid for by the filthy rich and their monopolistic enterprises -- we will see the high and mighty brought low and the common people restored to power.

In the immortal (corporate) words of Diet Pepsi Max: "Wake up, people!" This is YOUR country, not THEIR country. They can only buy it away from us, bribe it away, if we let them.

Get people in there who will represent us, the wider populace, and will insist that our voice carries the day. We need the power to override vetoes (and restrict the abuse of signing statements, for that matter).

For a start (thank you, Ravi Batra): Vote ONLY for those who will refuse to be pandered to and bought off; vote against incumbents as the ones more likely to be already sold out; heck, vote against whoever has raised the most money: It's a safe bet the ones struggling financially to get elected intend to do business on behalf of the people in service to democracy.

The elites are on their way out. Many of the posted articles on this theme reinforce the paradigm that activists and resisters, in the name of working people, are ready to overthrow the dictatorship of money in our political life. We don't even need to get organized: We just need to be outraged enough to pull in the same direction.

Onward! Upward!

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

The Plan is ultimately the same everywhere: divest the State (the ONLY centralized institution which has the bare possiblility of guarding and enforcing the ownership of a country's COMMON wealth and wealth producing resources) of ALL ownership or management functions. The entire planet's COMMON wealth and wealth producing resources are to be inserted into the "Market" and at the disposal of Capitalists, who then transform these assets into PRIVATE Property (at a nearly un-imaginable bargain!!). Let us not forget: these assets by all means include human beings. And, as is becoming more and more evident and revealed, the vast majority of these human beings, AS assets, are placed in a position of equivalence with other assets such as oil, minerals, land, food, etc. As assets, they are no more nor less "valuable" as sites of exploitation. If there is "value" to extract, it will be extracted at the most efficiently and lowest cost to the capitalist, just as oil, just as water, just as minerals, just as land. If there is not, these assets will have no 'value' and thus will be use-less. Those will be discarded and dumped, to exist and survive as they can. "Faith-based" churches and organizations will enter to 'minister' to them and 'comfort' them and 'feed' them as they await their FINAL rewards in that Heaven far, far away.

As at the beginning, so today and tomorrow. A human IS Capital, a human IS a Resource, a human IS Exploitable, a human IS Value. Like oil, like land, like minerals.

But those humans who are NOT Capital, NOT Resources, NOT Exploitable? They are NOT Value. They are not assets, they are liabilities, a Cost. They are waste to be "externalized" to be dumped elsewhere. Where? On the State. But the State has no Means, no Assets. Fear not! There is Capital to be borrowed for this (at a handsome interest of course). And soon entire countries, like you and me, are debt-slaves and beholden to who? CitiBank, CitiCorp, Morgan Stanley, BankAmerica... .

Or, gather up all those 'sub-humans' somewhere out of sight and mind or push them onto other States or, well, just let them die off.

Just a renewed expansion of The Old World Order. Concentric Cycles of Capital. Already the next Cycle is beginning: Space. And, as before, the sector of smug, luxuriant, exuberant, tuxedoed and oh! so civilized Owners sits a-Top on a distinctly exclusive and inheritable position enjoying the "fruits of their Labor", a historically constant Minority. That other, Majority sector? Milling around and everywhere, assets like oil, minerals, land, air, water. Or non-assets, starving, diseased, nomadic, homeless, powerless and dis-organized.

And the State? In the Market, needing a Loan or for Hire and looking for a Job (kind of like Blackwater, they DO have certain Labor power to let out, a specialty so to speak).

Assets, in this situation, are to be Owned. Which brings up the issue of Slavery and Animals and Machines. That's another 'ball of wax'. That's the Plan they call "Globalization" and "Global Competition". The Emperor's got New Clothes.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]