DEBATES

The Cold War ended and the 1990s brought unprecedented wealth and world trade. The new wealth, it became increasingly clear, wasn’t going to the people who needed it most.

Globalization’s massive creation of wealth dramatized the unevenness of trickle-down policies. International corporations seized world trade and investment, which sparked significant protest from those who advocated a direct-needs approach. The trickle down/bottom up dispute now divides a wide range of issues and policies.

Transnational Corporations vs. Social Equity
"…(T)he market left to its own devices will concentrate wealth and purchasing power and therefore undermine its usefulness in meeting human needs. But a government responsible to majority interests can make rules and allocate resources to counteract the tendency toward concentration. These two instruments of economic life need not be in competition." Frances Moore Lappé, World Hunger, 1986

On the wings of globalization a handful of transnational corporations (TNCs) took control of the global food marketplace. WorldWatch Institute estimates that 10 agro-chemical firms control 65 percent of the global seed market, five grain-traders control 75 percent of international cereal market, and international beverage firms control 90 percent of the coffee and cocoa trade.

FAO reports that in Latin America alone, in 1988-1997, foreign direct investment increased from $222 million to $3.1 billion, and a few vertically integrated, transnational corporations gained ascendancy over global trade, processing and food distribution.

TNC research goes to the interests of rich consumers. Food advertising, supermarkets, packaging, international food imports, bioseeds, genetic modification, mechanization of farm machinery and other heavy expenditures have little relationship to the concerns of the poor and hungry. The dominance of the TNCs and their governmental allies gives them great leverage at negotiating tables where decisions are made on world trade, investment and international property rights.

Some observers claim that the big corporations could, in fact, serve the masses. An essential everyday item like soap, for example, if low- priced, mass-produced and widely distributed, could find a ready market in many countries, as was demonstrated by a soap company in India.

For their part, the TNCs and advocates of transcendent globalization argue that while the food cartel has brought cheaper, better-packaged and more varied food to millions of people everywhere, profit-seeking corporations aren’t designed to meet directly the social needs of the poor. In time, it is said, wealth and services will trickle down to the bottom.

"Globalization, more than anything else, has reduced the numbers of extreme poor in India by 200 million and in China by 300 million since 1990," avers Jeffrey Sachs. "Far from being exploited by multinational companies, these countries and many others like them have achieved unprecedented rates of economic growth on the basis of foreign direct investment and the export-led growth that follows."

Earth’s Limits vs. Increased Exploitation
"As the economy grows, its demands are outgrowing the earth, exceeding many of the planet’s natural capacities. While the world economy multiplied sevenfold in just 50 years, the earth’s natural life-support system remained essentially the same." Lester Brown, Outgrowing the Earth, 2005.

Lester Brown warns that earth’s bounty has reached its limit and now we are seeing in many places declines in grain harvests, fish catches and irrigated land areas. Acts of overpumping aquifers and overplowing and overgrazing the land today "guarantee a decline in food production tomorrow."

Global warming is another Brown concern. "New research shows that a 1 degree Celsius rise in temperature leads to a decline in wheat, rice, and corn yields of 10 percent," he writes. "In a Century where temperatures could rise by several degrees Celsius, harvests could be devastated."

Some scientists claim that global warming and its destructive impact simply aren’t proved, and that further, humankind has the capacity to find appropriate substitutes to specific shortages and other problems when they clearly appear.

Energy Consumption vs. Conservation
"Fossil fuel reliance may prove to be the Achilles heel of the modern food system. Oil supply fluctuations and disruptions could send food prices soaring overnight. Competition and conflict could quickly escalate. Decoupling the food system from the oil industry is key to improving food security." Danielle Murray, Earth Policy News

The paper estimates that the U.S. food system uses more than 10 quadrillion BTUs yearly, only one fifth of which goes to growing food. Fertilizer, pesticides, transportation, packaging, storage and a host of other uses consume additional energy.

"Although agriculture is finding ways to use less energy, the amount consumed between the farm gate and the kitchen table continues to rise. While 21 percent of overall food system energy is used in agricultural production, another 14 percent goes to food transport, 16 percent to processing, 7 percent to packaging, 4 percent to food retailing, 7 percent to restaurants and caterers and 32 percent to home refrigeration and preparation."

As globalization brings the U.S. food system to the rest of the world, other countries rush to emulate the way the U.S. utilizes energy to produce food. China uses more than twice the energy for fertilizers than the U.S. Traditional world farm conservation methods are fast being overrun by high-cost, oil-dependent methods.

Consumerism vs. Environmentalism
"Most striking of all, the growth in the world economy during the single year of 2000 exceeded that of the entire nineteenth century. Economic growth, now the goal of governments everywhere, has become the status quo. Stability is considered a departure from the norm. As the economy grows, its demands are outgrowing the earth, exceeding many of the planet’s natural capacities." Lester Brown, Outgrowing the Earth, 2005

Many environmentalists dread unbridled consumerism. Twenty-five years ago, when China was a bicycle society, they warned, what would the world be like if it had the same per capita car ownership as California? While not yet another California, the world’s most populous nation has about 24 million cars and the number is growing apace.

"If the consumption of the wealthiest of nations cannot be satiated," points out The State of the World 2004, "the prospects for corralling consumption everywhere before it strips and degrades our planet beyond recognition would appear too bleak."

The number of LDC members of "the consumer class" is roughly on a par with that of the industrial nations. Some LDCs are becoming richer but the amount of new wealth the poorest of the poor receive is problematic. The United States and Canada combined represented only

5.2 percent of the world population in 2002, but were calculated that year to represent 31.5 percent of the world’s consumer spending. By way of contrast, sub-Saharan Africa, with 10.1 percent of the world’s population, represented merely 1.2 percent of world consumer spending.

Industrialists and traditional economists insist that the creation of new wealth is the only way to provide for all. Most every government in the world has the stated aim of enlarging the pie and allowing more consumption. Some critics claim consumerism is replacing religious and community activity as the mainstay of life. More and more malls and other consumption outlets are becoming the centers of life and values. Society increasingly judges people on what they own.

Fast Food vs. Diet for a Small Planet
"Today almost half the calories an American consumes come in the form of fat and sugar. Fueling the epidemic are companies that have become the corporate world’s biggest spenders on advertising, primarily to sell us high-fat fast food. So, we’re eating and drinking more processed, high-calorie, low nutrition foods—from chips to sodas to burgers—than ever."

Frances Moore Lappé and Anna Lappé, Hope’s Edge, 2002.

Just as the explosive growth of car ownership in China illustrates staggering increases in energy use, so fast food places exemplify rapid diet change. In 1987 Kentucky Fried Chicken was the first to establish an outlet in China. Now the company has 600 establishments in China and total fast food sales reach $24 billion annually. .

A key point in Lappé’s original research was that "fully one-half of harvested agricultural land in the U.S. is planted with feed crops. We feed 78 percent of all our grains to animals." If the grain produced were planted in edible staples instead, huge amounts of quality food would be readily available. But throughout the world people with more disposable income wish to eat higher on the food chain.

"The combination of growing cities and rising incomes has contributed to significant changes," reports, FAO’s The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2004. The average number of calories that people in developing countries consume is increasing along with the calorie content of the foods that make up their diet.

FAO estimates that the 30 largest supermarket chains now account for about one-third of food sales worldwide. Supermarket procurement systems, which look for standard quality and bulk, favor rich local farmers over poor ones.

Genetic Modification vs. Organic Foods
"The apprehensions relating to molecular genetics engineering and genetic engineering fall under the following broad categories: the science itself, the control of the science, access to the science, environmental concerns, and human and animal health. A disaggregated approach to the study of these issues will be important for a rigorous analysis of risks and benefits." M. S. Swaminathan, Chair of the M.S. Swaminathan Foundation

"Neither the private nor the public sector has invested significantly in new genetic technologies for the so-called ‘orphan’ crops, such as cowpea, millet, sorghum and tea that are critical for the food supply and livelihoods of the world’s poorest people. Other barriers that prevent the poor from accessing and fully benefiting from modern biotechnology include inadequate regulatory procedures, poorly functioning markets and seed delivery systems, and weak domestic plant breeding capacity." Jacques Diouf, FAO Director-General.

In its 2003-04 State of Food and Agriculture report, FAO suggests that the Gene Revolution has the potential to provide poor farmers with disease-free materials, develop crops that resist pests and diseases, replacing toxic chemicals that harm the environment and human health. In addition, "biotechnology can develop diagnostic tools and vaccines that help control devastating animal diseases. Finally, biotechnology can improve the nutritional quality of staple foods such as rice and cassava and create new products for health and industrial uses."

Critics of genetically modified crops are legion and fear unanticipated consequences. Consumers, especially in Europe, want proof positive that GM foods are safe. The fight against "Frankenfoods" has sharply curbed distribution of genetically engineered seeds and food products.

Intellectual Property Rights vs. Access Rights
Most research in agriculture is by private companies whose main interest is to sell innovations to wealthy clients. As a few powerful transnational corporations are the major investors in the research, critics ask: What will property rights mean for poor farmers? Will they be expected to buy the genetically modified seeds?

Further, critics question: What about research on crops of importance to poor farmers? And won’t biotechnology extend the TNCs’ unwanted dominance of the world food industry?

Nevertheless, FAO notes that the benefits of transgenic crops "have been widely distributed among industry, farmers and consumers. "This suggests," says the Rome-based agency, "that the monopoly position engendered by intellectual property protection does not automatically lead to excessive industry profits."

Private industry has such a dominant position in research that concern cannot be easily ignored. The world’s 10 leading transnational bioscience corporations spend roughly $3 billion annually on biotechnology research and development. According to FAO, private biotech research in most LDCs is "negligible."

Debt Relief vs. Repayment Obligations
"When 24 million people signed the global Jubilee petition—the largest petition ever—then politicians sat up and noticed. Sadly, at the end of the Jubilee 2000 campaign in December 2000, it was clear that policies on debt cancellation weren’t matching the rhetoric. That’s why many Jubilee movements vowed to continue the struggle." UK Jubilee Mission Statement.

The Jubilee movement, based in the UK, demonstrated the power of a citizens’ movement by moving debt-relief to the top of the international agenda.

However, in common with most financial institutions, IMF and World Bank officials feared that permitting countries to avoid debt payment could undermine the system of meeting international obligations. If nothing else, debt relief should be based on domestic reform

Also, the World Bank and the African Development Bank have a direct stake in the proposed debt forgiveness. As lenders the banks count on debt repayment to fund further development loans. Europeans advocate permitting the World Bank, which depends on repayment for 20 percent of its ongoing activities, to write off poor-country debts but receive compensatory funding from donor nations.

The U.S. was willing to see the bank debts cancelled but not the World Bank compensated. Finally, last spring at a G-8, meeting in Scotland, the U.S. joined other major economic powers in promising to compensate the banking institutions and forgive $40 billion in debt owed by 18 poor nations.

PRSP vs. Local Control
Pressured by public outcry, the IMF enlarged its framework called the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC). To be considered for relief assistance, a country must hold an unsustainable debt burden, beyond traditional debt-relief mechanisms, establish a track record of reform and sound policies through IMF- and World Bank-supported programs, and have "developed a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) through a broad-based participatory process."

In other words, the money saved in debt relief would be assigned, according to IMF design, to domestic poverty-reduction programs. Importantly, the nation would also put its financial house in order.

Often LDC economic reform meant cutting off the patchwork of social safety nets countries had implemented through the years. Ironically, IMF poverty-reduction strategies and debt relief could result in the loss by poor people of crucial government assistance. Despite significant debt reduction extended by international institutions, creditor governments and private banks, the fight to find a balance between government reform and support of the poor has slowed the process.

Promised Foreign Aid vs. "Foreign Aid Fatigue"
Excuses for the United States’ not doing more about hunger worldwide abound. But public opinion surveys show that a majority of Americans do support the fight against hunger. On the other hand, polls show that Americans erroneously believe foreign aid represents as much as 20 percent of the national budget.

At the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, Official Development Assistance (ODA), an association of 22 rich donor nations, adopted an aid target of 0.7 percent of gross national product (GNP) for LDC development aid. Only five small European nations—Norway, Denmark, Luxembourg, Sweden and Switzerland—met the target of 0.7 percent of GNP in 2003.

Commented Salt of the Earth, a Claretian publication: "Over the past decade all rich nations have consistently failed to reach the agreed upon obligation of 0.7 percent. Instead, the amount of overall aid has been around 0.2 to 0.25 percent, some $100 billion short of the goal." It should be noted that the U.S.—the world’s richest nation—provided merely 0.14 percent of GNP in 2003.