ZWERDLING: Ambassador Tony Hall is an impressive and influential guy in the world of fighting hunger. Let’s pretend for a moment that you become the all-powerful person in fighting hunger. Let’s suppose for a moment – you’re smiling because this will never happen – let’s suppose that the world’s leaders say “ Francis Moore Lappé, you are going to be the czar to end hunger on the planet and we’re going to give you whatever you need realistically to get it done.” So where do you start?
LAPPÉ: I start with exploding the myth that we don’t know why it’s not happened. So I would start by making sure that everybody on the planet has access maybe to a laptop so they could see the stories that I’m going to be telling, about where we are ending hunger, because people are putting economic life in a human values framework, and a democratic values framework and on accountability and I’m going to spread that story because I believe that we’re all social mimics. I believe that we know. We do, you know -- “monkey see monkey do.” If we think that this is a permanent state, this incredible inequality that’s increasing so rapidly, that we won’t do this so I would want the czar to tell people; I would want everyone to see these stories of success.U.S., in Brazil, in Bangladesh, India, in Africa, and then of course I would want them to depose me because I would want them to be a truly a living democracy where they can choose their own leader.
ZWERDLING: You want people to have information. You want them traveling all around the world. You’ve seen projects, small projects here and there. Give us examples.
LAPPÉ: Let’s go to India and Bangladesh for example because as you pointed out, Tom Friedman has led us to believe that India is a success story. And yet there are many more hungry people living in India than in Sub-Saharan Africa and that India is not on track to meeting these development goals whereas Bangladesh with 60% per capita GNP compared to India is on track in terms of child mortality, in terms of immunizations. It is succeeding. Let’s go to Bangladesh and recognize that we are back to this question – who is gaining power. That’s the lens I’m looking at for solutions -- who is gaining power. You see a movement of microcredit
-- meaning people coming together, getting small loans. Poor people in groups where they have solidarity with their friends and neighbors, creating their own enterprises and creating their own health clinics. That this is now affecting something on the order of 80 million Bangladeshis that have gotten these small loans in their villages. Compare that to the export zone of the maybe less than 2 million women who are in these export zone garment factories that the globalization proponents would have us focus on.
ZWERDLING: This is the model of the Grameen Bank, right? A couple hundred dollar loan even.
LAPPÉ: Even smaller and also the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee. Any of you can see these sorts of initiatives. I have links to the Grameen which you mentioned -- small credit but with enormous impact. Grameen has estimated that half of the people who have gotten small loans have been able to rise out of poverty. And it’s something like 20% of rural people now that have access to this. Now this is bottom up empowerment where people have voices rather than just walking into a factory where they lose their power because that factory was shifting them to China, which is of course happening.
ZWERDLING: Do you feel really confident . . . . that if let’s say people in Brazil and Peru and Indonesia had laptops or some means of learning about what these women and others are doing in Bangladesh. If they would suddenly organize together and create their own solutions? That seems a wonderful vision, but I’m wondering if it’s too optimistic
LAPPÉ: Of course there is no single intervention, but all I’m suggesting is that if you’re talking about people gaining power over their own lives, you can’t impose power on someone else. Let me take you to Brazil. What has happened there I would have never predicted 30 years ago. A bottom-up land reform movement that has now affected the lives of a million people in rural Brazil. In Brazil the land concentration is so great that something like less than 5% control half of the rural land and leave a lot of it – most of it -- unused. And this land reform movement, using a clause in the Constitution that says it’s up to the government to redistribute land that isn’t serving a social purpose . This movement has used civil disobedience to settle land, like 20 million acres of land, creating rural communities in which they’ve increased the incomes of the people there fivefold and reduced infant mortality which of course is the biggest measure of hunger and created schools and created organic feedlines and organic maize and this is in a country of extreme inequality but people found their courage to confront the concentrated power. I call it a revolution in human dignity.
ZWERDLING: I’m sure a lot of people listening to you, like world leaders, get nervous when they start hearing you talk about land reform because that is such a potentially explosive issue. Let me mention another controversial issue – genetic engineering. I don’t want to create tension on World Food Day but Norman Borlaug, who is revered in the fight against hunger, one of the fathers of the Green Revolution, has said many times in recent years that genetically engineering seeds to grow faster, grow better, grow more grain, resist pests, that this is one of the best strategies to solve world hunger. On the other hand, I know that you and many of your colleagues feel that that’s a big mistake, very dangerous.
LAPPÉ: Let’s take out our power lens again. Do genetically-modified organisms help empower people living in poverty and living in this country? I would say no, they take power away because they are patented; they’re controlled largely by one company. Monsanto controls 88% of the genetically-modified seeds in world trade. So rather than increasing the power of local people, they move the power into the hands of those who control the seeds. Let me just contrast this. Farmer Field Schools, in part supported by the Food and Agriculture Organization which we’re honoring today -- Farmer Field Schools in Kenya for example or in Zimbabwe where farmers in a kind of steady circles’ approach to participatory learning using the techniques that are available called agro-ecology. In other words, applying ecological principles to agriculture they’ve been able to increase their incomes several fold. They continue growing sweet potatoes to increase their income four or five fold. In Zimbabwe women, widows, grow cotton in these Farmer Field Schools. So I would say this is an empowerment strategy as opposed to genetically-modified organisms which I often call the gigantic missed opportunity because what it does is divert us towards some new technology when in fact there is more than enough food in the world right now.
ZWERDLING: Wait a minute. Let’s go back to Monsanto. Monsanto has the reach, it has the power, to sell those seeds in the tiniest villages all over Africa and other poor countries so why doesn’t that give poor farmers the power to get access to those wonderful new seeds.
LAPPÉ: Because by definition, these small farmers we’re talking about who are among 80% of the hungry are small rural people, and many are small farmers. That means they have to have cash income and then to become dependent on buying. So for example, on our World Hunger Solutions website there’s a link to Navdanya. You may have heard of Vandana Shiva, the Indian scientist who has helped create a network of thousands of villages in India that has said no to the chemical path which is damaging our environment and has said that they can retrieve the seed-sharing practices of our traditions here and work with scientists. I visited these beautiful acres growing indigenous varieties of rice and other basic crops. The scientists in these fields are going out into the villages – kind of like the old circuit rider idea of villages. The villagers are actually saying to the scientists here’s what we need and being part of the experimentation so it is controlled locally. Part of the deal is that if you benefit you have to share seeds.
ZWERDLING: We only have a minute left before we have to wrap up this part of the program but let me ask you this, in order to solve world hunger, in order to feed everybody who is going hungry still, do those of us who are lucky in places like the United States, those of us who have enough food, do we have to sacrifice? I think that’s something a lot of people worry about. I’m comfortable, I like my life style, I want to help hungry people but I don’t want to have to give up what I have. I’m speaking for a lot of others.
LAPPÉ: It’s exactly opposite. Tony was saying that we need to start where we are. And where we are is to increase democracy, bring greater democracy to our country. That is the key here. It’s not about sacrifice, it’s about making a true democracy here so that our government actually reflects our values, our interests, because as I was saying, most Americans want to have our aid that is empowering poor people, not undercutting them or not being such a tiny fraction as to be largely meaningless. We don’t want a country, we don’t want our Washington, controlled by interests that are private interests who are increasing the control over our food system, so the first step is creating a more real democracy here reflecting our interests and that can help abroad.
ZWERDLING: Don’t go away. We’re going to talk more about that later. But right now it’s time to wrap up the first part of our program, so all of you – this is your chance to discuss what you’ve heard, talk about what Frankie and the others have been saying; debate and then come back in an hour from now and ask Frances Moore Lappé your questions. And it would be very nice if you would also offer your own solutions on how to end world hunger, and Frankie will tell you what she thinks of those. So thanks a lot and see you soon.