Global Hunger and Free Markets

by Uma Shankari in Economics, September 3, 2009

A new multi-billion dollar U.S. aid bill – Global Food Security Act or the Lugar-Casey Act –
aims to direct more money toward GM research as part of U.S. foreign aid programs. What are
the issues involved?

Hunger is on the rise, and it affects one-sixth of all of humanity, posing a serious risk for world
peace and security.

World leaders gathered in the Italian town of L’Aquila for the G8 summit last month reported an
estimated 1.02 billion people in the world go hungry. They warned us of social unrest if global
hunger is not arrested. Consider this information: between 2005 and 2008 food prices had
increased by 83%. Though the crop prices dropped in the middle of 2008, the hunger crisis is far
from over.

What is the solution to hunger? The G8 solution is total, unfettered free trade. Seconding the
absurd G8 logic is World Trade Organization (WTO). Their argument in support is that increased
competition reduces prices and thus enhances the purchasing power of the consumers. Free trade
helps transport food from places where it can be produced efficiently to where there is demand.

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But World hunger is not a simple crisis of demand and supply. The super powers use free trade
clauses to discourage measures taken by developing countries to stabilize price — such as
controlling import and export and using price control public distribution systems. The import
bans by third world countries have a purpose: to protect the poor and vulnerable against the
global agricultural price fluctuations by ensuring food availability below world prices before
allowing exports to other countries.

The reality is that free trade can distort market forces of demand and supply. G8 has purposely
got the math all wrong. Free trade NOT= freedom from hunger. Fortunately for the developing
countries, UN thinks otherwise. ‘World Economic and Social Survey 2008′ conducted by UN
holds market liberalisation responsible for the food crisis. The advanced countries protect their
farmers through subsidies, while simultaneously insisting the developing countries do not
provide any subsidies to their farmers as it is against the free trade principles. The heavily
subsidized agriculture has helped rich countries to capture third world markets and flood it with
cheap, subsidized food. Poor farmers in developing countries for whom agriculture is the main
occupation find subsistence farming unfavorable and financially unstable. The policies has
converted developing countries that had once been self-sufficient, and even net exporters of
agricultural products, into net importers and made them more vulnerable to high prices brought
on by the changing food supply policies of the exporting big bosses. Developing countries had,
in the 1960s, an overall agricultural surplus of $7 billion, but by 1990s and 2000s they turned
into net food importers. The reason people in countries classified as having “widespread lack of
access” are unable to procure food is because they don’t have enough money to buy the
expensive food.

Freedom From Hunger through Technology?

G8 would like to improve agricultural productivity through a technological agricultural

revolution, more specifically, the fast-track adoption of genetically modified crops. A genetically
modified organism (GMO) is one that has a foreign gene injected into its embryonic cells. Under
the articles of agreement of WTO, the food giants have been granted unrestricted freedom to
enter the seed markets of developing countries. The GM food have wide ranging implications for
the farmer, the health concerns of the consumer and maintaining the rich biodiversity of the
environment. Let’s consider a few of them:

• The GMO technology threatens livelihoods of farmers and locks them into bio serfdom.
The farmer cannot save the GMO seeds for subsequent replanting without paying
royalties to Monsanto or other biotech giants he has bought the seeds from, though this
was his traditional practice since thousands of years. And the GMO seeds are expensive.
This has been made possible by the acquisition of exclusive “intellectual property rights”
over native plant varieties and pirated centuries of farmers’ innovation in developing
several varieties of rice, cotton, mustard, corn, and soy. To ensure that farmers have no
option but to return to the seed companies year after year, biotechnology giants like
Monsanto have developed ‘suicide seeds’ that produce sterile crops. The major agro
biotech companies have also developed ‘traitor technology’, where seeds are engineered
to produce negative traits unless treated with the company’s own chemicals.These are
newer forms of colonialism that will convert an indigenous farmer into an industrial
worker.
• The GM crops destroy the micro-organisms of the soil and the food chain that depend on
it – weeds, insects, birds and other wildlife, and replace it with genetically uniform crops
that are more susceptible to disease. They require the use of highly toxic ‘broad spectrum’
herbicides designed to wipe out all plants other than the crops that have been genetically
engineered to tolerate the herbicide.
• Due to the threat of contamination, it is difficult for normal crops or organic crops to
remain free from the impact of GM crops once these have been released. Secondary,
unintended gene transfer can take place from GM pollens released into the environment.
An example is the famous lawsuit Monsanto Vs Schmeiser: Classic David vs Goliath
struggle

• There are evidences of the grave risks GM foods pose for human and animal health and
for the environment, including creating new strains of antibiotic resistant bacteria, new
viruses from those introduced into the transgenic plants, causing reactivation of dormant
viruses and producing harmful effects including cancer.