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Food failure

By Leanne McRae - posted Friday, 6 June 2008


When I was writing about men’s studies, in the early 2000s, the phrase “crisis in masculinity” concerned me. It was a catch-phrase used to describe the tumultuous experiences of manhood and the contemporary difficulties in men’s lives as they negotiated their way through work, intimacy and embodiment.

But the “crisis in masculinity” rhetoric was activated only when those men in empowered, stable and silent social positions had to begin questioning their roles and responsibilities - to reframe who they were and how they fit into the social network.

Men of other sexualities, colours and classes have always had to negotiate and reinscribe their identities in relationship to the social meaning systems that permit very narrow renderings of male authority and power. For most men, this reinscription is nothing new.

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The “crisis” in this process was conjured when the impact of instability began to affect those traditionally able to endure and even control social shifts and changes. The same concern is present within me now the phrase “food shortage” is being used in the popular media. The crisis in food production is being felt now that empowered and moderately-to-well-off individuals and families are having to pay more for their food.

A report in the Wales News on April 28, 2008 interviewed Gareth Vaughn president of the Farmers’ Union of Wales. In mapping the issues between food production, farm prices and the current crisis he characterised the emerging paradox by stating “we are now seeing food shortages across the world and major price increases in developed countries”.

It is the situations in “developed countries” that stimulates the rhetoric of a “food crisis”. A large portion of the world’s population, in both empowered and disempowered contexts, have been permitted to go without food for decades. Now that the problem has percolated into the everyday experiences of those in relatively wealthy contexts, the complex crisis in food production is finally spotlighted.

It is a crisis of our own making. The causes of increasing food shortages have been traced to a combination of factors including rising oil prices putting pressure on transport and production costs, climate change affecting yields, increase in land being allocated for bio-fuel production, and rising demand from emerging Chinese and Indian middle classes.

However, these issues mask the extent to which unfair systems of production and distribution of food have persisted over time. This inequality is revealed in the attendant focus on technology as the saviour - providing us with more efficient modalities of food production at higher yields and greater nutritional value.

Alex Cerniglia, the UN secretary-general spokesman interviewed for ABC news, cited the need to “look to the future and farming methods”, as a key strategy to solving food production issues. This is a predictable narrative.

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Every so often an article in a magazine or newspaper announces a radical new technology that will enable the world’s poor to be fed for an incredibly low cost. Genetically modified crops for example, will provide us with the bioscience to halt world hunger and conquer nutritional difficulties.

The widespread resistance to genetically modified crops has been highlighted during this most recent food crisis where it has been ear-marked as a potential stop-gap for starving rioters in disempowered national contexts.

Such interventions demonstrate the grossly unequal structures that permit starvation. Scientists and commentators have all been calling for a reduction in legislation restricting the production of GM food, but fail to acknowledge the unfair systems that have stimulated this need.

In Haiti the recent food crisis has caused widespread rioting. However, according to Craig Mackintosh writing for Celsias, “Misery is Profitable”, claimed that prior to 1986 Haiti produced most of its own rice. Entering into international funding arrangements with the IMF has forced Haitians to conform to global trade protocols including the importation of highly subsidised US rice. This has resulted in a radical decline in rice production.

Such news copy demonstrates acutely that it does not matter what kind of technologies we integrate into the food production matrix, or how well we can manipulate nature to generate higher and more nutritious yields (though some evidence shows that genetically modified crops do not produce more yields than conventionally grown crops), rather it shows us that we could feed the world today, we just choose not to. Or more precisely, we only want to feed the world today with healthy, natural food if it doesn’t cost us too much.

This is not a decision of governments or the cruel consciousness of corporate industries that control global trade behind closed-doors. This is very much our responsibility. It is citizens of the world who permit these decisions to be made and fail to intervene in unfair and unequal global systems of exchange. It is our insatiable demand for goods and services that have stimulated massive production mechanisms governed by market synergies.

The inventions of terminator technology that has decimated local agricultures has been permitted because it fits neatly within a perverse rendering of fairness moderated by market economies and copyright excesses.

Terminator technology is not directly used, but the intentions of its invention - the philosophies of moneymaking from patents and “gene-protection” liabilities are infused within agribusiness. (See The Guardian for more on this subject.)

Companies (like Monsanto) producing these seeds that terminate after one yield have nestled snugly into our economic production mentalities that allow all ranges of policies and permissive behaviours in the service of the market rather than in the service of humans.

Our demand for fast food and convenient consumption have created conditions where crops are no longer rotated putting incredible strain on soil stability and health. In some regions a thin layer of top-soil is all that remains to provide the bulk of food production.

It is easy to point to the crisis of climate change to account for the increasing food fragility we are currently experiencing. Indeed, changes in climate have altered food production and if more sustainable production mentalities and environmental care cannot be embraced then we will be facing a deepening food crisis. However, we first need to examine our awareness of the unequal and unfair practices and policies that have allowed the poor and the disempowered to be continually without the basic needs of living.

These issues are quite separate from climate change or more efficient food production technologies. They are embedded in our consciousness and our mercenary approach to economic exchange and market mentalities.

In 1967 the world decided to eradicate smallpox (finally verified in 1979). Teams of medical personnel and volunteers worked tirelessly, knocking on doors in the remotest parts of the world to ensure that everyone was inoculated against the disease. Through massive international effort, a disease that killed thousands was destroyed all but for a few samples held for investigation in highly secure research labs.

The question is why have we not chosen to eradicate starvation and poverty with the same zest and vigour as in our attempt to remove smallpox? Why do we not pursue the war against hunger with as much rigour as we pursued the (mythological) weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?

It is a tragedy that we choose to wait until food shortages come into our homes and supermarkets before we intervene in the consistently unequal production and consumption systems that contribute to marginalisation, environmental degradation, poverty, illiteracy and illness.

In our attempt to now intervene in this global situation, our focus should not be on how to make sure “we” have enough food, but to ensure that we create a more equitable global distribution and production system. The shift that needs to occur is not one of technological efficiency, production synergies or financial injection, but one of consciousness where everyone is embraced through common dignities found in food, shelter, and protection from harm.

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About the Author

Leanne McRae is the senior researcher and Creative Industrial Matrix Convenor for the Popular Culture Collective http://www.popularculturecollective.com

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