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- The Politics of Food, Famine, and
Hunger
by Rachel Naba
Africans are starving! They need food immediately! This is what the United States government will have us believe. They promote the idea that Africans are fundamentally poor and unable to feed themselves, and thus need the aid of other countries, such as the United States, to help feed them. This is not a new agenda, and many US citizens have been effectively brainwashed into believing that most of Africa is starving. Now, however, this propaganda is being used for other purposes: to help force the sales of genetically modified foods.
President Bush is using his severely exaggerated estimation of the number of starving Africans to force the European Union to accept genetically modified foods in its markets. He has gone so far as to blame the European Unionıs refusal of blindly accepting these unnatural products for causing famine in Africa! As ridiculous as it may sound, George W. Bush is relentless in his misdirected blame. ³For the sake of a continent threatened by famine, I urge European nations to end their opposition to biotechnology,² Bush told a conference in Washington that was organized by, unsurprisingly, the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), while accusing the European governments of blocking the import of GM foods on the basis of ³unfounded and unscientific fears². He said, ³Our partners in Europe have blocked all new bio-crops because of unfounded, unscientific fears. This has caused many African nations to avoid investing in bio-technologies for fear that the products will be shut out of European markets.² He accuses European nations of ³impeding² US efforts to reduce hunger in Africa by opposing the use of GM crops.
Bush has decided to actively pursue the interests of the huge biotechnology corporations such as Monsanto under the guise of helping ³starving Africans². The United States administration has decided to bring a case in the World Trade Organization (WTO) against the European Union (EU) over genetically modified organisms (GMOs) against the EUıs de facto ban on genetically modified foods. Because the majority of people in Europe are, to say the least, wary and unsupportive of genetically modified foods, the EU has banned them, at least for now. The US, the leading producer of GM foods, needs commercial opportunities to make money from the sale of the man-made foods, and is determined to force their sale worldwide.
In its WTO complaint, the US will argue that the EU moratorium on the commercial development of GM foods is an illegal trade barrier. The US administration, which has been heavily lobbied by Monsanto and other GM companies, has threatened a WTO cease over GM foods on several prior occasions, but has not followed through, until now. Meanwhile, the EU condemns the decision of the US to file a complaint with the WTO and dismisses the case as "legally unwarranted", "economically unfounded", and "politically unhelpful".
The US is not alone in its battle, although it is the major player. Joining the US are other GM producing countries, such as Canada, Argentina, and Egypt. Meanwhile, under the EU system, the possible effects of GMOs on human, animal, and plant health and the environment have to be scientifically assessed before being approved for marketing. Thus far, two cotton seed oils have been placed on the EU market for food use, and other applications are in the advanced stages of examination.
Bushıs altruistic rhetoric smokescreen is transparent to those who are able to tread their way through thepropaganda and brainwashing. Letıs be honest - Bush is not interested in reducing hunger or famine. If he were, he has a huge hunger and famine problem in his own back yard that he would address and solve before extending his ³charity² to other nations! No, it is not about humanitarian values, it is about politics and money. Bush wants to protect the investments of Monsanto and other giant corporations, and he wants to protect his own political interests. It is not about ending hunger, it is about increasing profits and markets (as usual).
Worldwide Opposition to GM Foods
It is not only the EU who do not want GM foods. GM food aid was sent to southern Africa during the previous drought, despite strong reservations from Africa. Zambia banned the aid, refused the food, and told the US that it would rather go hungry than risk losing its export markets in Europe because its crops had been contaminated with GM seed. Additionally, president Mwanawasa says GM food is ³poison²! Other African nations have agreed to accept GM foods only if they are milled, so that their crops cannot be contaminated. Most of the aid containing GM food comes from the US.
Lies About GM Crops
The US government and the GM producers like Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer, DuPont, BASF, and Dow (who controlled 98% of the world GM crop market and 70% of the pesticide market in 2000) insist that GM foods are the answer to world famine. These corporations are strongly pushing for worldwide GM acceptance, as their profits depend on it. They are falsely using the desire to reduce famine as the primary goal of GM foods, but this is not their real motivation. Profits, markets, and domination are their real goals. But major agrochemical corporations in the US who are close supporters of the Bush administration are experiencing flagging profits, and Bush is taking action.
The idea that GM foods are the answer to the worldıs hunger problems are simply silly. Independent studies have proven that yields from GM foods are not always greater than traditional seeds. Studies also show that even when yields are greater, this does not necessarily offset the increased cost of GM production! Long-term studies have not been conducted on the safety of eating GM foods. Weeds or insects developing a resistance to chemicals over time has been shown to be a problem, resulting in the need for greater amounts of chemicals and pesticides.
To believe that the worldıs hunger problem is due to a lack of food is simply stupid. It is not a matter of not being able to produce food; the famine and hunger problems are the result of social corruption and the inability to afford to buy food! How can the US government be sincere in its desire to eliminate hunger in Africa, or in its own country for that matter, when it purchases crops from its own farmers and dumps them into the ocean?! How can the US government claim to be concerned about starving children when it pays its own farmers NOT to grow crops on their fields each year?
Moreover, Africa has the ability to feed not only its own inhabitants, but the entire world. It is because of the thousands of years of exploitation by ³modern² nations that Africa s now seen as poor. It is due to countries of the EU and America and their years of theft and exploitation that African countries cannot afford to build roads and necessary infrastructure so that their economies can grow and thrive. Perhaps, instead of sending GM foods as ³aid² and loaning money to African nations that they cannot pay back, these countries should be paying Africa reparations for the years of plundering and theft.
We must not be fooled. The agenda of the US government is not about famine and reducing hunger, for if they were truly interested in these things, the solutions are clear. The US wants to force the world to accept GM foods so that the corporations they are protecting can thrive. They want, ultimately, to control the food supply. They want to force the consumption of the foods that even many of the cafeterias of the companies that develop them will not serve! No, it is not about reducing hunger. It is about money, profits, and the bottom line of Monsanto and other corporations that heavily influence the actions of the US government.
