This decade has been marked by a growing awareness of and appreciation for organic foods. Rising obesity rates have prompted many Americans to review their eating habits and adopt regimens featuring fewer processed foods. America's healthy eating renaissance corresponds with what everyone freely refers to as a green movement that addresses everything from what people eat to what they drive, and take out their trash. Tragically, this newfound commitment to leading healthier lives in the United States has very little to put Americans on equal footing with the rest of the world -- especially when it comes to food production and consumption, a fact that has become exceptionally evident this week.
As a subprime mortgage crisis continues unraveling this country's economy, Haiti's fragile democracy is once again being challenged; this time by a subprime food crisis. Americans can immediately point to an unregulated recalcitrant banking industry as the culprits in the mortgage crisis spurring this latest recession, but the causes behind Haiti's subprime food crisis are harder to pin down--not the least of which because Haiti is not the only country grappling with a subprime food industry. The World Bank and its penchant for debilitating debt-repayment conditions deserves part of the blame as Stephanie Black vividly showed in her film Life and Debt, but even something like this can not be pinned on the shoulders of The World Bank alone.
In a recent conversation with Democracy Now's Amy Goodman, activist and writer Raj Patel declares:
For a start, there were just bad harvests last year. Some people say that this is a sign that climate change is biting in agricultural economies...But on top of that, there are a few other factors. One of them, one of the issues, is that governments, particularly the US government, is very keen on biofuels...On top of that, you've got an increasing demand for meat in developing countries. And as people get richer in those countries and they shift to something that looks more like an American diet, you have a situation where the grains are being diverted away from poor people and into livestock. So, again, that's driving up the price of grains.
Haiti, the Philippines, Thailand, and a number of other countries in the global south are now facing the wrath of a three-headed-hydra: (1) climate change (2) instability cause by increased demand for biofuels and (3) shifting dietary habits. Combating one of these situations is tough enough for Haiti and its counterparts, but addressing all three at once is an incredibly harrowing task.
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A good population level is determined by full domestic support in agriculture, and allows a surplus commodity that can be traded for foreign goods that are needed and desired.
What is needed is leadership. Without it, there is disease, civil strife, and forced migration.
And this is *not* a metaphor. Aristide (plurality winner of Haitis' elections) was literally kidnapped by the Bush administration and dumped in Central Africa. I couldn't make it up.
From its inception, Haiti has been systematically looted by their barbaric "betters" -- from the French to the U.S. *That* (not their unwillingness to be lead) is why they are poor.
Paul Farmer, a guy who should know, calls U.S. policy toward Haiti "yelling at poor people." Farmer runs a clinic in Haiti which, because international aid is so scarce, literally has a bigger budget than the Haitian government. Remember that the next time you condemn Haitian democracy as corrupt, or "rudderless."
Listen to Farmer and Noam Chomsky give the essential history of Haiti in "The Uses of Haiti." Student Pugwash Northeast Regional Conference. February 22, 2002. This is available on Chomsky's site at http://chomsky.info/audionvideo.htm.
And let's stop yelling at poor people, shall we?
Wake up people! The planet is groaning under the strain of sustaining 6 billion plus people. We have to reduce world population or there will be ugly, massive die-offs. Every human on the planet should seriously consider having only one child, at best. I love children, but this seems the most humane solution by far.
Biofuels are a dead end - they will never provide enough energy to replace gasoline or even a small percent of our energy needs.
Stop subsidies for biofuel and develop mass transit.