Originally published on the CGS blog on March 13, 2014.
842 million people were food insecure between 2011 and 2013. This means that 1 in 8 people around the world were “suffering from chronic hunger, regularly not getting enough food to conduct an active life” in that period. A common misconception is that we simply cannot produce enough food to feed all 7 billion people on the planet. But if you believe the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), we do in fact have the ability to produce plenty of food to feed everyone. So if it isn’t a matter of insufficient production of food, why are so many people hungry?
While hunger is a complicated issue, one crucial factor exacerbating food insecurity around the world is the increasing control of the world’s food supply by multinational corporations. According to a recent report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), “Powerful commercial interests and lack of political resolve hamper the establishment and implementation of policies to advance sustainable and equitable development.” Companies like Monsanto, one of the producers of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, now hold patents on the very fundamental tools of agriculture and human life: seeds.
Farmers are not allowed to save offspring of these patented seeds nor plant them the following season; Monsanto requires farmers to buy new seeds every year. The company has pursued legal action zealously against farmers it believes are infringing on its patents. Also consider that scientists who wish to do independent studies of patented, genetically engineered seeds such as these must obtain permission from the patent holder before performing any research (UNCTAD, p. 66). Many countries have partial or fully banned such genetically modified foods.
Practices like these infringe on the food sovereignty of millions around the world. Oliver de Schutter, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, addressed the eleventh session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in 2012 stating that the right to food was being “impacted by ever-encroaching big business, which was destroying … traditional food systems … at an unprecedented rate. Further, indigenous peoples were coping with the phenomenon of “nutrition transition”, imposed on communities who lost their food systems and were forced to switch to Western diets.” Companies like Monsanto and DuPont, along with NGOs such as the Gates Foundation, lock farmers into a cycle of corporately controlled agriculture and bring genetically modified crops into new areas against the wishes of the local populations.
Not only are these practices infringing on food sovereignty, but they are also destroying the biodiversity that is essential to a healthy, secure, and sustainable food ecosystem. Between 1900 and 2000, we lost 75 percent of our crop diversity. Biotech companies like Monsanto, Dupont, and Syngenta create monocultures focusing on “a few commodity crops” despite the fact that we know “biodiversity can contribute to more nutritious diets, enhanced livelihoods for farming communities and more resilient and sustainable farming systems.” Furthermore, the FAO study found that “the compiled data suggest that organic agriculture is economically more profitable: net returns, taking total costs into account, most often proved to be higher in organic systems” (UNCTAD, p. 53).
If we want to ensure that we remain able to produce 2,700 calories per person per day, we must re-evaluate our current food system in which a few companies increasingly control large portions of the world food supply. Consider the fact that Monsanto controls 93 percent of the genetically modified soy market. We need to return sovereignty to those who grow the food and allow them to decide which crops and which seeds to plant without fear of litigious multinationals threatening their livelihood and a bio-diverse food system.
