PEACEMEAL - Feeding the World (Commentary)

By John Feffer

Come October, Atlas won't be shrugging, he'll be groaning as global population passes the 7 billion mark. Until very recently, demographers predicted that these numbers would peak in 2050 at just over 9 billion and then start to decline. The latest research, however, suggests that despite declining fertility across much of the world, population will continue to rise through this century to over 10 billionpeople.

With famine spreading in Somalia, another food crisis gripping North Korea,global food prices near a record high, and climate change threatening to reduce future harvests, the question continues to nag: are we outstripping our capacity to feed ourselves?

The good news is that the harvests this year promise to be bountiful. The bad news is that this increased grain production may still not be enough. The worse news is that millions more mouths to feed, over the long term, will increase pressure on the world's farmers to squeeze more and more food from less and less arable land.

In 2010, the world dipped into food reserves to make up for a 60-million-ton shortfall in grain production. This year, predicts the Earth Policy Institute's Lester Brown, farmers will have to produce 100 million additional tons to meet last year's needs plus the increased demand. Based on a number of factors – better harvests in Russia versus droughts in China and the U.S. Midwest – Brown expects only an increase of about 80 million tons for 2011. The bottom line: food prices will continue to rise.

But that's just the short term. Most estimates of grain needs in 2050 suggest that production will have to increase by 70 percent. That means somehow conjuring a billion-plus tons of grain from the already strained resource base of Mother Earth.

There are basically four schools of thought on how to feed the world. The biotech crowd believes that genetic modification will eventually spur another Green Revolution that will dramatically boost yield per acre. The organics faction believes that industrial farming techniques have drained the aquifers and robbed the topsoil of nutrients, among other ecological ills, and only natural farming techniques can restore soil fertility and produce sustainable yields. Somewhere in the middle is the status-quo-plus gang, which believes that improvement of current practices can meet the needs of a growing world. And the fourth school is…well, I'll get to that in a moment.

Genetically modified organisms (GMOs), which now make up the vast majority of the corn and soybeans grown in the United States, have not lived up to the claimsof their most fervent cheerleaders. The main problem with GMOs, as far as I'm concerned, is their tendency to intensify industrial agriculture, which relies on heavy inputs of energy, fertilizer, pesticides, and water. I would not rule out the possibility of a next-generation GMO someday proving useful in a sustainable way, for instance in conjunction with no-till agriculture. But this particular brand of biotech is certainly no magic bullet.

The argument that organic farming can feed the world has gotten a boost from several recent studies, including one at the University of Michigan that showed that organic yields can be three times that of conventional yields in developing countries, and research at Cornell on how organic and local farming can cut energy inputs into agriculture by 50 percent. But organic farming is not a magic bullet either. As the sector gets larger, particularly here in the United States, it has come to resemble its hated industrial rival by adopting pesticides and monocropping and all the other trappings of Farming, Inc.  Yes, small-scale organic farming has garnered considerable success in the developing world, for instance in the Philippines. But traditional, less intensive farming has also failed us in the past. As Jason Clay writes in his magisterial World Agriculture and the Environment, "Some of these less intensive farming systems have failed, and often population densities have pushed cultivation levels beyond what is sustainable. There is ample evidence that parts of the Andes, Mesoamerica, North Africa, the Middle East, Europe, South and Southeast Asia, New England and even the Great Plains (to name but a few) were overfarmed to the point of degradation or collapse using 'traditional' forms of agricultural production."

The third path, status-quo plus, basically tweaks the existing approach to farming in the developing world and makes it a good deal more productive. One increasingly famous example comes from Malawi, the small African country of 15 million people that juts into Mozambique. About five years ago, President Bingu wa Mutharika began a subsidy program so that farmers could buy seeds and fertilizer at below-market rates. "Despite concerns from the World Bank and the UN, President Mutharika promoted Malawi’s agriculture sector and decreased poverty from 52 percent to 40 percent while turning Malawi into a food basket not only for its people but also for export," writes Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF) contributor Simone D'Abreu in Malawi Makes, Africa Takes. This "Malawi model" also relies on improving infrastructure, providing training for farmers, bringing more arable land under cultivation, and building up soil health through agro-forestry. The Malawi model challenges the conventional wisdom of the World Bank on the need for privatization, not state agricultural subsidies, but its approach to farming is relatively conventional. Using more fertilizer, after all, was a Green Revolution innovation more than 40 years ago.

Mutharika, who has been in the news recently for violently suppressing his political opposition, wants to apply the Malawi Model to the continent as a whole. This African Food Basket initiative aims to make Africa food-secure within five years. That’s unrealistic, perhaps, but there's no denying the urgency. Malawi's population, for instance, is expected to increase more than eight-fold by the end of the century, with the population of Africa as a whole likely to triple from 1 billion to 3.6 billion.

For the most part, these three approaches of biotech, organic, and status-quo plus focus on boosting production. But there's a fourth way to address the upcoming supply-demand crunch. Let's call it the Waste Not, Want Not approach.

According to the Food and Agricultural Organization, we waste or lose about one-third of all food produced for human consumption. That's about 1.3 billion tons of food.  Everyone is implicated in this tragedy: consumers who throw out food, institutions that let food spoil, processors that "sort out" huge amounts of produce deemed unsatisfactory, facilities that expose their stocks to rodents through improper storage, transporters who lose food along the way, and growers who leave food behind in the field.

Remember your mother shaming you into eating all the food on your plate because of all the starving people in the world? Now multiply those uneaten Brussels sprouts more than a trillion times.

On the topic of eating all the food on your plate, well, that's a problem, too. Obesity has assumed near-epidemic proportions. In the United States, less than 10 percent of the population was obese in 1985, but that figure has now risen to nearly one-third. It's not just the global north. In the developing world, you can find obesity rates nearing 40 percent in countries like Brazil and Colombia.

A related issue is meat consumption. Imagine eating 16 pounds of grain in one sitting. That's what you do, essentially, when you consume a 16-ounce steak, since it takes 16 pounds of grain to produce a pound of beef (as well as 2,500 gallons of water). Eating meat, in other words, is a fancy way of over-consuming resources. And this over-consumption is just getting more over the top. Global production of meat is expected to double by 2050 to meet the growing demand, particularly in the developing world.

Perhaps the ultimate in "waste not" would be to shift over to eating insects and turn our exterminators into hunter-gatherers. Fried grasshoppers, according to a fascinating article by Dana Goodyear in The New Yorker, have three times as much protein as their equivalent weight in beef. Insects already provide an important source of food for many people. Indeed, in certain parts of the world, increased pesticide use as part of industrial agriculture has killed off or poisoned the grasshoppers that provided essential protein, especially for children. Talk about monocropping destroying diverse local eating habits.

For now, at least, insects are definitely a "want not" rather than a "waste not" for most Americans. Still, even if we don't embrace bedbug burgers any time soon, we have to take the lead in transforming our appetites. According to World Watch, if you divide the population of the earth by the amount of biologically productive land, every human today gets about 1.9 hectares to supply their resource needs. The average American, however, lays claim to 9.7 hectares. Boosting food production won't mean anything if the lion's share continues to go to the gluttonous. If we're going to feed the world, we're going to have to feed ourselves a lot less extravagantly.

This article was originally published by Washington, DC: Foreign Policy In Focus and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

PEACEMEAL - The Sweet and Not-So-Sweet Smell of Sugar Cane Production (Commentary)

The author and cane fields shown in the car window reflection in Hawaiiby Cynthia Thomet for HUMNews

As I was sipping my morning coffee today, I was nudged by a small epiphany that everything we do has the ripple effect that can touch the lives of people halfway around the world. The thought was spawned by the sugar that I stirred into my cup, and it took me through a whirlwind thought of supply-and-demand, island living, field workers in developing countries, dictatorships and revolutions, capitalist greed and living on the earth in a cyclically sustainable manner.

Maybe I was thinking about all these things because I recently finished reading a great book by an amazing Dominican-American author, Junot Diaz called, “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao." The novel provides a fascinating look into the Dominican Republic under the Trujillo dictatorship (the era ended with Rafael Trujillo’s assassination in 1961) and describes some intense sugar cane scenes where you can practically hear the reeds clacking against each other.

My native island of Trinidad produces (but stopped exporting about two years ago) the white, refined sugar we dissolve into our morning coffee or tea. Sugar’s by-product, molasses, is often used in the fermentation of distilled liquors, such as rum (producing that gold or dark color). Molasses is also sometimes added to pipe tobacco and shishah in the Middle East as a flavoring agent, and it is even used as a nutritional additive. (Believe it or not, molasses is a source of calcium, magnesium, potassium and iron, which is why it is not only used as a source of minerals is human foods, but also for livestock feed.)

The production of sugar is not just an island phenomenon, it is a major money-maker for some of the world’s largest and most-heavily populated countries. In 2008, Brazil, India and China were the top three producers of sugar cane, producing more than a billion metric tons of sugar valued at more than $22 billion. (see chart)

The smell of refining sugar cane is unique and shared by developing countries around the world. Floating over the warm salty breeze from the day, you can detect the smoke. It is a sweet, light smoke that meanders and sticks in your nostrils. Flowing beneath the island breezes are the dark undercurrents of molasses and burnt caramel.

Sugar Fuels Machines and Big Business
Born on a small Caribbean island and having lived on the small Pacific island of Maui (see my commentary on the taro root), where I speak a little of what I learned during my time there, I have come to associate that smell with island life and island living. While the smell of sugar cane production brings sweet memories to me, it probably floats black snow on the backs of those who toil behind the scenes—those who were imported as debt-slaves to work the land.Lahaina Drive is a dirt road through sugar cane fields pointing to the summit of Haleakala. The island of Maui's main volcano.

That island burning smell? The billows of smoke along the horizon? That’s the smell of big money—much bigger than the cash made on the world food market. The non-culinary potential of sugar cane is almost more fascinating. Because molasses can be fermented to produce ethanol, which can power motor vehicles, the business potential for growing sugar cane just got sweeter. (Imagine no more deep drilling to get to crude oil.)

Unfortunately, with heightened capital opportunity comes increased opportunism, accompanied by human rights abuses. Many of these countries continue to struggle with human rights issues, including debt-slavery among agrarian workers, child labor, and even the eviction of Cambodian landowners to make way for foreign-owned sugar plantations seeing big money in biofuels.

My thoughts drifted this morning to the field hands who would work alongside Maui’s Pu`unene highway. I don’t know if they were subject to human rights abuses, but I do hope that their hand in helping produce biofuels translated to lower energy costs in their homes—or some other direct benefit to them and their families.

Next time you sprinkle granulated sugar on your funnel cake, just think that there’s more than sweetness in that carnival bite, there’s history, national identity, whole industries and nations fueled by the humble stalks that clack-clack in the island breezes.

 
--- The author is Cynthia Thomet, a humanitarian, and co owner and doyenne of the award winning downtown Atlanta, Georgia; US restaurant, Lunacy Black Market. You can find Cynthia's own blog here:http://thoughtfulcyn.wordpress.com/.   Her columns for HUMNEWS search for the intersection between food and humanity, and how meals unite us. 

PEACEMEAL - Modest Tuber Enjoys Legendary Status, Worldwide Recognition (Commentary)

(Taro, or `Dasheen'. CREDIT: Wikipedia) This heart-shaped plant offers a lens to Hawaii, one of America’s ethnic cultures

-- by Cynthia Thomet                                  

There was no specific name for the dish I selected at a dim sum lunch this weekend. The server told me it was taro with pork and I was sold. (The best way to get me to buy anything is by saying it has pork. In a future PeaceMeal column, I may end up writing about pork, a food I absolutely adore, but today I thought I would write a little bit about the taro root, which grows in some of the worlds most exotic, beautiful and tropical climates.)

For those of you not familiar with taro, you might have passed by the modest root in your local health food store. It looks like a cross between a yam for its size and a beet for its purple-brown and textured exterior. Maybe you have seen taro wrapped in a shiny potato chip bag, posing as a dark-hued, veiney crisp, seducing your inner health nut with the tried-and-true treatment of dropping thin slivers of the root in hot oil

I first learned about “Taro” in the United States’ 50^th state, Hawaii. Taro, also known as kalo in Hawaiian, is much starchier than a potato. Its leaves are large, green, flat and heart-shaped.

My taro dish was combined with bits of pork and deep-fried into a type of fritter—almost like an Indian pakora. When I bit into its crispy bird’s nest exterior and melted into its soft interior, memories of my days on Maui sprang to mind.

What’s fascinating about this produce is that it has varieties that can grow as abundantly in dry terraces in the hills as in muddy plains at sea level. Or they can also be cultivated in watery ponds that the Hawaiians called lo`i.

(Girls pounding Poi in Hawaii. CREDIT: C. Thomet) In Hawaii, the legend has it that Kane (Sky Father) and Papa (Earth Mother) had a stillborn son named Haloa, whom they buried. The taro leaf sprang from Haloa’s grave and became the physical embodiment of the divine son of Kane and Papa. Future children borne by the Sky Father and Earth Mother sustained themselves with the food provided by their older brother, Haloa, whose name means “everlasting breath”. As such, the ingestion of taro was not simply a physical act, but a spiritual act that connected the Hawaiian people with their godly ancestors.

Whether or not you believe in the legend, it is undeniable that taro is almost like a supernatural food that could unite the peoples of Nigeria, Ghana, China, Egypt and Nepal if only because the taro is common to all of them. Just pick your favorite from the host of names out there for it—dasheen, inhame, pindaloo, for example—and you might find you have already tried this robust tuber under a different identity.

In researching this story, I discovered that as a child, I really used to enjoy a soupy dish made with taro leaves called callaloo from my native Trinidad (here’s a recipe for it). I never knew it was made with taro, because it was called dasheen.  

(Taro Root)I don’t know if there are other cultures that celebrate this root with festivities, but Hawaiians are already gearing up for their annual East Maui Taro Festival, which is scheduled for the end of April. Every year the event draws hundreds of residents from all around Maui, the Hawaiian Islands and even from around the world to participate in activities and remind residents and visitors of the reproductive nature of this important produce. As in years past, participants will enjoy live music and entertainment, participate in pounding poi (a soft, almost gummy food pounded with a traditional Hawaiian pestle, called a pohaku, made of stone) and also enjoy variations on taro, like poi ice cream!

Besides the potentially meditative element of pounding poi, the events surrounding this annual festival in general send an important message about sustainable agriculture, food production basic home-cooking, and our place—as humans—in our environments.

(A bowl of Poi. CREDIT Wikipedia)

If you take the opportunity to take the ever-winding road to the secluded town of Hana in East Maui, you might see protests from locals calling to end the diversion of stream waters by large agricultural companies who have access to source waters. But you can also take the trip from your computer by visiting the Kapahu Farms online and taking a panoramic tour.

If a gastronomical tour more suits your tastes, visit an ethnic eatery (a Chinese or a Caribbean restaurant will probably do the trick just fine) and ask what they have on the menu that includes taro. I think you will be pleasantly surprised. Who knows? You may be priming yourself for your next trip to an exotic culture!

--- The author is Cynthia Thomet, a humanitarian, and co owner and doyenne of the award winning downtown Atlanta, Georgia; US restaurant, Lunacy Black Market. You can find Cynthia's own blog here: http://thoughtfulcyn.wordpress.com/.   Her columns for HUMNEWS search for the intersection between food and humanity, and how meals unite us.   

PEACEMEAL - With Food Prices Rising, People Revolting, Is Wal-mart Really the Answer to America's Unhealthy Food Crisis? (Commentary)

- by Cynthia Thomet

A recent Bloomberg report entitled, “Mexico prices rose more than expected last month [December 2010],” confirms a feeling that I couldn’t quite put my finger on until I read this piece—an increasing and incremental sour pinch on my pocketbook every time I go to the grocery store.

My HUMNews editor suggested I write about lemons for this PeaceMeal story. It is a food that is enjoyed by numerous cultures all around the world, she said. I started to dream about it as the ingredient that could unite us as a people. That is, if we could all afford it this year!

Yes, my friends, food prices are on the rise. So, it seemed only appropriate to write about this other food-related issue that we all share in common: inflation.

Back when I wrote my last PeaceMeal column, there were rumblings about this becoming a serious issue in 2011. Like clockwork, the Guardian  reported in our first week of 2011 that “soaring prices of sugar, grain and oilseed drove world food prices to a record in December, surpassing the levels of 2008 when the cost of food sparked riots around the world, and prompting warnings of prices being in ‘danger territory’.”

January 2011 has not even ended, and we are witnessing protests and riots in Algeria , Tunisia, and Jordan  In northern Nigeria, the prices of onions have more than doubled – ditto for India! And UNICEF reports that the number of mothers bringing their severely malnourished kids to feeding centers in Niger has spiked in recent weeks – due, in part, to higher food prices.

Back here in Atlanta, where I live, I have begun to see prices rising significantly at the local restaurant supplier that sells bulk produce, grains, packaged foods and beverages to area restaurants, bodegas and local merchants. And it’s been making me feel particularly vulnerable to all the forces that are out there: mother earth and weather, political forces here and abroad, economies local and distant.

Rising food prices is what political revolutions are made of. The French revolution was catalyzed by famine and hunger, and now we’re seeing some of the same scathing language from Jordanian protesters: “Unify yourselves because the government wants to eat your flesh.” (It’s enough to make you skip the meat aisle.)

At the same time, I couldn’t help being caught up (and even a little distracted) by the public relations partnership between Wal-mart and Michelle Obama for their healthy foods initiative  Yes, obesity and unhealthful eating are major problems in the United States. Yes, there are many “food deserts” around the country where low income peoples have little access to unprocessed foods. And, yes, Wal-mart is promising to change the quality of processed foods so they are healthier. But it ignores the fact that Wal-mart still wants consumers to purchase processed foods, because, frankly, that’s where the money is made.

My opinion: it’s just a PR initiative designed to secure a consumer body for a billion-dollar big box business that needs tax breaks and a seat at the government dinner table. I have always had the hunch that the very processing of foods is what diminishes the value inherent in any food, and I have recently found that there are scientists who have been researching this phenomenon. (Visit this article  to kick-start any research in the issue. It’s fascinating!)

But in the greater scheme of things, I think the Wal-mart initiative is really missing the mark, as far as true change is concerned. The PR rhetoric sounds almost like, “Why don’t they eat healthier cake?” when some of the major food issues facing the regular American public include:

• How global food production is run, managed, controlled and directed by a small number of major international food corporations.
• How food distribution and pricing is controlled by a small number of major international food corporations.
• How the major food corporations want to create a deeper dependency on processed foods, because of their greater profit margin returns.

It just seems that simplifying and downscaling the food production process could be the better way to go.

So, while President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia freaks out from the cresting wave of protests and flees Tunis (and packs up his gold bars and family , I’m turning a lemon around in my hand wondering whether the First Lady is conscious that even a fresh lemon as a garnish in water is a luxury many Americans could never afford—even if purchased from Wal-mart.

Seriously though, it is hard for me to listen to Wal-mart’s commitment to pass on its best prices to the consumer without thinking that their negotiation strategy doesn’t involve bullying local farmers into bending to the big box’s exclusivity will.

Cynthia Thomet is a humanitarian, a food lover and co owner and doyenne of the award winning downtown Atlanta, Georgia; US restaurant, Lunacy Black Market. http://www.lunacyblackmarket.com/.  You can find Cynthia's own blog here: http://thoughtfulcyn.wordpress.com/.   Her pieces for HUMNEWS search for the intersection between food and humanity, and how meals unite us. 

PEACEMEAL - Tackling World Hunger Can Be Confusing. Addressing the Problem with Small Bites Might Make it More Manageable (Commentary)

--- by Cynthia Thomet

You may not have heard about an individual named David Beckmann president of the Washington D.C.-based nonprofit Bread for the World, whose focus is to urge decision makers to “end hunger at home and abroad.” I hadn’t, until he was awarded the World Food Prize at the 2010 Laureate Award Ceremony in Des Moines, Iowa.

As a 501(c)4 organization, Bread for the World is a little different from other nonprofits, because of its ability to devote its time, resources and energy not only to educating decision makers about ending hunger, but also to advocating specific policy change, or directly lobbying policy makers on this issue. Beckmann recently published a book called, Exodus from Hunger: We Are Called to Change the Politics of Hunger.

In one commentary I wrote for PeaceMeal, entitled “Billions Undernourished” was on the eve of World Food Day, and I learned a lot about what world hunger means in a nutshell: nearly one billion people in the world suffer from chronic hunger. The 1 Billion Hungry awareness campaign by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations called upon us to tap into our anger over this piece of information and do something to change this sad reality.

One billion people is alot of people. 

Rick Steves, a well-known travel guide writer and public television travel host, wrote in an inspired blog post about his recent trip—not to Europe, but to the World Food Prize ceremonies: “With all my travel experience, I've gained empathy for the struggles of people in developing nations, but my concern used to be confused and directionless.”

Indeed, humanitarians and world leaders are challenged with suggesting solutions and introducing policy to balance the forces that have wreaked havoc on the earth—from the natural disasters that have emerged as a result of climate change to the laws of capitalism that are still beholden to the cold realities of supply and demand, and the sometimes colder political motivations that tamper with the international trade economy’s so-called “invisible hand”.

Earlier this week, a headline in The Guardian announced, “Scramble to meet shortfall in food aid: Tens of thousands in Swaziland to miss out on food aid as lack of donor funding forces the WFP to cut assistance.”  

Tens of thousands. That’s a lot of people, too.

The article elaborates on some of the elements that complicate delivering food aid in Swaziland:

In one anecdote from Steves’ blog post, he describes a discussion panel about keeping young people interested in farming. When asked about this, Afghanistan’s minister of agriculture, Mohammad Asif Rahimi said, “Remember, in your society one percent of the people are farmers. In Afghanistan, 80 percent of our people are farmers. Encouraging young people to farm is not an issue for us.”

Still, the Guardian spoke with Kanayo Nwanze, president of the International Fund for Agriculture Development who would like to see countries investing in agriculture, making the sector “more attractive to youth and less dependent on rainfall for irrigation.”

It appears that the causes of, and approaches to, addressing world hunger are as numerous as its victims. An approach that would seem reasonable in Afghanistan and Swaziland might seem ludicrous in the United States, or vice versa. But this should not stop you from taking at least one step towards doing good.

Campaigns such as “1 Billion Hungry” have the potential to raise eyebrows, but they also have the potential to overpower and devastate action with crushingly huge numbers that reduce the individual to feelings of helplessness—or directionlessness. As we approach the end of the year, please do not allow your concern to feel directionless. Hopefully, a growing awareness of our global interconnectedness can help us feel obligated to move into a future where undernourishment is just a scientific definition, not a human reality. 

--- The author is Cynthia Thomet, a humanitarian, and co owner and doyenne of the award winning downtown Atlanta, Georgia; US restaurant, Lunacy Black Market.