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July 17, 2006
Food vs. Biofuels - Why the Debate?
By:
Jeff at Sustainablog has been discussing the food vs. biofuel crops debate, and so has Treehugger, but the whole discussion there leaves me with a nagging feeling. While I don't know if biofuels are going to be the right way to go in order to replace the oil regime, there's a completely different topic that I feel is being ignored in this debate.
Many well-respected researchers, chiefly among them Francis Lappe, have been saying since the 1970s that starvation and chronic hunger aren't a production problem. We have enough food to feed everyone already.
The problem is that not enough people are getting that food. We shouldn't be worried about how much more food is grown when we talk about feeding the hungry, we should be worried about why those people aren't getting the food that is already available for them.
The “green revolution” was to end hunger by creating a massive production increase that would allow everyone to be fed. Indeed, the green revolution has created a surplus of crops, and today every person on the planet could have thirty-five hundred calories a day just from the world’s grain supplies. There is enough food for approximately 4.3 pounds of general food per person per day: 2.5 pounds of grain, beans, and nuts, a pound of fruits and vegetables, and nearly another pound of meat, milk, and eggs (Lappé 1999a: 10). However, there are still 800 million people suffering from hunger in the world (Lappé 1999a: 4). This is due, in large part, to a number of problems with the methods that were spawned from the green revolution and from a devastatingly backwards food aid system. Most countries with high percentages of hungry people still produce enough to feed everyone, yet many of these ‘hungry countries’ actually export quite a bit of their food (Lappé 1999a: 11).
Lappé, Frances Moore, Joseph Collins, and Peter Rosset, with Luis Esparza
1999 Beyond Guilt and Fear from The Paradox of Plenty: Hunger in a Bountiful World, Douglas Boucher. Pp. 4-60. Food First Books. Oakland, CA.
And more suggested reading:
The Paradox of Plenty: Hunger in a Bountiful World, Douglas Boucher. Food First Books. Oakland, CA.
From Columbus to Con Agra: the Globalization of Agriculture and Food. University of Kansas Press. Lawrence, Kansas
Goldschmidt, Walter
1978 As You Sow: Three Studies in the Social
Consequences of Agribusiness.
Grey, Mark A.
2000 The Industrial Food Stream and its Alternatives in the United States: An
Introduction. Human Organization. Vol. 59, No. 2. Pp. 143-150.
Posted by George at July 17, 2006 1:44 PM Category: Alternatives