What Food Shortage? Humanity Is Sacrificing Itself On The Altar Of Corporate Profits And War

Today, as the world produces more food than ever before, more than one in ten people on Earth are hungry. But the hunger of almost 1 billion people is taking place at the same time corporate food producers sell the food, manipulating production and prices which reap enormous profits. Indeed, choices on what to eat - or whether to eat - do not belong to the consumer but to the power of giant food corporations. Corporations that either take advantage of crises like the wars in Ukraine and Yemen, or that cater only to the world’s richest countries where obesity is a growing problem.

Countries like the United States and India - and others - are home to these contrasts.

In the US, 40 million people do not know where their next meal is coming from.

In India, there are signs of malnutrition and an epidemic of farmer suicides.

In the meantime, corporate food producers take advantage to exploit food scarcity in the name of profits, blaming food shortages on the wars in Ukraine and Yemen. With some countries already coping with high levels of acute hunger, making them dependent on corporate food producers, humanity is sacrificing itself on the altar of corporate profits and war.

In “Stuffed and Starved,” Raj Patel writes: The language of condemnation does not help us understand why corporate induced hunger, abundance, and obesity are more compatible on our planet than they ever have been. Indeed, Moral condemnation only works if the condemned are forced to do things differently, if they challenge the perversity of the way food is produced and distributed and if the creators (wars and demagogues) of hunger are resisted and abolished. Moreover, consumers need to reject “individual choices" and think collectively on behalf of the hungry.

At every stage, the story of food and hunger and the choices of consumers should be applied to powerful groups, corporations, and governments. Who chooses what should be grown and sourced from where in making a meal? Who decides what to pay growers and workers - and how much? Who makes money from additives in food that do more harm than good, or that withhold food from nations suffering from hunger? And finally, who profits from war and the manufacturing of weapons? Consequently, is not every warship launched or every weapon made theft from those who hunger?

The last stage to be questioned are trade policies, supply chains, and the issue of power concentrated in a very few hands. Elitists, large food corporations, and certain governments that use food as a weapon of war and for population control are very reluctant to cede their control over the food system.

Wealthy nations, Nestle’s, Starbucks, Kroger, and other food system corporations will argue “supply and demand” and low consumer prices. This kind of thinking, however, is costly and immoral. To be sure, a peaceful world cannot long exist if 1 billion people hunger -and even more suffer from malnutrition.