The Food Wars by Walden Bello

fare jeopardy is link to various issues more than(prenominal)(prenominal) as poverty, low income, poor infrastructure, inequitable assenting to land, water, credit and market places. Food security is also threatened due to immanent disasters such as floods, droughts and further exacerbated by internal conflicts which can skid outlandish and farming communities. These issues and challenges ar the normal and repetitive debates among the global friendship of practice regarding nutrient security while the needs and necessities of the niggard farmers, who are responsible for the study(ip)ity of feed turnout well-nigh the globe, are not addressed.In The Food Wars, Walden Bello presents the important and burning issues of the North-South power gap and power structure regarding food security. Bello depicts and argues the role of the Bretton Woods institutions influencing agricultural policies in ontogeny countries, organizations such as the WTO designing rules and regulati ons that exclude developing lands and their smallholder farmers, while donor organizations such as USAID heavily persuade developing nations to adopt unfriendly internal policies.Most importantly, Bello closes the gap between the policies made by multilateral institutions, developing organization ministries and their implication on the peasant farmer. The structural margin had spacious implication and consequences in Mexico and the Philippines. According to Bello, the structural adjustment tore unconnected the traditional corn farmers of Mexico and turned a nation that was once the superior place of corn domestication to a major corn importer. Further more(prenominal), the cosmos of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in an examine to create liberalization of agricultural trade further displaced smallholder farmers.Policies imposed by the North have diverted the traditional farming practices of the peasant farmer that has existed for decades to commercial agricul tural practices in an attempt to increase agricultural faculty and strengthen food security. Following the structural adjustment and NAFTA Mexico experienced blunt food insecurity while the young labor force from rural farms stated migrating to the US. Bello also discusses the Philippines experience regarding the rice shortage. The Philippines once a major rice exporter nation owing to the governing body echnical services geared towards peasant farmers became a major food importer due to the effects of structural adjustments. Philippines admission to the WTO increased the countrys payment to its debts, extracting funds from various giving medication services including towards peasant farmers while the nations food insecurity increased. Bello states Today, the status of the Philippines as a permanent importer of rice and, more generally, a net food importer is implicitly accepted by a government that does not view the countryside as an essential element in the nations economic d evelopment(Bello, 67).Bello also discusses the impact of the structural adjustment in the African agriculture. In what Bello labelight-emitting diode Destroying African Agriculture, he discusses the transformation of the African continent as a major exporter of food to a major importer. The aim of the structure adjustment in Africa was to badger governments involvement in rural agriculture such as subsidise fertilizers. The ultimate goal was to attract the esoteric sector into the agriculture parsimoniousness so that ultimately agriculture productivity increases through industrialized personal manner of agriculture instead of the peasant agriculture.However, according to Bello, the private sector failed to tread in to fill in the gaps. In the case of Malawi, the innate turn over the government to adopt structural adjustment led the extreme food insecurity of the country and eventually led to famine. Prior to openhanded into the man Banks and IMFs pressure to adopt to these adjustments, Malawi had a fertilizer subsidy program that provided peasants farmers with affordable fertilizers. After surrendering to the structural adjustment, the government of Malawi withdrew its support to peasant farmers with the hope of the private sector stepping in.However, food production declined tremendously while the nation turned to aid. Malawi finally refused to abide by these adjustments and continued to provide subsidized fertilizer which was followed by three historic period of crop surplus. Furthermore, Bello emphasizes the contradicting approaches between the WTO and the structural adjustment of the Bretton Wood Institutions. While the World Bank and the IMF were forcing governments to abandon the various subsidies they have set up in place for the peasant farmer, the WTO failed to eliminate subsidies by the US and European governments.Bello states Subsidies without delay account for 40 per centum of the value of agricultural production in the European Union and 25 percent in the United States (Bello, 76-77). Smallholder farmers were in no position to compete in such unfair market environment and thus the rise in food insecurity around the globe. Agrofuels were once considered the remedy to the massive consumption of fossil fuels and the green alternative. However, as Bello mentions and debates that US and EU agrofuels policies were responsible for three quarters of the 140 percent increase in food prices between 2002 and February 2008 (Bello, 123).Agrofuels become an opportunity of major profit making for multiple multinational corporations. Government officials and development workers indorsed this wizard(prenominal) solution with the hope of aiding their beneficiaries. However, the serious demand of agrofuel consumption and production led to extensive environmental damage, pollution and threats to biodiversity. Furthermore, the production of agrofuels failed to be sustainable for it exploits more energy than it produces.However, cor porate agriculture and various privileged politicians are the primary beneficiaries to agrofuels and the main drivers to projects and policies that are favorable to it. According to Shepard Daniel and Anuradha Mittals article The gigantic Land Grab Rush for Worlds Farmland Threatens Food security of the Poor, the demand for land has driven investors from around the globe to the present-day(prenominal) land fascinate Attracted by this big demand and market, investors- mainly from the private sector and OECD member countries- are targeting vast tracts of land to produce crops for agrofuels in developing countries, (Daniel and Mittal, 4).The land grab in various developing nations is not only coming from the usual Northern countries but rather from appear economies of China, India, Saudi Arabia and UAE. Furthermore, pressured by the international institutions and foreign investors, developing countries governments fail to actualise the appropriate decisions that favors smallholde r farmers. More and more evidence is indicating that there is not much room for smallholder farmers in this global rush to massive land grabs. scrooge farmers are being forced out of their lands, forced to work on industrialized agriculture while losing their family/ traditional values. The global land grab is not only eliminating traditional farming heritages but is also creating a severe food shortage and insecurity in the most insecure areas of the world. Walden Bello presents a holistic argument regarding international food insecurity as influenced by various global players of the North.It offers an extensive analysis of the power hierarchy that exists between the North- South divide and its contribution to the various failed endeavors and attempts to achieving global food security. Bello also emphasizes on food sovereignty as the right of each(prenominal) nation and its citizens to sustain and advance its own capacity to produce base food, while respecting environmental, p roductive and cultural diversity. Most importantly, the book emphasizes on the richness of the participation of peasant farmers in decision and policy making being key to achieving food security and healthy economic growth as a whole.