NO FOOD CRISIS
As global intellectuals meet in Rome to discuss and debate on the severity of the prevailing [considered to be] and compounding food crisis, the real-time food facts from across continents, proves the whole story of food crisis to be grossly engineered and manipulated by some vested interests. European farmers have been the hard-hit lot, victimized for abundance by successive governments. The most recent happenings, where fishermen attacked supermarkets in France, and German farmers sprinkled milk instead of water in their farms, talks loud of how their governments deliberately under-priced agro products, and stifled their supply and sale in the local or global markets.
Peculiarly, the supermarkets across Europe have been escalating prices of food products, as never before. Information provided by Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Communities has reported of burgeoning unemployment and resulting in massive social unrests. The Italians boycott of Pasta, for doubling its prices further stands testimony to how popular opposition has been fighting tooth and nail against certain vested interests.
Pre-90s and Post-90s Europe has seen contradictory agricultural policies. In pre-90s the focus of governments was to produce more food grains and create sensible food security. Post-90s Europe, followed a deliberate policy of 'wilderness scheme' where farmers were paid for not cultivating their lands. The tsunamic wave of globalization did not spare European markets, saw the European Union reacting with tough protectionist measures. The European governments extended protection to large-scale agribusiness, much at the cost of small farmers, who stood exposed to global competitors. The farmers turned aggressive by blockading ports and forcing away imports.
European governments’ deliberate policy was to force small farmers into organic farming and bio-fuels. Left with no choice, at the face of global competitors flooding food products into European markets, the small European farmers were either forced to take up organic farming or bio-fuels, or give away their lands for start of national parks and golf courses. Now, the instance of why the farmers and fishermen in Europe are throwing away fresh fish and milk in their markets and farms finds valid explanation. The small farmers of Europe are not able to sell their produce in their own local markets, and in-turn are being forced to buy food products at unimaginable prices.
Recent arguments that, demand for food from China and India because of the growing urban populations has pushed prices up, and President George W Bush's remarks that cultivation of bio-fuels and diversion of valuable farmland from food grain production has resulted in a major food crisis, is hollow and flawed. The truth is visible and evident. There is no shortage of food, and the high food grain yields in China and India this season, proves the point. News that there is food crisis has really been engineered to serve the vested interests of governments across Europe and North America.
Europe’s farmers have proved their point, as their food products go waste, they are yet to find any buyers neither in local nor global markets, as millions go hungry and die of hunger in the African continent. The expanse of land actually under bio-fuels is a fraction of the millions of acres of fertile land that has been deliberately removed out of cultivation by successive EU governments. It will be no exaggeration, if we say that, the whole world can be fed with enough food products, if the national governments across continents roll-back policies that have created artificial limits on production of food products. It will be in the interest of small farmers, and nations suffering from hunger, if the Rome Summit focuses on all the practical issues concerning food grains production. Global intellectuals and policy makers need to impress on European and North American governments to rationalize their farm sector, such that nations suffering from hunger are fed, and put firmly on the path of self-reliance in food grain production.
SANJAY NANNAPARAJU HCU EA - Sales & Marketing Satyam Computer Services Ltd OHRI Towers, Sebastian Road, Secunderabad.
