Food Crises - I Development & Underdevelopment, From Green Revolution to Famine

Readings  H.Cleaver, "Food, Famine & Int'l Crisis"  NACLA, "US Grain Arsenal"  "US Food Power: Ultimate Weapon in World Politics"

Food as Feast  Food as staff of life, fundamental necessity  gathering, production always social act  Food as social medium  family meals  religious rituals  collective rituals, holidays, festivals  sharing of food = sharing of self  bonding

Food as Power  Control over food  power over life  control over land - food  autonomy  power to live independently  control over land - food  Power over others  Power to make others lives dependent  e.g., sharecropping  e.g., wage labor  e.g., soviet family plots

Power over Others  Families  control over children  no work, no supper, primogeniture  Local community  control over land fundamental to structure of power  Nation States  internally: role in food distribution function of pressures, top down, bottom up  externally: food as weapon in diplomacy

Food in Capitalism  Control over land - food  control over work  Without autonomous sources of food, people are forced into labor market  Monopoly of control gives capitalists Power to impose work  History of capitalism is history of business efforts to achieve monopoly control of land - food  enclosure, Wakefield, etc.

Food & Resistance  Conversely, access to land - food gives power to resist, material basis for autonomous life  Historical resistance to enclosure, from England in 18th Century to Zapatistas at beginning of 21st Century  Those who have lost access to land fight for "access" to food, e.g., welfare, food stamps  greater the access, greater ability to resist low wages

Development & Underdevelopment  Development & underdevelopment  as states-of-being  developed = industrial, rich  underdeveloped = agrarian, poor  as processes  development = investment, growth, industrializing, rising real income per capita  underdevelopment = disinvestment, decline, falling Y/cap  as strategies  development: giving food to get work  underdevelopment: witholding food to get work

Giving Food (& Land) - I  Lack of food seen as source of revolution  30s - 40s private foundations developed "food politics" for Third World  land reform, community development, new ag technology  especially Rockefeller Foundation in China  even earlier in US South  "development" strategies, give to get  state took over private policies and integrated into foreign policy thru foreign aid programs, diplo.  state also subsidized increased food production, increased real wages in US & Europe, welfare

Giving Food - II  1960s: "Development Decade"  "Green Revolution" technologies from IRRI, CYMMIT,  high yielding rice & wheat varieties  replaced land reform & com. dev.  promise of food in exchange for acceptance of capitalist rules of the game, integration into global economy  Development = Keynesianism in 3rd & 2nd worlds  Soviet Keynesianism in countryside, cities

Withholding Food - I  After World War I, Herbert Hoover & American foreign aid in Eastern Europe  food aid given to those who followed the American line, vis a vis Germany & USSR, US investment  food aid withheld from those who didn't go along with US policies

Withholding Food - II  1950s s: PL 480  subsidies to US agriculture  food surpluses  Hubert Humphrey saw surpluses as leverage  food for starving if and only if governments accepted American directives  e.g., Indian famine  Orville Freeman, Sec of Agriculture tells Indian Min of Ag Subramaniam food aid if:  population control  opening of Indian fertilizer industry to US firms

Contradictions of Green Revolution Technologies  Unforeseen consequences of Green Revolution  uneven application across regions  accessible to rich farmers, not poor, aggravated inequalities  rich farmer investment in labor saving capital equipment caused unemployment for landless  environmental problems due to:  monocropping  increased use of inorganic fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides

From Green to Red Revolution  Regional Disparities aggravated Pakistan Conflict as West benefited and East didn't  Increased intra-peasant conflicts in India btwn those who benefited and those who didn't  Naxalite Rebellion in W.Bengal, Bihar

Welfare State & Rebellion  Food subsidies to poor:  school lunches, food stamps, etc  Viewed as inadequate, part of cause of rebellions:  central city uprisings  Black Panther Party extortion for breakfasts  State response: dramatic spread of Food Stamp program to meet demands, quiet rebellion

Food & Rebellion in East  Circa 1960: food riots in Russia  chronic peasant resistance  results in Krushchev's opening steppe production  later Keynesian policies for peasants  1970: Polish govt increases food prices  widespread rebellion in Poland, food prices dropped  sympathy strikes in USSR, 5-yr plan revised, increased food imports (1972 grain deal), efforts to industrialize food production

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