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Arabica Robusta

Neoliberal roots of Haiti's food crisis | SocialistWorker.org - 0 views

socialistworker.org/...haiti-neoliberal-crisis

crisis development food haiti international neoliberal neoliberalism security

shared by Arabica Robusta on 06 May 08 - Cached
  • The roots of this phenomenon lie with a fundamental shift away from local production of food products toward importation of these basic essentials and higher profits for Haiti's wealthy elite. It really began in the 1980s and coincides with the "Reagan Revolution" in the United States and a foreign policy that placed emphasis on the "private sector" as the motor of society in providing opportunities for the poor majority.
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 06 May 08
       
      The importation racket is perhaps the most interesting aspect of this piece.
Arabica Robusta

Manufacturing a Food Crisis - 0 views

www.thenation.com/...bello

bello crisis development food international neoliberalism security

shared by Arabica Robusta on 26 May 08 - Cached
  • an intriguing question escaped many observers: how on earth did Mexicans, who live in the land where corn was domesticated, become dependent on US imports in the first place?
  • The Mexican food crisis cannot be fully understood without taking into account the fact that in the years preceding the tortilla crisis, the homeland of corn had been converted to a corn-importing economy by "free market" policies promoted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and Washington. The process began with the early 1980s debt crisis. One of the two largest developing-country debtors, Mexico was forced to beg for money from the Bank and IMF to service its debt to international commercial banks. The quid pro quo for a multibillion-dollar bailout was what a member of the World Bank executive board described as "unprecedented thoroughgoing interventionism" designed to eliminate high tariffs, state regulations and government support institutions, which neoliberal doctrine identified as barriers to economic efficiency. Interest payments rose from 19 percent of total government expenditures in 1982 to 57 percent in 1988, while capital expenditures dropped from an already low 19.3 percent to 4.4 percent. The contraction of government spending translated into the dismantling of state credit, government-subsidized agricultural inputs, price supports, state marketing boards and extension services. Unilateral liberalization of agricultural trade pushed by the IMF and World Bank also contributed to the destabilization of peasant producers. This blow to peasant agriculture was followed by an even larger one in 1994, when the North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect. Although NAFTA had a fifteen-year phaseout of tariff protection for agricultural products, including corn, highly subsidized US corn quickly flooded in, reducing prices by half and plunging the corn sector into chronic crisis. Largely as a result of this agreement, Mexico's status as a net food importer has now been firmly established.
  • Arabica Robusta on 26 May 08
     
    an intriguing question escaped many observers: how on earth did Mexicans, who live in the land where corn was domesticated, become dependent on US imports in the first place? * Related * Also By * Haiti on the 'Death Plan' Subscribe Globalization Reed Lindsay: Protesters decry high food prices--and the savage cost of "free trade" agreements. * Manufacturing a Food Crisis Agriculture Walden Bello: How "free trade" is destroying Third World agriculture--and who's fighting back. * The World Food Crisis Globalization John Nichols: We must rein in the global food giants who reap profits at the expense of the planet and the poor. * Democratizing Capital Globalization Sherle R. Schwenninger: New Deal progressives believed the economy should exist to serve society, not the other way around. * Milk Wars Agriculture David E. Gumpert: As struggling dairy farmers seek profits by responding to rising consumer demand for raw milk, regulators are taking a hard line. * Banana Kings Agriculture Emily Biuso: The history of banana cultivation is rife with labor and environmental abuse, corporate skulduggery and genetic experiments gone awry. * The Big Yam China John Feffer: Chinese hearts, minds and pocketbooks get a lot of attention from the Eastern and Western consumer markets. » More * Manufacturing a Food Crisis Agriculture Walden Bello: How "free trade" is destroying Third World agriculture--and who's fighting back. * Microcredit, Macro Issues Peace Activism Walden Bello: The Swedish Academy bestowed this year's Nobel Peace Prize to Muhammad Yunus, the father of microcredit. It's easy to believe Yunus's low-interest loans to the poor are a silver bullet against global economic injustice. But it's not that simple. * Letter From the Philippines Su
Arabica Robusta

Let them eat ethanol - 0 views

www.socialistworker.org/...669_03_Ethanol.shtml

biofuels crisis economic ethanol food international neoliberal

shared by Arabica Robusta on 23 Apr 08 - Cached
  • Arabica Robusta on 23 Apr 08
     
    Now, the law of supply and demand has dictated that the market for biofuels should reduce the production of corn for food by 25 percent in the U.S., triggering a rise in corn prices that has encouraged speculators to hoard crops...
Arabica Robusta

From Food Crisis to Food Sovereignty: The Challenge of Social Movements | Books | AlterNet - 0 views

www.alternet.org/...challenge_of_social_movements_

food security international development agriculture crisis agribusiness foodsecurity biofuels

shared by Arabica Robusta on 24 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Neoliberal retrenchment has met growing resistance by those most affected by the crisis—the world’s smallholder farmers.
  • Clashes and declarations of protest at recent summits in Rome, Hokkaido, and Madrid, the growing public resistance to the industrial agrifood complex, and the rise, spread, and political convergence of movements for agroecology, land reform, food justice, and food sovereignty, all indicate that the food crisis has become the focal point in a class struggle over the future of our food systems.
  • The contradiction of increasing hunger in the midst of wealth and abundance sparked food riots, not seen for many decades. Protests in Mexico, Morocco, Mauritania, Senegal, Indonesia, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Yemen, Egypt, Haiti, and twenty other countries were sparked by skyrocketing food prices.
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