taken from Internation Forum on Globalization website
SEVEN DEADLY MYTHS AND FACTS
ABOUT HUNGER
MYTH 1:
Industrial agriculture and free trade will feed the world.
TRUTH:
World hunger is not created by lack of food but by poverty and landlessness which deny people access to food.
Industrial agriculture-i.e., large-scale, corporate-run, export-oriented monoculture farming-and free trade
agreements actually increase hunger by raising the cost of farming, forcing millions of farmers off the land, and
by growing primarily high-profit export and luxury crops rather than food for local people to eat. The United
Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has found that it is abundance, not scarcity, that best
describes the world’s food supply. Every year, enough wheat, rice, and other grains are produced to provide
every human with 3,500 daily calories. In fact, enough food is grown worldwide to provide 4.3 pounds of food
per person per day, which would include two and a half pounds of grain, beans, and nuts, a pound of fruits and vegetables, and nearly another pound of meat, milk, and eggs.
As the World Health Organization explains, “Hunger is a question of maldistribution and inequality-not lack of
food.”
One reason 800 million people go hungry every day is food dependence. As changes in industrial agriculture-
including biotechnology-and international trade agreements dramatically increase the costs of farming and corporate
consolidation, tens of millions of the world’s farmers find themselves in a situation of spending more in
production costs, yet receiving less income. Millions lose their land, their ability to grow their own food and
their income. As corporate-agribusiness takes over, exports may boom while hunger continues unabated or actually
worsens. Export crop production and current trade rules squeeze out basic local food production and local
farmers. The result is more landlessness, more migration to cities, more poverty and more hunger.
MYTH 2:
Industrial food is healthier than traditionally grown food.
TRUTH:
Industrial agriculture contaminates our vegetables and fruits with pesticides, slips dangerous bacteria into our lettuce,
and puts genetically engineered (GE) growth hormones into our milk. As the industrialization of the food
supply progresses, we are witnessing an explosion in human health risks and a significant decrease in the nutritional
value of our meals. A central component of the industrialized food system is the large-scale introduction
of toxic chemicals, which shows no signs of decreasing. Cancer is the primary concern associated with toxic
dependency. Cancer risk affects not only consumers, but also farmers, field hands, and migrant workers.
Industrialized food production has resulted in a rise in food-borne illnesses. Researchers from the Centers for
Disease Control (CDC) estimate that food-borne pathogens now infect up to 80 million people a year and cause
over 9,000 deaths in the United States alone. This increase is largely due to the industrialization of poultry and
livestock production and the confinement of food animals in inhumane and overly crowded conditions. Another
factor is the use of antibiotics in farm animal production, which may be accelerating antibiotic resistance exhibited
by dangerous pathogens. When confronted with the health crisis their food has caused, the purveyors of
industrialized food assure us that new industrial technologies will fix everything. Irradiating food is one example.
Studies have shown that consuming irradiated meat can cause DNA damage, resulting in abnormalities in laboratory
animals and their offspring. Irradiation may also destroy essential vitamins and nutrients and can make food
taste and smell rancid.
MYTH 3:
Industrial food is cheaper than traditionally grown food and
therefore more accessible.
TRUTH:
If you added the real cost of industrial food-its health, environmental, and social costs-to the current supermarket
price, not even our wealthiest citizens could afford to buy it. We expend tens of billions of dollars in
taxes, medical expenses, toxic clean-ups, insurance premiums, and other pass-along costs to subsidize industrial
food producers. Given the ever-increasing health, environmental, and social destruction involved in industrial
agriculture, the real price of this food production for future generations is incalculable.
Environmental Costs: Intensive use of pesticides and fertilizers seriously pollutes our water, soil, and air. Animal factories
in the U.S. produce 1.3 billion tons of manure each year. Laden with chemicals, antibiotics, and hormones,
the manure leaches into rivers and water tables, polluting drinking supplies and killing fish. The overuse of
chemicals and machines on industrial farms erodes away the topsoil; the U. S. has lost half of its topsoil since
1960. The food on an average American’s plate now travels at least 1,300 miles from the field to the dinner table.
This long-distance transport of industrial food exacerbates air and water pollution problems.
Health Costs: The human health costs of consuming industrial foods include food-borne illnesses, cancer (due to
the use of pesticides, hormones, and other chemical inputs) and obesity and heart disease (due to industrial fastfood
diets). Farmworkers themselves suffer acute pesticide poisoning, and, according to the U.S. Department of
Agriculture, work in one of the most accident-prone industries in the United States.
Loss of Farms and Communities: The dislocation of millions of farmers and thousands of farm communities does not
appear in the usual food cost calculations. Seventy years ago there were nearly 7 million American farmers. Today,
after the onslaught of industrial agriculture, there are only about 2 million, even though the U.S. population has
doubled. Current costs associated with industrial food and agriculture do not include welfare and other government
payments to ex-farmers and farmworkers driven into poverty.
Tax Subsidies: U.S. taxpayers pay billions of dollars in government subsidies to industrial agriculture. Price supports,
price “fixing,” tax credits, and product promotions are all forms of “welfare” for agribusiness. These subsidies add
almost $3 billion to the “hidden” costs of foods to consumers.
MYTH 4:
Industrial agriculture is more efficient and therefore will
feed more people.
TRUTH:
Small farms typically achieve at least four to five times greater output per acre than large farms. Moreover, larger,
less diverse farms require far more mechanical and chemical inputs. These ever-increasing inputs are devastating
to the environment and make these farms far less efficient than smaller, more sustainable farms. Studies show that
smaller farms are more productive than larger farms, in part because small farmers work their land more intensively
and use integrated, and often more sustainable, production systems. As farms get larger, the costs of production
per unit often increase because larger acreage requires more expensive machinery and more chemicals to
protect crops. Moreover, the large monocultures used in industrial farming undermine the genetic integrity of
crops, making them more susceptible to diseases and pests (thus requiring greater use of pesticides).
Smaller farms tend to use a method known as “intercropping,” or mixing plant crops. Smaller farms are more likely
to rotate or combine crops and livestock, with resulting composted manure used to replenish soil fertility.
These small-scale integrated farms produce far more per unit area than large farms. Though the yield per unit
area of one crop (e.g., corn) may be lower, the total output per unit area for small farms, often composed of
more than a dozen crops and numerous animal products, is virtually always higher than that of larger farms.
MYTH 5:
Biotechnology will solve the problems of industrial agriculture.
TRUTH:
New biotech crops will not solve industrial agriculture’s problems, but will compound them and consolidate control of the world’s food supply into the hands of a few large corporations. Biotechnology will destroy biodiversity and food security, and drive self-sufficient farmers off their land.
Will Biotechnology Feed the World?: Industrial agriculture has relentlessly pushed the myth that biotechnology will conquer world hunger. However, the hunger problem facing the world lies not with the amount of food being produced, but rather with how this food is distributed. If biotech corporations really wanted to feed the hungry, they would encourage land reform, which puts farmers back on the land, and push for wealth redistribution,which would allow the poor to buy food.
As for genetic engineering being an answer to world hunger, that too is just another fallacy, and rather could be a major contributor to starvation. Patents on seeds that are now genetically engineered by biotech corporations are made to produce a sterile seed after a single growing season, ensuring that the world’s farmers cannot save their seed and instead will have to buy from corporations every season. More than half of the world’s farmers rely on saved seeds; should sterile seeds escape from the engineered crop and contaminate non-GE local crops,unintentionally sterilizing them, mass starvation could result.
Will Biotechnology Protect the Earth?: The idea that biotechnology is beneficial to the environment centers on the myth that it will reduce pesticide use by creating plants resistant to insects and other pests. In actuality, a study in 2000 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that there is no overall reduction in pesticide use with GE crops.
Will Biotechnology Produce Safe Food?: According to even U.S. government scientists, the genetic engineering of foods could make safe food toxic. GE foods may contain both old and new allergens, which could create serious reactions in millions of consumers. Biotech foods can also have lower nutritional values. What makes these risks even more alarming is that the U.S. government requires no mandatory safety testing or labeling of any GE foods.
Is Biotechnology Cheap and Efficient?: Biotech companies have spent billions of dollars researching the effects of creating transgenic organisms such as inserting fish genes into tomatoes. To date, biotechnology has yet to bring to market a single product that actually benefits consumers yet it passes on the enormous costs of their research.
Is “Golden Rice” the Answer?: Golden rice is named for its slightly orange color, due to the incorporation of a daffodil gene that can produce beta-carotene, a nutrient humans can convert into vitamin A. Because vitamin A deficiency contributes to blindness and infectious diseases among the poor in developing countries, this rice was aggressively advertised as a miracle grain. An analysis of industry data shows that in order for those most vulnerable to blindness, infants, to get enough vitamin A from breast milk, their mothers would have to consume almost (39.6) 40 pounds of cooked rice per day. Similarly, an adult male would need to eat 18 pounds of cooked golden rice to
meet his daily vitamin A requirement. In other words, if golden rice were simply substituted for a daily diet of conventional white rice, a child or adult would receive only eight percent of their daily vitamin-A requirement.
Even so, the body can only convert beta-carotene into vitamin A if adequate amounts of fat and protein are also
part of the diet. Generally speaking, malnourished people, by definition, lack fat and protein in their diets.
Nutritional deficits can be easily and cheaply corrected with a more varied diet. Green leafy vegetables, oranges,and red palm oil all are high in vitamin A. So, why pursue Golden Rice? Because 90 percent of the world’s rice is grown and consumed in Asia, making this part of the world a vast and potentially profitable market for a GE version
of the crop.
MYTH 6:
Nature is to Blame for Hunger
TRUTH:
Human-made forces are making people increasingly vulnerable to nature’s vagaries. Food is always available for those who can afford it-starvation during hard times hits only the poorest. Millions live on the brink of disaster in south Asia, Africa and elsewhere, because they are deprived of land by a powerful few, trapped in the unremitting grip of debt, or miserably paid. Natural events rarely explain deaths; they are simply the final push over the brink. Human institutions and policies determine who eats and who starves during hard times. Likewise, in America many homeless die from the cold every winter, yet ultimate responsibility doesn’t lie with the weather. The real culprits are an economy that fails to offer everyone opportunities, and a society that places economic efficiency over compassion.
MYTH 7:
Population is to Blame for Hunger
TRUTH:
Population growth is not the root cause of hunger. Like hunger itself, it results from underlying inequities that deprive people, especially poor women, of economic opportunity and security. According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, “Increases in food production in the last thirty five years have outpaced the world’s unprecedented population growth by about 16 percent.” Although rapid population growth remains a serious concern in many countries, nowhere does population density explain hunger. For every Bangladesh, a densely populated and hungry country, we find a Nigeria, Brazil or Bolivia, where abundant food resources coexist with hunger. Costa Rica, with only half of Honduras’ cropped acres per person, boasts a life expectancy-one indicator of nutrition -11 years longer than that of Honduras and close to that of developed countries. Rapid population growth and hunger are endemic to societies where land ownership, jobs, education, health care, and old age security are beyond the reach of most people. ❧
ABOUT HUNGER
MYTH 1:
Industrial agriculture and free trade will feed the world.
TRUTH:
World hunger is not created by lack of food but by poverty and landlessness which deny people access to food.
Industrial agriculture-i.e., large-scale, corporate-run, export-oriented monoculture farming-and free trade
agreements actually increase hunger by raising the cost of farming, forcing millions of farmers off the land, and
by growing primarily high-profit export and luxury crops rather than food for local people to eat. The United
Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has found that it is abundance, not scarcity, that best
describes the world’s food supply. Every year, enough wheat, rice, and other grains are produced to provide
every human with 3,500 daily calories. In fact, enough food is grown worldwide to provide 4.3 pounds of food
per person per day, which would include two and a half pounds of grain, beans, and nuts, a pound of fruits and vegetables, and nearly another pound of meat, milk, and eggs.
As the World Health Organization explains, “Hunger is a question of maldistribution and inequality-not lack of
food.”
One reason 800 million people go hungry every day is food dependence. As changes in industrial agriculture-
including biotechnology-and international trade agreements dramatically increase the costs of farming and corporate
consolidation, tens of millions of the world’s farmers find themselves in a situation of spending more in
production costs, yet receiving less income. Millions lose their land, their ability to grow their own food and
their income. As corporate-agribusiness takes over, exports may boom while hunger continues unabated or actually
worsens. Export crop production and current trade rules squeeze out basic local food production and local
farmers. The result is more landlessness, more migration to cities, more poverty and more hunger.
MYTH 2:
Industrial food is healthier than traditionally grown food.
TRUTH:
Industrial agriculture contaminates our vegetables and fruits with pesticides, slips dangerous bacteria into our lettuce,
and puts genetically engineered (GE) growth hormones into our milk. As the industrialization of the food
supply progresses, we are witnessing an explosion in human health risks and a significant decrease in the nutritional
value of our meals. A central component of the industrialized food system is the large-scale introduction
of toxic chemicals, which shows no signs of decreasing. Cancer is the primary concern associated with toxic
dependency. Cancer risk affects not only consumers, but also farmers, field hands, and migrant workers.
Industrialized food production has resulted in a rise in food-borne illnesses. Researchers from the Centers for
Disease Control (CDC) estimate that food-borne pathogens now infect up to 80 million people a year and cause
over 9,000 deaths in the United States alone. This increase is largely due to the industrialization of poultry and
livestock production and the confinement of food animals in inhumane and overly crowded conditions. Another
factor is the use of antibiotics in farm animal production, which may be accelerating antibiotic resistance exhibited
by dangerous pathogens. When confronted with the health crisis their food has caused, the purveyors of
industrialized food assure us that new industrial technologies will fix everything. Irradiating food is one example.
Studies have shown that consuming irradiated meat can cause DNA damage, resulting in abnormalities in laboratory
animals and their offspring. Irradiation may also destroy essential vitamins and nutrients and can make food
taste and smell rancid.
MYTH 3:
Industrial food is cheaper than traditionally grown food and
therefore more accessible.
TRUTH:
If you added the real cost of industrial food-its health, environmental, and social costs-to the current supermarket
price, not even our wealthiest citizens could afford to buy it. We expend tens of billions of dollars in
taxes, medical expenses, toxic clean-ups, insurance premiums, and other pass-along costs to subsidize industrial
food producers. Given the ever-increasing health, environmental, and social destruction involved in industrial
agriculture, the real price of this food production for future generations is incalculable.
Environmental Costs: Intensive use of pesticides and fertilizers seriously pollutes our water, soil, and air. Animal factories
in the U.S. produce 1.3 billion tons of manure each year. Laden with chemicals, antibiotics, and hormones,
the manure leaches into rivers and water tables, polluting drinking supplies and killing fish. The overuse of
chemicals and machines on industrial farms erodes away the topsoil; the U. S. has lost half of its topsoil since
1960. The food on an average American’s plate now travels at least 1,300 miles from the field to the dinner table.
This long-distance transport of industrial food exacerbates air and water pollution problems.
Health Costs: The human health costs of consuming industrial foods include food-borne illnesses, cancer (due to
the use of pesticides, hormones, and other chemical inputs) and obesity and heart disease (due to industrial fastfood
diets). Farmworkers themselves suffer acute pesticide poisoning, and, according to the U.S. Department of
Agriculture, work in one of the most accident-prone industries in the United States.
Loss of Farms and Communities: The dislocation of millions of farmers and thousands of farm communities does not
appear in the usual food cost calculations. Seventy years ago there were nearly 7 million American farmers. Today,
after the onslaught of industrial agriculture, there are only about 2 million, even though the U.S. population has
doubled. Current costs associated with industrial food and agriculture do not include welfare and other government
payments to ex-farmers and farmworkers driven into poverty.
Tax Subsidies: U.S. taxpayers pay billions of dollars in government subsidies to industrial agriculture. Price supports,
price “fixing,” tax credits, and product promotions are all forms of “welfare” for agribusiness. These subsidies add
almost $3 billion to the “hidden” costs of foods to consumers.
MYTH 4:
Industrial agriculture is more efficient and therefore will
feed more people.
TRUTH:
Small farms typically achieve at least four to five times greater output per acre than large farms. Moreover, larger,
less diverse farms require far more mechanical and chemical inputs. These ever-increasing inputs are devastating
to the environment and make these farms far less efficient than smaller, more sustainable farms. Studies show that
smaller farms are more productive than larger farms, in part because small farmers work their land more intensively
and use integrated, and often more sustainable, production systems. As farms get larger, the costs of production
per unit often increase because larger acreage requires more expensive machinery and more chemicals to
protect crops. Moreover, the large monocultures used in industrial farming undermine the genetic integrity of
crops, making them more susceptible to diseases and pests (thus requiring greater use of pesticides).
Smaller farms tend to use a method known as “intercropping,” or mixing plant crops. Smaller farms are more likely
to rotate or combine crops and livestock, with resulting composted manure used to replenish soil fertility.
These small-scale integrated farms produce far more per unit area than large farms. Though the yield per unit
area of one crop (e.g., corn) may be lower, the total output per unit area for small farms, often composed of
more than a dozen crops and numerous animal products, is virtually always higher than that of larger farms.
MYTH 5:
Biotechnology will solve the problems of industrial agriculture.
TRUTH:
New biotech crops will not solve industrial agriculture’s problems, but will compound them and consolidate control of the world’s food supply into the hands of a few large corporations. Biotechnology will destroy biodiversity and food security, and drive self-sufficient farmers off their land.
Will Biotechnology Feed the World?: Industrial agriculture has relentlessly pushed the myth that biotechnology will conquer world hunger. However, the hunger problem facing the world lies not with the amount of food being produced, but rather with how this food is distributed. If biotech corporations really wanted to feed the hungry, they would encourage land reform, which puts farmers back on the land, and push for wealth redistribution,which would allow the poor to buy food.
As for genetic engineering being an answer to world hunger, that too is just another fallacy, and rather could be a major contributor to starvation. Patents on seeds that are now genetically engineered by biotech corporations are made to produce a sterile seed after a single growing season, ensuring that the world’s farmers cannot save their seed and instead will have to buy from corporations every season. More than half of the world’s farmers rely on saved seeds; should sterile seeds escape from the engineered crop and contaminate non-GE local crops,unintentionally sterilizing them, mass starvation could result.
Will Biotechnology Protect the Earth?: The idea that biotechnology is beneficial to the environment centers on the myth that it will reduce pesticide use by creating plants resistant to insects and other pests. In actuality, a study in 2000 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that there is no overall reduction in pesticide use with GE crops.
Will Biotechnology Produce Safe Food?: According to even U.S. government scientists, the genetic engineering of foods could make safe food toxic. GE foods may contain both old and new allergens, which could create serious reactions in millions of consumers. Biotech foods can also have lower nutritional values. What makes these risks even more alarming is that the U.S. government requires no mandatory safety testing or labeling of any GE foods.
Is Biotechnology Cheap and Efficient?: Biotech companies have spent billions of dollars researching the effects of creating transgenic organisms such as inserting fish genes into tomatoes. To date, biotechnology has yet to bring to market a single product that actually benefits consumers yet it passes on the enormous costs of their research.
Is “Golden Rice” the Answer?: Golden rice is named for its slightly orange color, due to the incorporation of a daffodil gene that can produce beta-carotene, a nutrient humans can convert into vitamin A. Because vitamin A deficiency contributes to blindness and infectious diseases among the poor in developing countries, this rice was aggressively advertised as a miracle grain. An analysis of industry data shows that in order for those most vulnerable to blindness, infants, to get enough vitamin A from breast milk, their mothers would have to consume almost (39.6) 40 pounds of cooked rice per day. Similarly, an adult male would need to eat 18 pounds of cooked golden rice to
meet his daily vitamin A requirement. In other words, if golden rice were simply substituted for a daily diet of conventional white rice, a child or adult would receive only eight percent of their daily vitamin-A requirement.
Even so, the body can only convert beta-carotene into vitamin A if adequate amounts of fat and protein are also
part of the diet. Generally speaking, malnourished people, by definition, lack fat and protein in their diets.
Nutritional deficits can be easily and cheaply corrected with a more varied diet. Green leafy vegetables, oranges,and red palm oil all are high in vitamin A. So, why pursue Golden Rice? Because 90 percent of the world’s rice is grown and consumed in Asia, making this part of the world a vast and potentially profitable market for a GE version
of the crop.
MYTH 6:
Nature is to Blame for Hunger
TRUTH:
Human-made forces are making people increasingly vulnerable to nature’s vagaries. Food is always available for those who can afford it-starvation during hard times hits only the poorest. Millions live on the brink of disaster in south Asia, Africa and elsewhere, because they are deprived of land by a powerful few, trapped in the unremitting grip of debt, or miserably paid. Natural events rarely explain deaths; they are simply the final push over the brink. Human institutions and policies determine who eats and who starves during hard times. Likewise, in America many homeless die from the cold every winter, yet ultimate responsibility doesn’t lie with the weather. The real culprits are an economy that fails to offer everyone opportunities, and a society that places economic efficiency over compassion.
MYTH 7:
Population is to Blame for Hunger
TRUTH:
Population growth is not the root cause of hunger. Like hunger itself, it results from underlying inequities that deprive people, especially poor women, of economic opportunity and security. According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, “Increases in food production in the last thirty five years have outpaced the world’s unprecedented population growth by about 16 percent.” Although rapid population growth remains a serious concern in many countries, nowhere does population density explain hunger. For every Bangladesh, a densely populated and hungry country, we find a Nigeria, Brazil or Bolivia, where abundant food resources coexist with hunger. Costa Rica, with only half of Honduras’ cropped acres per person, boasts a life expectancy-one indicator of nutrition -11 years longer than that of Honduras and close to that of developed countries. Rapid population growth and hunger are endemic to societies where land ownership, jobs, education, health care, and old age security are beyond the reach of most people. ❧