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Food the foundation of everyone's security
By Dan Nagengast
(Friday, Sept. 27, 2002 -- CropChoice guest commentary) -- "We're a blessed nation because we can grow our own food and, therefore,
we're secure. A nation that can feed its people is a nation more secure."
- President George W. Bush
President Bush is absolutely right. But what is good for this country would
also be a blessing for the other nations of the world.
In 1980 I lived in Mali, a resource-poor country at the base of the Sahara
in West Africa. American food aid was a common sight, in the form of soybean
oil, bulgur wheat and even white grain sorghum. U.S. food aid relief had
helped many survive during the previous decade's drought and famine, and
flowed again in th1980s.
The primary livelihood in Mali is subsistence agriculture. People grow up
resourceful and self-reliant, but that existence is always marginal. A
drought can mean death and, in hard times, food aid was much appreciated.
But in the early '70s an African cartoonist had satirized it. Much of the
food sent was white sorghum, a grain eaten in the U.S. only by livestock.
The cartoon pictured farm animals chasing President Nixon, berating him for
sending their food overseas. This illustrated a little too much
sophistication on the part of those being helped. While everyone was
grateful for the food, there was also a common understanding that some of it
was surplus feed grain.
The U.S. Food for Peace Program, known as P.L. 480, had the dual purpose of
providing disaster and development aid and propping up U.S. grain prices.
But there is sometimes an ulterior motive even beyond that. According to the
U.S. Agency for International Development Web site: "Besides benefiting
undernourished people overseas, P.L. 480 programs also support American
agriculture. Strengthening the economics and agricultural infrastructures of
developing countries also means helping to create potential expanded markets
for U.S. agricultural product."
There are two ideas in tension, often confused, about American international
food policy. There is food aid, often given through programs that seek to
help poorer countries become more self-sufficient. During 2001, U.S. food
aid was around 7 million tons. Of this, 88 percent, or more than 6 million
tons, was grain or soy products. Meanwhile, total U.S. commercial grain
exports were 128 million tons. So, while food aid is a part of our
agricultural efforts and outreach to other countries, by weight it amounts
to only about 5 percent of commercial grain exports.
So which is it? Are American farmers "feeding the world," with all that
promise of largess and goodwill? Or are they a cog in an export machine that
seeks to create dependency, and thus a good market, in countries that
desperately need to develop more internal food production?
The answer, of course, is some of both. U.S. food aid and export policy
slides up and down the scale between the two extremes depending on the
circumstances and the motives of those setting policy. Certainly, in times
of disaster and great need, the United States often comes through, showing
solidarity with other humans in crisis. But in the hardball negotiations
surrounding trade agreements, our market opening policy can be viewed as
undermining the food production of countries much poorer than our own.
When world relations and tensions are stretched, the perception that the
richest and most powerful country is working to ensure that wealth flows
from poorer nations towards itself seems to be getting no play in
Washington.
In Mali, I worked for a USAID project near Tombouctou. We helped wheat
farmers by providing small diesel pumps for irrigation. For a lot of
reasons, not least of which being the lack of diesel fuel, the project was
not a great idea. But the farmers did have one or two years of good crops.
The second year, just as their crop was being harvested, the price of wheat
tumbled due to a large shipment of subsidized U.S. wheat. The Mali farmers'
profit disappeared.
President Bush is absolutely right about food security. We need to remind
ourselves that the principle applies to all nations of the world, not just
the United States, and is a foundation for the security of us all.
- Dan Nagengast is a Lawrence farmer and executive director of The Kansas
Rural Center. He is a member of The Prairie Writers Circle, a project of The
Land Institute, a Natural Systems Agriculture research organization in
Salina, Kan. | |
