Reclaiming Our Food
Sorghum, a staple crop in Mali.
VOLUME 30, NUMBER 4, NOVEMBER 2008
In 2008, the world food crisis reached unprecedented levels. In many parts of the world, grain prices doubled or even tripled. Food riots erupted on various continents, and desperate pleas were made by the World Food Program for governments to increase their support to food aid to feed 850 million hungry people.
The food crisis is attributed to a variety of factors: rising oil prices, financial speculation, proliferation of meat-based diets, massive conversion of foodcrops to ethanol and biodiesel, and severe droughts and flooding. These elements merged to create a “perfect storm” that led to the fastest depletion of food reserves in decades. But there is more to the story. The “perfect storm” was decades in the making. It was predictable – and avoidable.
Agriculture has always involved risks, and farmers, communities, and countries have developed strategies to manage them. These include public food reserves and supply management boards – mechanisms to collectively manage what and how much is produced in a given year to ensure a fair price for farmers and an adequate food supply. Strategies also include planting a diversity of crops and varieties. Biodiversity and farmers’ autonomy have been the cornerstones of effective and adaptable agricultural systems.
But neoliberal economic policies and industrial agriculture fly in the face of this wisdom. These forces have turned autonomous farmers into debt-ridden clients of chemical companies. They have turned once healthy and biologically diverse fields into uniform and toxic green deserts. They have turned breadbasket countries into countries facing food insecurity. We have lost control over how our food is produced. It has made us vulnerable, and it is pushing forward a model of agriculture that is inexorably leading to further hunger and environmental destruction. We can and must change the course we are on.
2008 marks the 30th anniversary of the People’s Food Commission, an unprecedented civic process that unfolded across Canada. The Commission was launched in 1978 at a time when, like today, fuel and food costs were rising dramatically, and farmers were going out of business. The Commission visited 75 communities across the country, from Victoria, British Columbia to Nain, Labrador, building critical awareness among Canadians of the forces shaping food and agriculture policy. It generated ideas and inspired new visions of how things could be done differently. A generation of food activists was born, and with it, initiatives for building a food system based on solidarity, health and equity.
These initiatives have matured and expanded, linking with others around the globe to form a movement for food sovereignty. This international movement is promoting policies that favour ecological agriculture and local production for local markets. It is asserting a central place for family farms and rejecting the notion that water, seeds, and food be treated as simple commodities to be traded. Food sovereignty has become a powerful rallying cry for resistance, while also proposing workable alternatives.
For many, 2008 was a year of crisis. But it was also a turning point. The world has recognized that the time for change is now. Perhaps the greatest challenge ahead is for us to have the courage to look critically at ourselves – our lifestyles – and to become the change we want to see.
This last Bulletin of the year celebrates individuals and organizations that are at the forefront of the struggle to reclaim our food, and to organize our agriculture, our economies, and our societies differently to eliminate hunger and ensure healthy communities and a healthy planet.
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| Reviewed November 3, 2008 |  |
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