THE POLITICS OF HUNGER
Freund, Ron
The politics of hunger 'Food for peace' is part of the American arsenal Ron Freund Food has become a weapon of diplomacy. Food is persuasive. Food is power. —former Secretary of Agriculture...
...As a result, many are forced to give up their land to search for work in the cities...
...Following the Korean War, the rising tide of domestic food production prompted the president of the American Farm Bureau to declare, "Farm surpluses will wreck our economy unless we can find sufficient markets to sustain the volume of production...
...Most Americans have the impression that this was a humanitarian effort by the United States...
...480 came to be known, the United States has distributed $24 billion worth of food to more than 130 countries...
...Since then, Congress has passed legislation which has limited, but not prohibited, this type of abuse...
...and food aid should encourage, not discourage, local food self-reliance...
...Since the P.L...
...Five years ago the World Food Conference in Rome reported that about 460 million people, half of them children, were malnourished...
...Food for Peace food aid has gone primarily to Third World political and military allies of the United States rather than to the nations that are most in need...
...Outraged by this allocation, Senator William Proxmire of Wisconsin pointed out that "funds generated from Food for Peace grants constitute, in effect, a gigantic military assistance slush fund...
...But there is more to it than that...
...food aid has not improved the condition of the world's hungry...
...With this has come increased poverty for most Koreans...
...480 loans...
...Nor is it likely to be improved until U.S...
...But few of them realize that the United States has been using its food surplus as an economic and political weapon for the past twenty-five years...
...As a result, Park turned South Korea from a net exporter of rice into a net importer of rice...
...The bill was designed to "improve the foreign relations of the United States" and to "promote the economic stability of American agriculture and the national welfare...
...In 1951, Ron Freund, a Chicago free-lance writer, serves on the national board of Clergy and Laity Concerned, an interfaith organization working to end the structures which perpetuate world hunger...
...The South Korean government is a dictatorship closely allied to the United States...
...In countries such as South Vietnam, Indonesia, South Korea, the Philippines, Turkey, and Zaire, more than $1.8 billion of food aid was used for such purposes...
...As one official for the AID put it, "Essentially, you have an alliance between liberal do-gooders and conservative farming interests...
...food aid policy encompasses two essential principles: Food aid should be channeled through multilateral institutions, such as the United Nations, to avoid the abuses of the past...
...Such abuse of the Food for Peace program reached its peak during the last years of the Vietnam war...
...Congress responded by passing P.L...
...The India Emergency Food Act of 1951 was the precursor of P.L...
...480 has served three primary goals of American foreign policy: ¶To dispose profitably of the enormous agricultural surplus produced by American farmers...
...Congress passed legislation authorizing the aid — only if India terminated the monazite embargo...
...It was not until 1961 that the statement of purpose was amended to include the goal of combatting world hunger...
...former Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman, 1961 Concerned about their country's dependence on OPEC oil, and mindful of the abundance of its agricultural produce, Americans lately have been beguiled by the slogan, "Food for Crude" — a proposal for reversing the economic leverage...
...Through Food for Peace, as P.L...
...In order to create the labor necessary for industrialization, Park needed to import labor from the rural areas...
...480 budget of $1 billion was allocated to two countries, South Vietnam and Cambodia...
...political and economic interests...
...480 food for the procurement of "equipment, materials, facilities, and services for the common defense, including internal security...
...Under the regime of President Park Chung Hee, there occurred an intensive push toward urban industrialization...
...In 1974, half of the entire P.L...
...Just a quarter of a century ago, Congress enacted the Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act, known as Public Law 480...
...Today the U.N...
...Less than 10 per cent of the food aid went to all of Africa...
...India was in the midst of a famine produced by a monsoon failure...
...It made an emergency request for grain from the United States...
...To create future markets and cheap industrial labor pools by undermining local food production...
...Even prior to the establishment of Food for Peace, one of the first uses of food aid was to procure a necessary element for our nuclear energy program...
...corporations aided by P.L...
...Many of those governments are notorious violators of human rights...
...Clearly, U.S...
...who want to see surplus American food shipped out to save the 'starving' world...
...Indigenous farmers are not able to compete with American food producers...
...480, passed in 1954...
...480, he succeeded in driving the peasants into the cities for industrial expansion...
...This allows the local government to turn the land into "cash crop" development while simultaneously providing a cheap labor pool in the urban areas for foreign-based corporations...
...480 program began in 1954, South Korea has been the second-largest recipient of Food for Peace...
...With massive food aid from P.L...
...South Korea provides an excellent example of this pattern...
...As Jack Nelson reports in his forthcoming book, Hunger for Justice, P.L...
...To fund counterinsurgency and other military efforts that protect U.S...
...Food for Peace has also benefited American agribusiness and corporate interests by dumping large amounts of American food products on the local markets of Third World nations, with the support of corrupt government officials...
...A 1978 report of the Agency for International Development (AID) stated that "one in four is unemployed, and those who are employed make an average of 28 cents an hour, often working for U.S...
...Until 1974, a recipient country could use the funds generated by the local sale of P.L...
...Food and Agricultural Organization reports the total has risen...
...But the starving world would be better off if it were taught to grow its own food and build its own grassroots organizations...
...Following World War II, India had embargoed exports of monazite sand which contained thorium, used for the production of atomic power...
Vol. 43 • December 1979 • No. 12
