Food scarcities as weapons of war
August 10, 2016
While agriculture does not seem to be winning the recognition it should in the current global ‘discourse’ on development strategies, in no less places than the present theatres of war in the Middle East and outside are we reminded of how short-sighted the international community could be in tending to underplay the significance of agriculture and food production. A recent AFP report spoke very plainly about hunger being a weapon of war in Syria, Yemen and Nigeria and thereby helped somewhat in reminding the world that without sound agricultural bases, conflict-hit countries in particular could be courting death by starvation.
"More than 50 million people living in 17 conflict-ridden countries are in ‘severe food insecurity’, two UN agencies warned recently", the AFP report said. Syria, Yemen and Nigeria are said to be prominent among these food insecure countries. The relevant UN agencies were quoted as saying that in Syria, for example, 37 percent of the pre-conflict population ‘need urgent food, nutrition and livelihood assistance.’ Farmers are said to be badly in need of aid.
However, in the West at present, farmers are reportedly enjoying bumper cereal harvests. So abundant is grain that the current prices for these items are said to be dipping markedly. Accordingly, there is starvation and death in the world amid plenty. This is a throw-back to the decades of the seventies and eighties when global food production and distribution inequalities produced mass hunger and starvation in parts of Africa and Asia. These issues are dealt with in the most lucid cogent fashion by Susan George in her celebrated book, ‘How the Other Half Dies’.
The food weapon was wielded by the foremost Western powers, at the time, against those states of the Third World who were seen as enemy states. These tactics of disempowerment could be in vogue among the big powers once again today. The aim could very well be to starve the perceived enemy population and to bring it to its knees.
These issues are of particular salience to the ‘emerging economies’, many of which are Third World countries of yesteryear. There is a marked tendency among these countries to develop their services sectors at the expense of agriculture. Sri Lanka, also seen as an ‘emerging economy’, is a case in point. The latter’s services account for nearly 60 percent of its economy but if and when the services bubble bursts, Sri Lanka couild be reduced to pleading with the West for food aid, unless it further develops its agriculture sector. If Venezuela was less dependent on oil, sections of its citizenry would not be rummaging bins for their food today.
So, it ought to be plain to see that countries cannot do without robust agricultural sectors because states with undeveloped agricultural resources could very well be courting the risk of malnutrition, poverty and starvation. War and conflict aggravate these crises and chronically conflict-hit countries testify to these realities most dramatically.
But something constructive ought to be done about the tens of thousands of the displaced in the current war zones who are reduced to beggary, starvation and death. They are suffering amid plenty and since they are not party to any of the conflicts which are raging, the international community, inclusive of the UN and the major powers, is obliged to ease the lot of these suffering people by at least meeting their material needs. These hapless people ought to be provided food aid urgently and the required resources should be channeled to them to enable them to engage in small scale agricultural enterprises, to the extent practicable.
Starving those states and populations perceived as enemies into subjugation is a war tactic adopted by major powers down the ages, but such inhumanity cannot be countenanced in contemporary times when organizations such as the UN are tasked with providing more than a semblance of global governance. It is the duty of the ‘civilized world’ to ensure that food scarcities and hunger are not used by major powers and other actors to achieve their military and political objectives.
Fortunately, for civilian populations the world over, whom prosperity-driven states are tending to neglect and even forget the existence of, the World Social Forum is taking up their cause in the most perceptive way. Born as a constructive critique to the World Economic Forum that brings together the world’s wealthiest states, the WSF, at present meeting in Montreal, has this to say about the state of the world’s economy:’Social inequality is everywhere. We want to overcome North-South divisions and say clearly that there are social problems worldwide, and also global solutions.’
Knowledgeable sections with a social conscience ought to welcome this stress on the long forgotten North-South divide. The worldwide economic divide, based on wealth disparities between the foremost economic powers and the developing world, denoted by this phrase, continues to exist, although in recent decades, this divide has been tended to be effaced by the hype that has been churned out by interested parties over the perceived benefits of economic globalization. That is, neo-liberalism has been marketed in the most misleading glowing terms. However, besides the global wealth gap, wealth and class disparities, even intra-state, are growing and one recent proof of this is the notable presidential campaign success in the US of Senator Bernie Sanders.
Accordingly, many thanks to organizations such as the WSF for keeping wealth and poverty linked issues alive and open to debate. The North-South debate remains relevant and needs to be revived if the true state of the world economy is to be exposed.
The increasing vulnerability of people all over the world to the ill-effects of war and conflict ought to remind us that the ‘good’ economic globalization is believed to be producing cannot be taken for granted. The question needs to be asked: ‘Where is all the wealth that is believed to be produced going, if entire populations could be reduced to beggary and starvation with a couple of rounds of machine gun fire?’
‘Emerging economies’ in particular need to realize that countries cannot consider themselves economically stable if their agricultural sectors are allowed to suffer neglect. Countries minus an independent agricultural base, that could place ample food on the table. cannot be seen as wealthy or stable. This is the lesson that must be learnt from the vulnerable peoples around us.
