"Feed the Future" Plan Benefits U.S. Profits, Not World's Hungry

In a heartwarming statement camouflaging the voracious expansion of U.S. economic and policy interests, a top U.S. agriculture official at Wednesday's International Food Aid and Development Conference said that the world's richest countries and aid groups must do more than send intermittent aid to help end hunger worldwide.

They must "find new ways to teach others to feed themselves using private money, businesses, and trade to help struggling countries become self-sufficient in feeding their people," said James Miller, Agriculture Department Undersecretary, who attended the USDA and USAID-sponsored conference in Kansas City. Miller was there to cheer-lead America's new "Feed the Future" program aimed at "boosting productivity and improving markets" in the world's poorest 20 countries including Ethiopia, Ghana, Cambodia, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua.

Indeed, part of the conference included a panel on the role of private corporations in aid, and speakers included an executive from the world's sixth largest food company, General Mills. After the conference, African agricultural and economic minister leaders were scheduled to meet with U.S. agribusiness officials to learn more about the agricultural market.

While the purpose of saving the world's hungry is truly laudable, Miller's words and the agribusiness sheen point to a program that's exactly what many have feared: a boon for U.S. agribusiness and U.S. foreign policy. Since the USDA and USAID work hand-in-hand with Big Ag and trade officials, they represent their interests in profit, not those of the poor. USAID openly states its mission "has always had the twofold purpose of furthering America's foreign policy interests in expanding democracy and free markets while improving the lives of the citizens of the developing world." In writing on the initiative, Jill Richardson of La Vida Locavore explains,"In a recent Senate hearing, they made it clear that they are absolutely working to serve U.S. interests and if a country doesn't want to do it our way, we won't work with them."

In other words, defeating hunger in poor countries comes at the price of completely opening up their unstable, fragile markets to U.S. trade and markets. Agencies push these countries to accept subsidized U.S. crops that cannot compete price-wise with whatever crops they would produce themselves. Farmers sign away ownership of their own seed, fertilizers, and traditional methods, and accept them from U.S. corporations like Monsanto. Monsanto, buddy-buddy with the USDA and the Obama administration, has aggressively pushed its seed here in the U.S. and worldwide with "highly restrictive technology agreements with farmers who are not always made fully aware of what they are signing," writes FoodFirst. They also often give up their land to rich countries, Western billionaires, and others who have been purchasing huge tracts of land in Africa and other poor countries to grow and export crops. Private-equity firms raised more than $2 billion to invest in farmland in the first half of 2009 alone.  It's a shameful trade-off — so much for food sovereignty.

Earlier this year, about 8,000 Haitians marched to protest USAID and Monsanto's donation of its GMO hybrid seeds, seeds designed not to reproduce, and thus must be re-purchased each year along with expensive fertilizer and pesticides."We need to establish seed banks and have silos where we can store our Creole seeds," wrote Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, the Executive Director of the Peasant Movement of Papay (MPP). "Local, organic seeds are the basis of food sovereignty...What's the danger we face today? It's that food aid from USAID and others is getting dumped in the country." Haitians have protested U.S. rice crops in their country for years after the imports largely destroyed the local economy built around community-produced rice.

What can rich countries do instead? According to a statement on "Feed the Future" released in June by a coalition of 20 religious organizations including the American Jewish World Service, Congregation of Holy Cross, and the United Methodist Church, rich countries must consider trade policy, local farming traditions, small-scale farmers, and land purchasing in their efforts to end hunger.  "The priority must be developing strong local markets to increase both the availability of and affordable access to healthy and culturally appropriate foods," the statement said. Rich countries must also stop purchasing huge swaths of land in these countries, the statement continues, and grant control to small-scale, local producers, especially women. Policies must "work with the farmers themselves and to invest in understanding site-specific practices for soil preservation, crop rotation, conservation, forestry and water." The same holds true for U.S. domestic policy, as millions of Americans struggle to eat well.

Despite such loving words from wealthy countries, poor countries aren't buying their goodwill. They recognize their critical right to their own crops, their land, and their customs. "Feed the Future" will produce the opposite of its supposed goal: People lacking access to fresh, local food worldwide will not be self-sufficient but completely dependent — and still hungry.

Photo credit: Find Your Feet via Flickr