Libcom have posted an interview with two members of Workers’ Initiative in Poland involved in the Women’s Strike movement against restrictions on abortion. The blog believes it is worthy of a wider audience so hence the link to it.
The Women’s Strike in Poland: Freedom of Abortion, Freedom from Exploitation (libcom.org)
Further to the earlier post on the impact of the corporate ownership and control of farming, this research paper also has some insightful points to dwell upon on our attitude to food production.
‘…“Feeding the world” is the principal public relations gambit of international agribusiness. Only agribusiness has the yields to save the poor and starving, is their claim. If the scarcity narrative is true, that claim is powerful. It transforms agriculture into a moral issue. Pesticides, genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and monocultures may have negative consequences, goes the narrative, but they are the necessary alternative to starvation. The sole alternative, accordingly, is merely a luxury for the privileged and of no interest to policymakers. Alternatively, if scarcity is a myth, then all pesticides are sprayed, and all GMOs exist, exclusively for profit. The destruction of the ecosphere, which is largely for the sake of agriculture, is effectively a waste. The stakes are high. Agribusiness stands or falls on this point…
… there is abundant, even overwhelming, evidence that agriculture, and in particular industrial monocultures, needs to be realigned to become kinder to ecosystems and more beneficial for the individuals and the communities that feed us. This will not occur, however, until the scarcity narrative is set aside…’
There has been an over-emphasis on the production food by the international bodies which has benefited the business models of the corporations. Even if the FAO targets of increasing food production by 2030 by 70%, hunger will still persist. There will be only “Modest reductions in the numbers undernourished” and other estimates suggest only 120 million out of the 850 million hungry will be lifted out of their hunger.
But the problem has never ever been about producing sufficient food to feed everybody but always about ensuring a fair and equitable distribution of existing food stocks. In 2018, even though food production did subsequently increase, and food prices fell, the number of malnourished rose to 821 million. If FAO wants to solve hunger, their own model is telling them to look elsewhere than increasing production.
In 2011 researchers from the World Bank Institute proposed that the world already produced enough food for 14 billion people. This number is well above UN population predictions, which are expected to reach 10–11 billion in 2050 and to then decline thereafter. Before the 2007/2008 price spike caused by changes in US and EU biofuel policies , food prices had been falling at approximately 4% per year. The apocalyptic scenarios inspired by Paul Ehrlich’s ‘Population Bomb’ proved to be fantasies. Food supply significantly exceeds current food demand and that the gap is if anything widening. The scare-mongering projections are “overestimating demand or underestimating supply, or both.”
Farming for fuel.
ActionAid in 2013 concluded that the G8 countries consumed annually enough biofuel, mainly ethanol, to feed 441 million people. If measured today that figure would undoubtedly be much greater. The ‘green’ case for bio-fuels has been increasingly challenged and determined to be market-driven by vested interest lobbying than for making a meaningful contribution to lowering levels of greenhouse gases.
Food for Profit
Bangladesh has one of the highest population densities in the world, a population of 160 million resides in an area the size of New York state and one of the highest poverty and food insecurity rates. However, although wheat yields are about half that of winter season rice in Bangladeshi conditions, the market price of wheat is higher and the input costs are much lower. Bangladeshi farmers therefore grow wheat on 415,000 hectares. Such farmers are chasing markets not nutrition.
The most glaring instance of chasing high prices and high profits is the meat industry. Historically, much meat and dairy production took advantage of marginal land that was less suited or unsuited to growing crops. Increasingly, however, especially in many “developed” countries, prime arable land is devoted to animal feed. Even the most efficient converters of non-vegetarian food (fish and chickens) yield a worse caloric return per hectare than the least nutritious vegetable, while the least efficient (beef) yields approximately fourfold less again. Thus it has been estimated that beef, in a feedlot system, has a feed conversion efficiency, measured in calories, of 3% (compared to chicken with 12%). 35% of the US corn crop goes to animal feed. One estimate is that 4 billion additional people could be fed if animals were absent from the global food chain.
In 2002, OECD countries spend $318 billion annually on agricultural subsidies, overwhelmingly going to support either meat or biofuels ). Virtually none of it goes to subsidizing fruits and vegetables.
Better Farming Methods
the growing use of mixed cropping, agroecological production systems, and conservation agriculture further increase yields beyond the monoculture. The yield potential of rice is standardly estimated at 8–10t per hectare. Such high yields are assumed to occur only under agronomic conditions of very high fertilizer and chemical inputs and with ideal soil and watering regimes. Yet the world record for rice production is 22.4 t per hectare. This record was achieved with few inputs by a farmer using a method called the System of Rice Intensification (SRI.) Yields achieved by SRI are sustainable with productivity exceeding comparative global models by several multiples. SRI methods have also been applied to other crops, again giving significant yield improvements. Since rice is the staple of half the globe (3.5 billion people) it can be readily appreciated that a tripling of yields, especially since SRI is a more sustainable method, represents the potential to feed perhaps a further 7 billion people,
Food Reserves
Agricultural production exceeds consumption at the global or local scale. If we take cereals (wheat, rice, barley, millet, sorghum, and oats) as an example, excess production occurs even in densely populated countries such as India and China. In 2017, FAO estimated global stores of cereals at 762 million tons. These stocks represent an insurance against calamity. However, this 762 million tons also represents an excess of supply over global demand. Depending on the climate, the quality of storage, and the crop species, they may rot or be eaten by pests. If stocks are not growing, crops may still be entering them at a high rate. The second relevant property of stocks is that, if there are multiple harvests per annum, quantities of lost stocks may represent multiples of the steady-state amount of an annualized store. For example, if 33% of each rice crop is lost in storage and there are three rice storage periods, corresponding to three harvests, then 100% of the annual total stock is, in effect, lost each year. Even if stored well, stocks eventually degrade. In China, wheat stocks are considered by analysts to last maximally 3–4 years and an average of 2 years. For this reason, China, which is one of the biggest stock holders of rice and wheat, began a biofuel policy to consume excess stocks of wheat. This has steadily grown and now generates 845 million gallons of ethanol per year . Despite this program, Chinese wheat stocks are still growing.
How much of the global grain supply is lost in storage? FAO estimates that postharvest losses in low–middle-income countries are approximately 6.4% for cereals. Most cereal and pulse loss estimates are much higher, but also highly variable and they acknowledge much uncertainty . Estimates include 20%–30% for maize in Africa (Tefera et al., 2011); 12% and 44% for maize in the West Cameroonian highlands during the first 6 months of storage ; 11%–17% for rice in India, without counting storage ; and 35% for rice in India. Some reports estimate very high levels, for example, 59% after 90 days in sub-Saharan Africa. FAO’s figures for postharvest losses are very much at the low end. This is not to say that stocks and reserves are undesirable or unnecessary it potentially meets the cereal needs of perhaps 1–2 billion people, even without counting the losses of more perishable (noncereal) crops.
To sum up, the world can provide food for an extra 12.5 billion people above its present population and that is a very modest estimate.
Nearly half of families with children have been forced into some form of debt since the start of the pandemic, prompting warnings that Britain risks becoming a nation “surviving on credit”.
Almost 18 million people, a third of the population, have had to use credit cards, go into their overdraft or borrow from friends and family since March. 3.6 million families have been pushed into debt. One in 10 families with children had been forced to sell belongings to make ends meet since March, while three in four parents had worked extra hours or taken on an extra job.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said more families now risk being pushed into economic hardship and groups who already faced poverty were likely to see their income reduced further, because coronavirus was “exacerbating existing inequalities”.
People on furlough were considerably more likely to be borrowing money, with half of those who have been furloughed since March falling into debt, compared to 23 per cent of people who have seen no change to the employment.
Thomas Lawson, chief executive at Turn2us, said financial resilience across the UK was at an “all-time low.”
“Even if a vaccine for Covid-19 became available tomorrow, the damage has been done to people’s finances. People have spent their savings and used up their rainy day funds, there is nothing left,” he said.
Nearly half of families forced into debt since start of pandemic, figures show | The Independent
Land inequality is rising with farmland increasingly dominated by a few major companies.
Just 1% of the world’s farms operate 70% of the world’s crop fields, ranches and orchards.
Control over the land has become far more concentrated both directly through ownership and indirectly through contract farming, which results in more destructive monocultures and fewer carefully tended smallholdings.
Landlessness was highest in Latin America, where the poorest 50% of people owned just 1% of the land.
Worldwide, between 80% and 90% of farms are family or smallholder-owned. But they cover only a small and shrinking part of the land and commercial production.
Asia and Africa have the highest levels of smallholdings, where human input tends to be higher than chemical and mechanical factors, and where time frames are more likely to be for generations rather than 10-year investment cycles.
Over the past four decades, the biggest shift from small to big was in the United States and Europe, where ownership is in fewer hands and even individual farmers work under strict contracts for retailers, trading conglomerates and investment funds. These financial arrangements are now spreading to the developing world, which is accelerating the decline of soil quality, the overuse of water resources, and the pace of deforestation.
“The concentration of ownership and control results in a greater push for monocultures and more intensive agriculture as investment funds tend to work on 10-year cycles to generate returns,” he said. This is also connected to social problems, including poverty, migration, conflict and the spread of zoonotic diseases like Covid-19.
“Smallholder farmers, family farmers, indigenous people and small communities are much more cautious with use of land. It’s not just about return on investment; it’s about culture, identity and leaving something for the next generation. They take much more care and in the long run, they produce more per unit area and destroy less.”
1% of farms operate 70% of world’s farmland | Farming | The Guardian
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega was never a socialist according to the World Socialist Movement, one of the few critical voices of the Sandinistas over the decades. Our journals and our blogs revealed the authoritarian nature of his regime and the nepotism that existed.
So it did not come as a great surprise when Reuters did a feature on the corruption of the Ortega dynasty.
The president, his family and close associates have gained ownership or managerial control of at least a dozen TV channels, radio stations, and online news sites. Some of the acquisitions, including the Canal 8 deal, were financed at least in part by funds provided by oil-rich Venezuela, said three current and former employees and people familiar with the acquisitions.
The Ortega family itself, according to 2020 tax and corporate registration documents reviewed by Reuters, controls ownership of Canal 8 and radio broadcaster Radio Ya.
Friends and close allies, according to the documents, own three additional television channels – Canal 4, Canal 13, and Canal 22 – all managed by children of the Ortegas. A fourth station, Canal 2, is also owned by an associate, according to people familiar with the channel, and the Ortegas manage its news operations.
Through state ownership, the Ortegas control TV broadcaster Canal 6, national network Radio Nicaragua, and online news portals like El 19 Digital. Associates of the first family own at least three other radio stations, all openly allied with the government.
The clan’s media empire has silenced those opposed to Ortega. The National Assembly, the country’s pro-Ortega legislature, recently passed laws that further pressure rival media. One bill makes it a crime for anyone to spread “false” information via social media or in news outlets. Another imposes prison sentences of up to six years for anyone convicted of publishing information “not authorized” by the government. In 2018, an Ortega plan to increase social security contributions and lower pension payouts sparked demonstrations. At first, Murillo told state and allied outlets not to cover the unrest. “The order was to ignore everything,” said Carlos Mikel Espinosa, then an editor at El 19 Digital, a state-controlled online news portal. Espinosa quit when the upheaval intensified and the government response grew violent.
Over the past two years, Nicaragua’s government bought advertising worth an estimated $59 million from the three biggest TV channels owned or controlled by the Ortega family, according to data compiled by Media Gurú, a consultancy that tracks media spending. The government spent an estimated $230,000, less than 1% as much, at channels not affiliated with the Ortegas. Over the past decade, Canal 8 hasn’t paid more than $4 million in tax and interest it should have under Nicaraguan law.
“They’ve created a system in which the money comes out of the national budget, runs through their holdings, and all stays in their pockets,” said Alfonso Malespín, a media specialist at the University of Commercial Sciences in Managua
The International Monetary Fund, in a 2017 report, estimated that Nicaragua received as much as $3.2 billion from Venezuela before the South American country’s economy imploded in recent years. Nicaragua’s own central bank has said the figure reached as much as $5 billion. But neither government has ever given a full accounting of the financing or how Ortega spent the money, which is equivalent to as much as a third of Nicaragua’s annual economic output.
As the media empire shores up the president’s power, his government is steering large sums of state money into the properties controlled by the family and its allies. By 2008, Ortega’s family and close associates had begun building what today is a business empire with assets in energy, security and other sectors.
Governments across Europe are failing to protect their citizens from toxic air pollution, with most Europeans still breathing filthy air. Pollutants from farming, domestic heating and vehicles are beyond the levels needed to ensure breathable air within World Health Organization guidelines, despite EU legislation, government pledges and years of campaigning. Exposure to such pollution caused about 417,000 premature deaths across Europe – including non-EU member states – in 2018.
Only Ireland, Iceland, Finland and Estonia showed levels of fine particulate matter – one of the most dangerous forms of air pollution – that were below the WHO guidelines in 2018. Six member states – Italy, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia and the Czech Republic – breached the EU’s limits for fine particulate matter, called PM2.5, in 2018. The EU limits are less stringent than WHO guidelines. There were 54,000 premature deaths from nitrogen dioxide (NO2) in 2018 in the EU-28, which includes the UK, which was then still a member of the EU. Ground-level ozone caused about 19,000 premature deaths in the EU-28 that year.
Green campaigners said governments must act urgently. Margherita Tolotto, the senior policy officer at the European Environmental Bureau, which represents campaigning groups across the EU, said: “How many wake-up calls do government officials need to take on air pollution? Their delay is costing us our health and a safe environment. They know what needs to be done to improve air quality: cleaner energy and industrial production, greener and smarter transport, and sustainable farming.”
Governments had failed to meet EU targets, the EEA said. Under EU rules, every member state should have submitted a plan for bringing air pollution within health limits in 2018. However, Italy’s plan is still at draft stage, while Greece, Luxembourg and Romania have yet to submit any plan.
More than 1.1 million seniors in the Medicare program could die prematurely over the next decade because they cannot afford the exorbitant prices of prescription medications.
Unless drug prices are reduced, the analysis estimated that 112,000 seniors per year could succumb to early death as a result of not being able to afford their medications. If these trends continue, cost-related nonadherence to drug therapy will be “a leading cause of death in the U.S., ahead of diabetes, influenza, pneumonia, and kidney disease.”
“One of the biggest contributors to poor health, hospital admissions, higher healthcare costs, and preventable death is patients failing to take their medications as prescribed,” said Timothy Lash, president of the West Health Policy Center. “Cost-related nonadherence is a significant and growing issue that is a direct result of runaway drug prices and a failure to implement policies and regulations that make drugs more affordable.”
Medicare beneficiaries are required to pay 25% of the list price cost of generic and brand-name medications until they reach their out-of-pocket maximum.
“As drug companies continue to raise list prices,” the analysis explained, “patients may experience a significant increase in their coinsurance costs.”
In addition, researchers projected that health complications stemming from the unaffordable cost of prescriptions will force Medicare to spend nearly $18 billion annually on avoidable medical expenses.
Researchers expect “cost-related nonadherence” to drug therapy to increase not only unnecessary suffering but also Medicare spending, as deteriorating health conditions drive up preventable expenses by more than $177 billion by 2030.
According to the Council for Informed Drug Spending Analysis (CIDSA), allowing Medicare to negotiate and limit drug price increases could prevent nearly 94,000 deaths per year while also reducing Medicare spending by almost $476 billion by 2030.
Sean Dickson, director of health policy at West Health Policy Center and chair of CIDSA, said that “the costs of doing nothing about high drug prices are too high.”
“Especially when policy changes such as allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices would result in saving millions of lives and billions of dollars,” he added.
Elon Musk surpassed Bill Gates as the world’s second-richest person, only a week after he overtook Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg to become the third-richest. In January, Musk was in 35th place.
Driven by a further surge in Tesla’s share price, the 49-year-old entrepreneur’s net worth rose by $7.2bn (£5.4bn) to $127.9bn. It has soared by more than $100bn this year – outranking everyone else on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which lists the world’s 500 richest people.
China is planning to include new measures to encourage more births and address its rapidly ageing population and shrinking workforce.
In China, the number of citizens aged 60 or over stood at 254 million at the end of last year, accounting for 18.1 percent of the population. The number is expected to rise to 300 million by 2025 and 400 million by 2035, putting huge pressure on the country’s health and social care system. The number of people of working age could decline by 200 million by 2050.
The Chinese government will offer extensive financial and policy support to encourage couples to have more children. The measures include introducing more affordable nursery services as well as relaxing the limits on the number of children Chinese couples are allowed to have.
“More inclusive population policies will be introduced to improve fertility, the quality of the workforce and the structure of the population,” Yuan Xin, vice-president of the China Population Association, explained.
The world’s most populous nation decided in 2016 to relax restrictions on family size and allow couples to have a second child in a bid to address the rapid increase in the elderly, as well as a dwindling workforce. Some experts say it should now scrap all limits entirely.
Policies aimed at suppressing population growth must be replaced by a system designed to boost fertility, the official Legal Daily said, citing government experts.
“More research and discussion is needed as to when the policy can be further relaxed, and to what extent it will be relaxed – whether all couples will be allowed to have three children, or whether the family planning policy will be entirely abolished,” said Lu Jiehua, a population studies professor at Peking University.
Despite the relaxation of the one-child policy in 2016, the number of live births per 1,000 people fell to a record low of 10.48 last year, down from 10.94 in 2018.
“To proactively tackle the ageing population, urgent measures are required to reform our country’s family planning policies and liberate fertility,” said Zheng Bingwen, an expert with the China Academy of Social Science.
China to introduce new policies to tackle ageing population | China | Al Jazeera
Climate-heating gases have reached record levels in the atmosphere despite the global lockdowns caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the UN’s World Meteorological Organization has said. There is estimated to have been a cut in emissions of between 4.2% and 7.5% in 2020 due to the shutdown of travel and other activities. But the WMO said this was a “tiny blip” in the continuous buildup of greenhouse gases in the air caused by human activities, and less than the natural variation seen year to year.
The data shows action to cut emissions is currently far from what is needed to avoid the worst impacts of the climate emergency. Scientists calculate that emissions must fall by half by 2030 to give a good chance of limiting global heating to 1.5C, beyond which hundreds of millions of people will face more heatwaves, droughts, floods and poverty.
“The lockdown-related fall in emissions is just a tiny blip on the long-term graph. We need a sustained flattening of the curve,” said Petteri Taalas, the WMO secretary-general. “We breached the global [annual] threshold of 400ppm in 2015 and, just four years later, we have crossed 410ppm. Such a rate of increase has never been seen in the history of our records. CO2 remains in the atmosphere for centuries. The last time the Earth experienced a comparable concentration was 3m-5m years ago, when the temperature was 2-3C warmer and sea level was 10-20 metres higher than now. But there weren’t 7.7 billion inhabitants.”
Talaas said a “complete transformation of our industrial, energy and transport systems” was needed. “The changes are economically affordable and technically possible and would affect our everyday life only marginally,” he said. “It is welcome that a growing number of countries and companies have committed themselves to carbon neutrality. There is no time to lose.”
Climate crisis: CO2 hits new record despite Covid-19 lockdowns | Environment | The Guardian
The word missing from Talaas’ statement is profitability
