Challenge Corporate Control of Our Food Supply (fwd)
P. Myers (mpwr@u.washington.edu)
Fri, 9 Jan 1998 12:38:12 -0800 (PST)
well said. PatM
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: 9 Jan 1998 15:02:22 GMT
From: Rich Winkel <rich@pencil.math.missouri.edu>
Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
Subject: Challenge Corporate Control of Our Food Supply
Resent-From: rich
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
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6. SURVIVAL TACTICS: WE MUST CHALLENGE CORPORATE CONTROL OF OUR
FOOD SUPPLY
By Tim Metzger
Increasingly, our world is controlled by transnational
corporations. This means that you and I have less of a choice in
matters which affect our health, careers, and livelihood. The
global market is creating a world in which people are restricted
and trade runs rampant. People can no longer cross borders, while
food that is needed to feed them is exported to rich industrial
countries in the North.
Rural peoples are no longer able to feed themselves with their own
crops, but must cater to a global market place where profit reigns
supreme. This is everyone's problem as we will see when the health
effects become obvious.
In today's world, a handful of corporations threaten to own the
entire seed stock of the world. This means that fewer people will
control the world's food decisions. The fact that most of the
corporations in control of food also are in the business of
chemicals and pesticides should frighten everyone. Our food is
being manipulated to require more pesticides, forcing farmers to
buy these products and ensuring that these companies make an even
larger profit. These same corporations are at the top of the list
in generating pollution in poor communities and communities of
color in the United States. At the same time, they devastate other
countries' economies by forcing people to grow crops which are
technology-intensive and not part of the local diet.
Mexico's ability to produce maize and beans (staples of Mexican
rural society) has been cut by one-third, in order to accommodate
the U.S. market's need for fruits and beef. Mexico must import
much of its food today, thanks to "free trade" under the North
American Free Trade Agreement, while people increasingly cannot
make ends meet.
The cattle industry has destroyed two-thirds of the rain forest in
southern Mexico while taking land that could be used by the rural
poor to feed themselves. Mexico has decentralized its economy in
order to compete in the global market, selling state-owned
property to transnational corporations who have no desire to feed
the Mexican people or be accountable to those it displaces.
At the same time that they destroy communities in other countries,
factories in the United States spill toxins into poor communities
and communities of color. Monsanto and Dow are two of the largest
producers of toxic waste in this country, producing chemicals here
and shipping them to Mexico to be used on the genetically
engineered soy beans that Monsanto creates. It should be noted
that many of the chemicals produced in the United States are
banned for use on farms here, but are still sold to Third World
countries as pesticides.
Monsanto's plant in Louisiana has been fined numerous times for
contributing to the pollution of an area known as "Cancer Alley"
due to the amount of toxic waste produced by large corporations
nearby. The surrounding population is around 90 percent African
American and poor and has no say in what these corporations do to
their community.
In order to stop this, people must organize. From rural towns in
Mexico to cities in the United States, people must demand that
corporations become more accountable to the communities that they
are located in. We must also recognize the global connections that
allow rich people in this county to profit, while poor people
across the globe are the victims of this wealth. The solution to
this is to struggle for real social change that recognizes
people's basic needs and allows people to meet them. Food is the
basis of life and should be equally available to all. It is
unacceptable for private companies to own the means by which
people survive. Unless people recognize and challenge the
corporate status quo, things will only get worse for the majority
of people in the world.
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This article originated in the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE (Online Edition),
Vol. 25 No. 1/ January, 1998; P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL
60654; Email: pt@noc.org; http://www.mcs.com/~league
Feel free to reproduce and use unless marked as copyrighted. The
PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE depends on donations from its readers.
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