Discuss about the Business & Global Food Security.
It sounds peculiar to live in a world that is full of hungry people, a problem that has become prevalent in nature. Half of the world is suffering from hunger with the other half being too obsessed with dieting and the books about the same. According to Headey and Ecker (2013), this point gets lost in the bigger collection of lingo that now sates the discussion on the security of food in the 21st century though it should not be. In the real world, the insecurity in food antedates the partnership of public, private, and other market-driven resolution by various millennia, and the quintessence of the issue that remains unaffected. Even in this 21st century, there exists persistent hunger and malnutrition, which is being proliferated by the two forces; injustice and inequality. This signifies the fact that food security is being considered as moral and political matter that is being defined by the agreements on an international basis. There should be a compulsion in covering the gaps that exists in the global food system- not for the fact that it would have immense benefit on the economic growth and stability in the political matters of a country but also for the matter of fact that it is the right way to go about it. It is therefore time for a clear-eyed ethical structure for reaching to the food security.
According to Wheeler and Von Braun (2013), the clear-eyed moral framework can only be possible if there is formation of any support among the main participants like the government, non-governmental organizations, international institutions and the private sector with the belief that feeding the population that is growing is itself an end to it. Producing investment returns, surveying new markets and safeguarding the resources of the world are significant benefits that would come from functioning towards the global food security. However, there is the existence of this tiny part of a bigger moral good that should be the nucleus of the food security. Government is stated to be the first and primary social contract that delineates the responsibilities for the well-being and order existing between the people who rule and those who are being ruled (Troell et al. 2014). Therefore it is beliefs that need to be stated here that the government should take up the responsibility of feeding those who dot possess the ability to feed themselves. It is imperative to understand the tools that are being made use by the government for attaining that objective.
Firstly, property exists everywhere within the discussion with governments having power and authority to state the legal planning of assets rights. Food is all about the agriculture and agriculture takes in the land and water with the same being inducted into property- who owns and cultivates it (Shiva 2016). Economist Hernando de Soto has pointed out in a brilliant manner where better job would be to make rights of property available to all, helping the poor in using those rights to attain credit, making investments and augmenting the output related to agriculture. Property rights would be able to provide that extra voice to the poor that is so essential and a great pledge in their economies.
Secondly, the contributors of social service, governments are in the position of exclusivity to structure the ways the issues of nutrition and infrastructure would be intersecting with the social and welfare services. As per Porter et al. (2014), one of the booming lessons from the Food Security Strategy Group work at the Institute of Aspen states it to be an incorporated approach for diminishing food security creating a greater impact on the various strategies of each of the sectors. According to Riches (2016), Ethiopia is a country that has exhibited the wisdom of an incorporated strategy in the agency of its Agricultural Transformation, a frontward thinking agency that is being calculated to lessen the food security by consent collaboration between the main ministries of the government and that of agriculture and finance along with health and social services. This model’s success is evident from the fact Ethiopia has made greater expansion after the implementation of the strategy towards the food security than any other country. Thirdly, government has the authority and accountability in creating clear environment of regulation for accelerating technologies that would be supporting the protected and sustainable amplification of production in agriculture.
The Green Revolution and the modern day complements have been saving enough lives. Yet, there is enough existence of countries that are still countering the wrath of starvation and hunger that for various reasons have determined of not using any crop that have been uncovered to GMOs or have been heritably customized. According to Larsen and Lilleør (2014), the scientific community supports the notion that the GM crops have the ability to augment yields and do not pretense a threat to the lives of the humans. Only governments possess the power of driving policies that are based on evidence reforms decreasing factors like hunger, develop nutrition and innovation sustainability. Starting from the legal architecture of water and land rights to the stipulation of the social services along with acceleration of technological advancements, governments hold the key in employing considerable tools for deploying the global endeavor of fighting food insecurity (Savary, Ficke and Hollier 2014).
However, there are certain arguments that the present industrial throng production of food that is being done for profit is a economical and political crisis that have had distressing effects on the health of humans and threatens the endurance of the planet. One of the most primary human needs is the capability to produce and acquire nutrition of sufficient nature. However, for the fast 50 years, United States and certain other western countries have fundamentally shifted the process of growing and generating foods for the consumption of humans. According to Savary, Ficke and Hollier (2014), it has made use of the twin vehicles of the caustic food strategy apparatus and the ever growing dependence upon oil and industrialization, this indefensible model of food production has continued its growth in an unabated way in an era where production of oil is decreasing along with declining availability of clean water. This according to many is a structure that threatens not only the security of the intact global food system, but also threatening the health of humans and hampering the environment. Scientist and self-governing research agencies have been alarming the world for years but they have botched to do is identifying and holding accountable the true source of the busted food system: “free market”.
According to Godfray and Garnett (2014), everywhere from starting point to the supermarket, every period of the industrialized food construction is being owned, administered and influenced by the corporate businesses. The annual profits drift in the billions of dollars, additional money than any of the budding nations’ overall GDP. Multinationals like Nestle, Cargill and ConAgra have been able to cautiously craft and promote economies of scale that facilitates them in dominating the global and local markets in a way where only few of the organizations have been handling both the factors of price and supply. In the year 2012, US Agribusiness exhausted around $137 billion on the foyer efforts of promoting the interests of corporate through the acquiring of the constructive legislation (Lang and Heasman 2015). The reach of the corporate have been even more sinister into the industry of finance, affecting the credit availability in the developing of countries of third world through the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for promoting the self-serving interests of corporations that are capitalistic in nature.
It is not only that the suppliers possess the seeds themselves along with the credit market through which farmers have been buying their seeds, These fewer large corporations also have their own contacts of the land on which those seeds are being grown along with the chemical required for the same facilitating the necessary output process (Rutten et al. 2014). The food system is increasingly becoming in possession of the larger corporations instead of the conventional small farmers. The support of supposedly capitalist and definitely corporatist governments that have been squeezing the mentality of “free market” of the exponential enlargement deregulation and unbound corporate profits are affecting this sort of takeover.
As per Lipper at al. (2014), the burden of finance is primarily being accepted by the middle and lower class tax payers who have been gradually more responsible for the funding of the ever expanding subsidies permitting these organizations their growth in the unimpeded monopoly. Cargill have boasted practically $134 billion in sales which significantly is more than the GDPs of Honduras, Ecuador and Serbia combined. Cargill is one of the prime examples of the corporate possession of an overall supply chain starting from the seed to the dinner plates. Cargill is in the habit of growing their own soy on the contracted lands of Brazil that was previously being engaged by the dense forests and being developed in the processing plants of Cargill-owned soy. Their patented animal feed which is soy based is then elated to the Cargill owned concentrated lots of cattle feed which is then fed to the animals who are owned by Cargill foods, after which they are being butchered and processed within the Cargill owned butcher house and the dispensation amenities.
There is lack of any sort of competition and even if there is any, is little with the government over sighting for the gentle conduct or the fair and humane handling of the workers who have been growing the soy and then developing the meat for the purpose of consumption in the Western countries. As per the reports of 2011, the United States Federal Drug Administration tasked with guaranteeing the safety of the supply of the food in America, somehow examined only a meager 6 per cent of the producers of domestic food and 0.4 per cent of the imports (Lal, Hansen and Uphoff 2016). As per the reports of the CDC, pathogens that were foodborn nauseate around 49 million people only in U.S., resulting in hospitalization of around 130000 people and deaths of around 3000 people on an annual basis. The food industry over the phase of past three decades has gradually being assuming the responsibility of self-inspection as the governments that are capitalist have steadily being defunding the agencies of federal food scrutiny, passing on the legislation and policies of the farm in deregulating the agribusiness.
According to Tacoli, Bukhari and Fisher (2013), Corporations have been managing well in maintaining their profits that have been steadily increasing over the period of past three decades, regardless of the sluggish wages for the people who work through lowering the prices of the food in an artificial manner. The subsidies of the government have been funded by the operational class tax payers who have been buying their goods. As most of the subsidies are being paid for cash crops like wheat, soy and corn, with those cash crops yielding the biggest profits for the Big Ag.. The farm policies that have existed in the previous decade have also shaped in the commodity production through the outsourcing of agricultural to the countries of the third world offering a contemptible labor and land having very fewer regulations in the USA. This system has generally been designed in maximizing the corporate profit that have been American based enduring to offer despicable food for the working class people and the population of the urban area.
However, government does not have the power of performing all these alone. Governments have never been supreme, nor do they have resources that are infinite in nature. According to Smith ( 2013), there are two sectors that can balance the tools and the abilities of the government which are the private sector and the public regions or what is considered by many to be “spiritual sector”. Business has the maximum stake in attaining a future that is food-secure and this is the place where the moral reinforcement of food security becomes a matter of high significance. Business, inclusive of those that are bigger multinationals of agricultural products, stand at the best position for gaining a great covenant in the marketplace , exemplifying the most prevalent and inconvenient challenges existing in the food uncertainty. Nevertheless, the profitability track in those provinces is not confluent with the long-term protractability and the wellbeing of the communities that are mostly vulnerable. Business does possess that responsibility in sharing the burden: to accomplish well by performing well. In the sector of agriculture, this generally signifies making of a pledge in developing resources and capital of humans at the community echelon so that the smallholder farmers, mostly women have the ability of sharing the profits of the comprehensive ascend in the yields of the agriculture. As per Troell et al. (2014), the public, non-profit and the private sector is highly engaged, though there is existence of another set of voices that can muster actions at the grassroots level on the matter of global food security in the best possible manner unlike the other organizations.
Big businesses have always recognized the significance of fighting the hunger presence in the global stage. Few of the big organizations are putting in extra effort for improving the security of global food. Amway, a leader in the market of vitamin and nutrition, initiated the ‘Nutrilite Power of 5 Campaign’ for raising awareness of the malnutrition during the childhood days. As per Rosin, Stock and Campbell (2013), the organization has augmented Nutrilite Little Bits, a supplement of micronutrient offering insolvent children with the main nutrients and vitamins that has often gone missing from their diets. Amway implemented the Nutrilite Little Bits in the year 2014 to the thousands of children residing over 11 countries. The organization has been committed towards offering five million Nutrilite Little Bits by the end of mid 2017. This act has got enough potentiality in it to benefit approximately 1500 children who are malnourished.
General Mills, a food giant have vowed to work on close quarters with the smallholder farmers for development of the economies to a source that is sustainable in nature with 100 per cent of their top ten precedence to be fulfilled by 2020. Nicola Dixon, General Mills Foundation Associate stated that they have the belief that farmers do possess enough knowledge and sources for their farms and families to flourish with the benefits accruing well beyond the level of individual and community level. General Mills require their farmers in producing enough to nourish their families and generating enough income while mounting the standard of living within the communities. Millions have already been benefited from the work of the company. As per Smith ( 2013), Cargill, world’s most biggest food and agriculture business, dedicated in offering more than $13 million in funding through a proper set of programs aiming on food security and nutrition. These grants would be taking care of promotion of sustainable practices in agriculture, developing the accessibility in markets and farmers productivity, generating support to the childhood sustenance along with matters related to education and other healthy diets and other related issues in the communities that are low-income. The grants coming from the house of Cargill are set to benefit around one million people in 15 countries. As per Clapp (2014), global issue has been one of the most calamitous issues presently faced by the world, the ability of one in feeding themselves is directly associated to their output and their capability in earning a living. There is enough existing probability in reducing the matter of poverty, increasing the income factor for the poor in the world and enlarge the base of customers in the world as big business players are investing in the global food refuge.
Conclusion:
The sad mockery of the situation is that the culture existing in the Western countries is such that is extensively unspecified that factors like obesity, and being a poor individual are taken in as matters of choice and the true reflection on the character of an individual. Corporate owned media have been intensifying the race and class typecast related to the view of the society on corpulence. In subordinating the wellbeing of the public to the “free” market, the western countries have facilitated the food system to be seized by the interests of the corporate. That structure lacks any sort of regards to the health of the humans and the planet condition, continuing to disregard the natural limits in the oil consumption, minerals and water as if they have endless supplies. Exponential growth is something that is an ingrained impression of capitalism that the overall system fails in the absence of any sort of growth.
In furnishing the management of the supply of food to corporations like Cargill and Monsanto, people have forfeited the rights of human beings: ensuring quality and security of the food. Renewable sources of energy along with the non-chemical methods for manufacturing of the food in feeding the growing population of the world do exist. A food system that takes into account the healthy access to food is a practical option and an accessible goal. Wealthy people have the ability to eat healthy food which is not the case with the poor people. It is such a system that is neither reasonable nor moral. Food activists have been unsuccessful in finding out the core cause of the failure of the system. The food system in most of the countries is being built on the values of “free market”, values that do not have the ability to serve the interest of the people. Capitalistically based system relies on the exponential expansion and the limited consumption.
Reference:
Clapp, J., 2014. Financialization, distance and global food politics. Journal of Peasant Studies, 41(5), pp.797-814.
Godfray, H.C.J. and Garnett, T., 2014. Food security and sustainable intensification. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, 369(1639), p.20120273.
Headey, D. and Ecker, O., 2013. Rethinking the measurement of food security: from first principles to best practice. Food security, 5(3), pp.327-343.
Lal, R., Hansen, D.O. and Uphoff, N. eds., 2016. Food security and environmental quality in the developing world. CRC Press.
Lang, T. and Heasman, M., 2015. Food wars: The global battle for mouths, minds and markets. Routledge.
Larsen, A.F. and Lilleør, H.B., 2014. Beyond the field: The impact of farmer field schools on food security and poverty alleviation. World Development, 64, pp.843-859.
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