Hunger is Man-Made - Part 4: The Global Supermarket: Corporate Control, Debt, and the Toxic Gift of Aid

Post 4: Hunger is Man-Made - Part 4: The Global Supermarket: Corporate Control, Debt, and the Toxic Gift of Aid

The core argument of this work is that the problem of global hunger is rooted in dependency and underdevelopment, deliberately manufactured through control over essential resources. Having examined the historical shift to cash cropping and the failure of technologically focused modernization, we now address the current global economy—specifically, the interlocking crises of trade, agribusiness control, debt, and the political weaponization of “aid.”

The Illusion of Comparative Advantage and the Export Trap

The belief persists that developing nations must leverage their “natural advantage” in tropical crops by focusing on exports. However, the sources show there is nothing “natural” or advantageous about this concentration.

• Vulnerability through Concentration: Most developing countries rely on one or two export crops for 50% to 90% of their earnings (e.g., bananas for Panama, Honduras, and Somalia; coffee for Colombia, Burundi, and Rwanda). This dependence leaves entire national economies vulnerable to dramatic price fluctuations caused largely by a small group of commodity gamblers and traders.
• The Declining Value of Hard Work: As the price of manufactured goods imported from wealthy countries rises, the relative value of exported crops often falls. For instance, in 1960, three tons of bananas could purchase a tractor; by 1970, eleven tons were required to buy the same tractor.
• Local Profits vs. Global Prices: Even when global prices rise dramatically, the profits often fail to reach the producers. Between 1968 and 1973, while international coffee prices improved by 58%, the price paid to producers in Rwanda remained static. Similarly, the government agency in Senegal reduced the price paid to farmers for peanuts even when the world price increased. This system ensures that the vast majority of agricultural export earnings are captured by government agencies, exporters, and large farm owners, while farm laborers and small producers benefit little.

The Agribusiness Empire: Controlling the Global Plate

The sources highlight how multinational agribusiness corporations (MNCs) thrive by shifting production to low-cost developing countries, often without owning the land outright.

• Luxury Crop Diversion: These MNCs direct vast stretches of fertile land away from local staples to produce high-value “luxury crops” for Western supermarkets, such as flowers, asparagus, beef, and exotic fruits. In Mexico, land previously used to grow local staples like corn and wheat is now contracted to companies like Del Monte to produce crops like asparagus for export to Europe.
• The Beef Boom and Malnutrition: The demand for cheap beef in the U.S. has turned Central America into a primary site for cattle production. Between one-third and one-half of all beef production in Central America and the Dominican Republic is exported, primarily to the U.S. for hamburgers. This diversion of resources occurs despite severe malnutrition in these regions; in Costa Rica, beef consumption per person plummeted between 1950 and 1971.
• Contract Farming (The New Control): Companies like Nestle and United Brands minimize risk and capital investment by using “contract farming”. They lend money, provide necessary inputs (seeds, fertilizer, equipment), and then purchase the resulting product from the local farmer at a fixed price, deducting the debt. This mechanism gives the MNCs complete control over quality and quantity without the political risk of owning vast tracts of land.
• The Scandal of Infant Formula: MNCs directly contribute to the hunger industry through the aggressive marketing of infant formula in developing nations.
  • Research shows that infants fed formula in developing countries suffer double the mortality rate of breastfed infants.
  • This is primarily an economic and sanitary problem: most poor families cannot afford the necessary amount of formula (feeding a four-month-old requires up to 80% of a family’s per capita income in countries like Guatemala).
  • Families are forced to “water down” the formula, leading to severe malnutrition (Marasmus). Compounding this, the water source and preparation conditions are often contaminated, leading to chronic diarrhea and disease.
  • MNCs utilize tactics like employing women dressed in nurses’ uniforms (“milk nurses”) as sales representatives and distributing free samples in hospitals, undermining traditional breastfeeding practices and implying medical authority.

The Trinity of Aid: World Bank, Debt, and Food Aid

The sources argue that international aid and lending structures, rather than alleviating hunger, actively perpetuate the cycle of dependency that creates it.

1. The Debt Trap (Faj Alduyun):

• The overwhelming pressure to repay mounting international debt forces developing nations to allocate all economic resources toward export production to earn foreign currency.
• This pressure means that domestic development—such as building schools, clinics, and infrastructure aimed at internal self-sufficiency—is neglected because it does not generate foreign currency for debt servicing.

2. The World Bank Group’s “Attack on Poverty” (Hujum al-Bank al-Dawli `ala “al-Faqr”):

• The World Bank (IBRD/IDA) has become the largest financier of development, yet its projects, even those supposedly targeting the poor, routinely reinforce inequality.
• Bank proposals are often drafted by Bank missions (flying in from Washington) and rely on the assumption that external investment is essential, ensuring a favorable climate for foreign interests.
• Loan Misallocation: A close examination of loans reveals that “big boys” (large landowners and political figures) receive the funds. In Bangladesh, Bank-funded tube wells went almost exclusively to wealthy landowners and those with political connections, who then sold the water to poor farmers at high rates.
• Reinforcing the Elite: By providing large loans (and financial backing) to the existing elite, the Bank strengthens the very mechanisms of power and inequality that prevent genuine rural development and cooperation among the poor.

3. Food Aid (P.L. 480) (Qimat al-Ma’una al-Ghizaa’iya):

• U.S. food aid (primarily P.L. 480) was originally conceived as a way to dispose of domestic agricultural surpluses to maintain high prices for American farmers and to create long-term foreign markets for U.S. goods, rather than solely as humanitarian relief.
• Weaponization of Food: Food aid is often used as a political and military tool, supporting regimes favorable to U.S. interests. For instance, aid proceeds were heavily directed toward the military budgets of South Vietnam and South Korea.
• Local Market Destruction: When food is dumped or sold cheaply, it floods local markets, depressing prices. This makes it unprofitable for local farmers to grow staple crops, increasing their poverty and making the country permanently dependent on imports.
• Failure to Reach the Hungry: In countries like Bangladesh, up to 90% of P.L. 480 aid is diverted to urban middle-class consumers, police, the military, or sold to city bakers at subsidized rates, leaving the majority of the rural hungry unfed. This ensures that the urban population remains politically stable (by keeping food prices low) while the rural poor remain marginalized.

The sources conclude that the hunger crisis is not an inevitable outcome of scarcity or natural disasters, but the result of specific economic and political decisions made by governments and corporations that prioritize profit and control over human needs. The path to putting “food first” requires confronting and demystifying these deeply embedded structures of power.