Agribusiness

Hunger is Man-Made: The Political Economy of Food Scarcity 1 Hunger is Man-Made - Part 1: How Inequality Fabricates Scarcity 2 Hunger is Man-Made - Part 2: Engineered Vulnerability: When Famine Becomes an Act of History 3 Hunger is Man-Made - Part 3: The Green Trap: How Modernization Concentrated Land and Poverty 4 Hunger is Man-Made - Part 4: The Global Supermarket: Corporate Control, Debt, and the Toxic Gift of Aid ← Series Home Key Takeaways Export concentration creates vulnerability: Developing nations dependent on one or two export crops face devastating impacts from price fluctuations controlled by traders and commodity speculators. Agribusiness diverts fertile land from food to luxury exports: Multinational corporations redirect land to flowers, beef, asparagus, and exotic fruits for Western markets while populations face malnutrition. Contract farming gives corporations control without ownership: Companies like Nestlé and United Brands control production while shifting financial risk to farmers. International debt forces export-focused policies: Nations must prioritize export earnings over domestic food security to service mounting external debt. Food aid and World Bank loans reinforce inequality: Aid maintains dependency, destroys local markets, and funds political elites rather than reaching the hungry. 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.” ...