Popular Wisdom Can Fight Food Crisis

INTRODUCTION

Ever since the wheel was invented, perhaps nothing so boosted technology as the discovery of oil. The black gold minted the petrodollar, and helped topple the Soviets, ignite Gulf wars and restore Russia. But power still flows down umbilical pipelines! After burning 150 trillion barrels of oil since the world’s first oil-well was drilled 149 years ago, oil-guzzling industrial nations now panic they will need equal quantities just for the next 25 years. West Asia’s role in the equation compounds the panic. Thus, greed fires a green gold rush. The world’s irrigated land area tripled in the past 50 years, but grain demand for agro-fuels has doubled in three years, leaving less grain for food. With the World Bank saying grain price hikes may spread food riots to 33 nations, the U.N. secretary general called a food summit in Rome.

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Agriculture was on the upswing in Asia a few decades ago when Susan George predicted a man-made food crisis. Memories of World War II’s food scarcity and the euphoria of political freedom encouraged re-born Asian countries toward self-sufficiency in food. Then globalization arrived. Coming in the guise of a Green Revolution, its initial flush of an agricultural boom left a trail of pesticide, herbicide and crude fertilizer in much of Asia.

Top rice producers, such as Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, failed to heed the Pesticide Action Network’s warning in 2004 about rice shortages.

By then, Asia had fallen for globalization’s next mirage – the Trojan horse of low-grade manufacturing industries and industrial crops. Both undermined agro-based economies. With the collusion of politicians seeking quick fixes, Asia was lured once more to import food. According to the World Bank, China’s 1981-1985 agricultural GDP of 28.7% fell to 8% by 2000-2006, and India’s dropped from 18.4% to 6.2%. It is ironic that food scarcity and price hikes are now blamed on these nations’ demand for meat, while major moves are underway to push GM foods in Asia.

Some Church agencies, such as the Asian Partnership for Human Development, Commissions for Justice and Peace, and Human Development Commissions, have tried to respond to these issues, but many focus on analysis, motivation and animation – less on action. True enough, macro-level action on the food crisis cannot succeed without state leadership. In the interim, however, Church groups can bring steady relief to people, as recently reported by UCA News. Caritas Bangladesh is helping develop local rice varieties, the Indian Church is standing up for debt-trapped farmers, the Philippine Church pushes farmers’ land rights and even a soup kitchen in the

Tajik Church tries to serve homegrown veggies. Such moves spell hope, and the Church community is at its best when spelling hope with faith-energizing people.
Speaking on chronic hunger worldwide at the United Nations, the Holy See’s observer urged “greater investment in smallholder farmers.” The largely rural-based Asian Church can help alleviate food scarcity by encouraging home gardening, community livestock farming, and fish and prawn farming in parishes, base groups and small communities. These groups can also foster multicropping and non-traditional crops.

For example, the world has 200,000 species of plants, but much of people’s food comes from just seven species: rice, corn, wheat, barley, sorghum, potatoes and cassava. The easy availability of this limited range at subsidized prices has regrettably made them the staple of most urban Asians. This captive market is now at the mercy of multinationals’ plans to price-hike, divert or even destroy these grains for greater profit. Even so, Creation is resourceful. Many of rural Asia’s native peoples and indigenous communities complement their daily meal with a rich variety of lesser known species of grains, fruits, yams, roots and herbs.

Harnessing popular wisdom about such non-traditional foods can be a double blessing and also supplement the food cycle. It can help correct current imbalances in people’s diet as well as preserve a rich heritage for posterity. Popularizing less-known, less-grown food crops can be a timely-pioneering lay apostolate, and its flag bearer must be the Church media.

www.ucanews.com. The author, Hector Welgampola, a Sri Lankan journalist, was Executive Editor of UCA News from 1987 until he retired in December 2001.

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