world capitalism - food , poverty and war

The British Retail Consortium , which represents most major shop chains, reported a 9 per cent rise in the price of food in the shops in the year to March. Despite a general fall in inflation – the annual rise in the Retail Prices Index hit zero last month – food prices remain stubbornly high, and rising. Because so many food prices are determined globally, home produce prices have also been pushed higher by the fall in the pound, as the price of otherwise comparatively cheap UK produce has been bid up by foreign buyers.

"Although around 60 per cent of food consumed in the UK is sourced domestically, the grocery industry is a global market place and hence exchange rate fluctuations affect the price of produce and production. The farm gate price of UK-produced foodstuffs has increased markedly as sterling has depreciated, to maintain parity in the price of similar goods sourced in other currencies in the global market place."

Those households where food prices and utility bills (which are rising even faster) represent a big proportion of the budget are seeing little benefit from the much-heralded onset of deflation. The Institute for Fiscal Studies recently found that the richest fifth of households had an average inflation rate of minus 1 per cent; the poorest fifth had an average inflation rate of 5.3 per cent. The least-well off pensioner households, usually with no mortgage and no benefit from the cut in Bank rate, are still coping with inflation at 6.9 per cent.

A report prepared for the forthcoming get-together of G8 agriculture ministers in Italy – the first "food summit" of its kind – hints at the possibility of food wars in the future, or, as the report phrases it, "serious consequences not merely on business relations but equally on social and international relations, which in turn will impact directly on the security and stability of world politics".

Food today is bad for consumers in a number of ways, all connected with the market system. Common ownership would give all communities immediate access to land. In the short term, people in the areas of greatest need could concentrate their local efforts using the best means available. At the same time the regions most able to do so could assist with increased supplies. There can be no doubt that throughout the world, within a season, the plight of the seriously undernourished would be greatly improved. In the longer term, communities in socialism would be able to look beyond the immediate priorities of desperate need and begin to sort out the appalling state of world agriculture that is a consequence of the exploitation and destructive methods of capitalist agribusiness. It not only exploits farm workers of all lands, it exploits anything in nature it can get its hands on. The work of providing for the needs of all people begins with the work of organising for world socialism.