Socialism can feed the world, capitalism cannot

Jose Graziano da Silva head of the Food and Agriculture Organisation believes hunger can be eradicated around the globe "in a generation - in our lifetime" if there is a political commitment by world leaders to ensure that all their citizens get access to nutritious food. "We are not talking about sending a man to the moon or something that complicated," he said. "We have the technology. We have the expertise. We have the things that we need to do it." He went on to say "According to FAO, we have more than enough food produced nowadays to avoid hunger," he said. "People are hungry today because they don't have access to food ... because they cannot pay for the food or they cannot produce it any more as we did in the past." (SOYMB emphasis)

Millions of men women and children  people in the world live in conditions of absolute poverty.  The problem is not one of over-population which is a diversionary tactic to blame the people rather than acknowledge the real culprit - the capitalist system. The earth could sustain a far higher population than already exists, but only if land were cultivated in order to produce food that is needed rather than what is profitable.

The world already produces more than twice the number of calories that the human population requires. Per head of the world’s population, more food is available than ever before in the history of the world. Of that, some one third of the food produced is wasted. Reducing food waste could save more the equivalent of 65 million hectares of agricultural land use by 2030.

The causes of famine have little to do with a shortage of food. It is poverty, not lack of food in the market, that drives hunger and nutritional deficiency. Millions of people simply cannot afford to buy the food that they need, which would still be the case if supply increased. World hunger is not due to the impossibility of producing more food, but due to the Governments and multinational companies that control food production and distribution.

But that does not mean humanity can simply rely on food output growing sufficiently over future decades. Climate change, environmental degradation, growing immunity of pests to chemical attack and microbes to antibiotics, plus capitalism’s constant wars and civil wars may combine to recreate global insufficiency. We are reluctant to accept the argument that the battle to feed all of humanity is over. We need increased scientific research to production but it needs to look at what is really needed to increase output in each ecological niche and study possible unintended effects of new methods, and which rigorously tests things before they are put to use.

The struggle to rid the world of famine starts with understanding capitalism and working for its abolition  – not holding the begging bowl and pleas for pity and charity.

Humans live in the realm of nature, we are constantly surrounded by it and interact with it,  constantly aware of the influence of nature in the the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat. Mankind is not only a dweller in nature, we also transform it. From the very beginning of our existence, and with increasing intensity human society has adapted nature and made all kinds of incursions into it. Humanity converts nature into wealth. This process has frequently ended in tragedy. Forests were destroyed as the area of arable land was increased. What started as a means of survival now damages the biosphere on an increasing scale and is affecting us all.  The ecological crisis is of global proportions. Activities which violate the harmony laws of nature now threaten to bring disaster and this disaster may turn out to be  catastrophic if not apocalyptic.

We don’t need a new Green Revolution - We simply need a Socialist Revolution