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3. In a similar way, new dams that were designed to open
more farmland through irrigation have actually flooded many poor
farmers off their land. Meanwhile, the newly irrigated lands typically
end up in the hands of wealthier farmers.
4. Unfortunately, foreign aid and food supplements in times
of famine have tended to increase the poverty and dependency
of poor countries and poor families. Foreign food aid has often
pushed down local grain prices, causing the ruin of struggling small
farmers. In any case, much of the food sent as aid ends up in the
hands of the rich, not the hungry.
The poor people’s explanation of
hunger: unfair distribution of
land and resources, too much
in the hands of too few.
Studies by various groups, including the
U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, the
New Internationalist, the Institute for Food
and Development Policy, and the Human
Needs/Global Development Program
have shown that:
• There is plenty of food in the world
today to feed all people adequately.
• There is enough farmland to feed 2 to
3 times the present world population.
However, much of the land held by
big property owners is unused or
poorly used.
The problem of hunger is not caused
• For the world’s 3 major grain crops
(rice, wheat, and maize), the most
productive systems are those
organized on the basis of small-owner
by shortages, but by unfair distribution.
Or as Mahatma Gandhi put it, “There is
enough for every man’s need, but not for
every man’s greed.”
operations. The most productive landlord system yields less than half as much
per hectare as most small-owner systems.
• In all the major famines of the 1970’s, there was enough food stored within the
affected countries to feed all the people adequately. But the price of food rose
too high for people to afford. Many of those with extra food hoarded it instead
of sharing it with the starving.
• There is no scarcity of total resources, but rather a tremendous misuse of them.
In the course of 2 weeks, the world’s governments spend $4,000,000,000 on
weapons of war—enough to feed everyone on earth for an entire year!
• Increased agricultural assistance has never brought lasting increases in food
production in any country with a big-landowner/tenant-farmer system.