Inequality of Olympic Proportions
I admit it, I’ve been kinda addicted to the Olympics. Who knew watching skiing and shooting could be so fascinating? Well, the 2010 Olympics is coming to a close, and Vancouver has certainly showed herself to be a wonderful hostess.
I had the fortune to visit and eat my way through Vancouver last year, and truly, it is an eating destination for all the athletes, families and visitors from around the world.
Location: The Water Street Cafe, Vancouver, BC
From the “Snow Leopard,” Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong, the first skier from Ghana to Samir Azzimani, the lone athlete from Morocco, the Winter Olympics is the time when athletes from all over get to showcase and represent their respective nations. The Olympics allows the world come together and see how similar we are: who didn’t want to hug Canadian figure skater Joannie Rochette after her bronze-winning performance after her mother’s sudden death or feel for the Dutch speedskater Sven Kramer who was on his way to the gold only to be mistakenly sidetracked by his coach?
Yet despite sugar-coated messages about an increasingly shrinking and equal global society, regional inequities seem to be deepening further. From falling water tables to rising temperatures, we’re in deep, deep trouble, particularly as food demand increases. However, while the troublemakers are global, the consequences seem to fall heavier in certain regions. For example, while China is reducing malnutrition (although urbanizing to a degree that hurts grain reserves and the environment), the percentage of malnourished children in India is astonishingly high. I have written a bit on inequity in India and the issue of hunger and malnutrition.
So is there a solution? GMOs?
Pankaj Mishra pointed out the hypocrisy of a ‘modern’ India heading on the path towards Modernity, while children and farmers live in increasing debt and dependence on a growing bureaucratic food system. India’s “successful” Green Revolution in the 1970s when staple food production increased as a result of “aid” and “advanced” crop techniques are now seeing more dire consequences, including farmer debt, food insecurity, widening urban-rural gap, and rural income inequality, not to mention malnutrition, dependence on foreign oil. Between 1993 and 2003, 100,000 farmers committed suicide in rural areas, clear signs of desperation.
Food aid?
Development aid seems to be determined by the invisible hand of foreign policy and domestic agribusiness, rather than by goodwill, at least in the U.S. For example, according to journalist Celia Duggar who focuses on food aid, the U.S. requires all donated food to be grown in the U.S., driving up cost and delaying delivery of needed food. What does this mean? That middlemen, including Archer Daniels Midlandand Cargill, made over $700 million in 2004 by selling food commodities through USAID.
Meanwhile, those in Haiti coming out the devastating earthquake has to keep waiting for food while counterfeiters create fake food coupons. Take a look at this chart from 2007 that follows food aid.
Source: New York Times
In whose interest do these policies lie?
CARE turned down $45 million in federal food aid, citing that some of these policies hurt the people they are supposed to help. Instead of donating tons to middlemen, then, how about finding and supporting the indigenous programs that work directly with those in need, such as a revolutionary community kitchen scheme in India to combat malnutrition? Or giving cash donations to support the World Food Programme, which has gotten 75% more food for countries such as Kenya, Uganda, and Zambia by buying corn grown IN those countries rather than shipping them from the U.S. (novel idea?). After all, it doesn’t seem fair that only SOME of us get to eat food like this.
Location: Kirin, Vancouver, BC
For those of us working in the do-gooding world of development and relief aid: it’s time to stop patting ourselves on the back about our wonderful intentions and seriously take a look at our results. When it comes to food security, there shouldn’t be a Gold medalist or Silver medalist.
We should all be standing on the podium together.
Category: Featured Articles: Food Politics, Featured Articles: Health & Nutrition, Food Politics, Health & Nutrition, South/Southeast Asia, Travel & Culture, US & Canada
You raise a very important point here. The goal should be to get food to people who need it in the quickest and most efficient manner, without preferential treatment for certain countries and farmers. It doesn’t seem like it should take months to get food aid to a disaster area. Also, it takes a huge amount of energy to grow food in the US and then ship it overseas. This system is very inefficient. People should be eating food grown as locally as possible, and food aid shouldn’t have to come from so far away.
Wonderful post and you raise some excellent points. I wish the system would be more efficient to help the real people in need.
This is an eye-opener. It took four months for the food aid to arrive from the US. Donating money suddenly sounds like a much better idea.