FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Over 300 years ago, a handful of foreign settlers were saved from starvation through gifts of game, fruit and vegetables brought by natives of the American continent. The native Americans not only continued to feed the new settlement through the hard winter, but the following spring, took time from their own planting to teach them the technology of agriculture to grow such plants as squash and beans.

Now in 1974, the descendants of those foreigners who came to the U.S. in 1620 have confiscated the lands held by the Native Americans, and gone on to become the richest, best fed country in the world.

The starving in the present day are once again "foreigners" asking for help-people from such countries as India, Nigeria, and Brazil. The U.S., however, is not as generous as the Native Americans. Help has been too slow and too little. The American government is more concerned with keeping out "defenses" well funded than in aiding the starving. Expenditures overseas which will not directly bring in profits a.re seen as endangering the American economy.

In the following pages, the SUN takes a look at the food scene, from the economics of world hunger to the how-to's of getting good, low-cost food. In Ann Arbor, a growing altemative food movement has known for a long time what the straight media is only now pointing out: that too much meat-eating is non-economical, requiring more land and investment than vegetables, fruit and grain; that food prices are too high primarily because distributors and supermarket chains reap in profits; and that the way you eat affects your health and mind.

Although some people are building a new consciousness about food and lifestyle, most of the world has been taught to believe that the American way is best. As countries become more industrialized, they automatically begin to emulate the U.S.  Europe is now importing large quantities of beef from South America, while people in Brazil, Honduras, Haiti, and Mexico are starving. The demand for sugar, part of the imported American culture, has driven prices up in the U.S. and left shelves bare in Great Britain. The all-American hamburger chain is popular in both Britain and France, and growing all the time. The "strip" of fast-food joints of American cities will soon be an international phenomenon. Pepsi-Cola is available in Russia, and Coca-Cola is the world's most popular drink.

Thanksgiving is traditionally a celebration of the good life, stemming from the harvest feast found in most cultures. The turkey, with traditional dressing, potatoes, and even pumpkin pie have replaced any more serious thoughts on the fourth Thursday in November. School children put on pageants showing the Pilgrims and Indians sitting down to eat together, without any analysis of what later happened to the Native Americans, or how that first Thanksgiving relates to the world food crisis today.

The following pages are not just on food, but food for thought. We can't change your eating habits, developed over years of growing up, in a single day. We can not tell you you to immediately change from shopping at grocery stores to buying and working at the People's Food Coop of the Itemized Fruit and Vegetable Coop. We can't even make you take the time to write to Congressman Marvin Esch, Senators Phil Hart or Robert Griffin asking the defense budget be cut and foreign aid be increased, or dashing off a line to a local paper protesting making more luxury items instead of more grain.

Some of our readers already know what we have to say, others may be hearing it for the first time. Some are already practicing vegetarianism, or limited vegetarianism, or doing their shopping at food coops. But we are still a minority. McDonalds and Burger King are building in our backyards, and are most likely going to get the business they need to survive and profit.

On page 14, we offer some suggestions for a more natural Thanksgiving dinner, with organic turkey, lots of fresh produce, and no white flour or sugar. And while you are eating a week from Thursday, think about what we've said here. If you haven't changed the way you eat or shop, consider the possibility. And if you have, think about how to convince others to join you. Here we can only make suggestions. We must work together for the change.

The Economics Of Hunger

The year is 1984. The United States collapsed three years ago, as resentment between countries over unequalized resources, particularly food led to inaction and ineffectiveness. A world wide famine began over ten years ago. and now no nation is left unaffected. Food riots have shaken even the most stable governments.

In the United States, the big problem is food prices. While still producing almost enough to feed its ever increasing population. the U.S. does not have a means for equally distributing what it has. Those who cannot pay do not eat. Still most Americans eat better than the rest of the world. Some families even have meat every night.

A crisis develops in March when word comes to the government in Washington that a guerilla movement has planted nuclear explosives in ten major cities. Unless immediate action is taken to ship food supplies to the starving in the lndian subcontinent the bombs will be exploded. The President says the U.S. will not be intimidated by terrorists. 

After being crippled by losses of ten major cities, the U.S. is attacked by an alliance of starving nations, who move to appropriate American grain supplies. Nations pick sides, and World War III begins.

WORLD FOOD CONFERENCE

Of course, it is only 1974, but famine is already a reality for many countries. Shortages of certain food items are affecting all nations, and prices are spiraling on every item, so that even in the U.S., more and more families are going hungry. According to a United Nations' report, one in five people across the globe are threatened with starvation in the next few years.

Beginning last week, delegates from most nations met in Rome to discuss the growing food crisis. This World Food Conference is based more on the pressing need to avoid military conflict than humane efforts to feed the starving. Imbalances between the rich countries with their food surpluses, and the poor with their starving people are developing into a potentially explosive situation.

"The United States, as a major producer known for its productivity and tradition of advanced technology, must take a major lead in fostering solutions, "Secretary of State Henry Kissinger told conference delegates. "But this is a global problem requiring global solutions."

That global solution depends on the oil-producing nations, blamed by Kissinger for the current food crisis. He argued they had a special responsibility, as their income rose, to help solve the problems. The tone of the speech threatened the loss of U.S. help if other countries did not accept the American solution.

While Kissinger was pointing the finger of blame, the U.S. itself was slow to react to pleas for help from Aisa and Africa. President Ford was stalling against congressional pressure to ship another 100 million tons of grain to famine struck nations. With grain reserves low, the White House is hesitant to commit further supplies in aid

FOOD FOR THOUGHT continued from page 13

WHERE LIES THE PROBLEM?

A number of factors have contributed to the current food crisis, including such uncontrollables as weather and water supplies. But the major areas that the U.S. is claiming brought on the current severe shortage can be traced back to American overconsumption of all resources.

For example, a major cause is being layed to overpopulation, primarily in the less developed countries. The U.S. therefore argues for increased birth control, which is taken by the third world countries as a subtle form of genocide. In reality, India has a less dense population than many European countries, such as West Germany or Italy. China, with the world's largest population, has proven that a country can supply adequate food by putting a priority on land reform and agricultural development. Before the Revolution, China was seen much like India or Bangladesh, with too many people.

Another problem is said to be the energy crisis. Kissinger accused the oil producing countries of the "continuing massive transfer of wealth" which played a key role in shattering the ability of the developing countries to buy food and fertilizer on the world market. The high-yield grains produced for the "green revolution" require massive amounts of fertilizer to grow, and the oil crisis did affect the world fertilizer market. (Fertilizers are produced from petroleum.) But the oil crisis itself was brought on by continued exploitation of oil-producing countries by industrial nations like the U.S. and its allies.

The fertilizer shortage is compounded by U.S. practices. The U.S. Food and Agricultural Organization estimates a 2 million ton shortage of fertilizer for next year's crop in the underdeveloped countries. At the same time. Americans will spread over 3 million tons on their lawns, golf cour-ses and cemeteries. In addition, fertilizer plants have been closed. Shell Oil shut down two in the last three years because of natural gas price increases. And of all the fertilizer sent in foreign aid by the U.S. last year. 350,000 tons (more than half) went to South Vietnam.

What is actually hurting world food production is Americans themselves. Seldom discussed is the American habit of eating meat, a luxury each industrialized nation emulates. Each pound of beef on the table requires twentyone pounds of protein to produce. Eighty-six percent of America's corn, barley, oats and grain sorgum and over ninety percent of its non-exported soybean crop is fed to livestock. The 1960-61 livestock feed grains could have supplied a meal for 1.3 billion people.

THE PROFITS KEEP GROWING

Of all the problems contributing to decreasing food, the most serious is the capitalist economic system. Crops are grown for profit, not because of the necessity of the people to eat. This affects not only crops grown in the U.S., but also in many third world countries.

In the United States until recently, the government paid farmers not to grow certain crops. This practice was intended to keep prices (and profits) high by keeping availability of any single crop low. Over the past ten years, grain reserves have dropped drastically because of this process, until now only a 26 day supply remains on reserve to cover all emergencies. The drought this summer cut grain production in the midwest for this year, and even further endangers any possible surplus.

California, which supplies large quantities of fresh produce to the rest of the country maintains archaic laws allowing food destruction to keep profits high. In 1970-71, cling peach growers were ordered to destroy 21,000 acres of peach orchards and 200,000 tons of fruit by the peach marketing board. Even now, lettuce growers plow under thousands of acres of lettuce to prevent "overproduction."

Destruction of beef cattle recently rocked the news, as farmers protested high feed prices. Raising cattle doesn't provide enough profit. According to a government survey, farm profits have actually fallen 11 percent despite increased consumer costs. But while individual farmers are suffering the agricultural monopolies' profits have been steadily increasing. The sugar shortage increased  profits for Great Midwestern Sugar 1200 percent. Now rumors are spreading of a salt shortage this winter, possible only if the salt companies are hoarding it.

Production for profit is not only a U.S. phenomenon. The developed countries have continually imported food items from other tries at the cost of malnutrition for many. For example, the major portion of fish caught off the Chilean and Peruvian coasts is converted to high protein livestock feed, exported to Europe and the U.S. Other parts of South America are busy producing coffee, sugar and even cotton, while the continent is not even feeding its entire population.

The U.S. encourages land use for "cash" crops. Much of the money loaned from the World Bank is for agriculture which can be expected to repay. In 1972, loans to Tanzania went for the ment of cotton and coffee crops, the establishment of tea smallholders, tobacco redrying plants, coffee pulperies and tea factories. At the same time, the Sahel regions of Africa were facing a drought which had already lasted six years, and killed millions of people and livestock through starvation.

PAYING THE PRICE

Increasing world food production will not be cheap. Thousands will be needed in developing high yield crops in addition to those already in use, building irrigation systems to make more land available, and developing technology in countries that now don't have it. In addition, millions will be needed in temporary aid to feed those now starving until the total food situation is changed.

China overcame the problem of starvation, but the cost was the entire, capitalist system, and years of struggle. For the capitalists, that is too high a cost. But the present produce for profit system is not meeting the needs of the world's people.