Burp! wrote:
Agenda for a New America
Part One
The Politics of Vegetarianism
By Vasu Murti
Chapter 8 - Economics and Control

The food industry takes in over $150 billion every year - more than
the auto, steel, or oil industries. This industry is dominated by a
few, giant multinational corporations, who possess extensive political
control. Multinationals are buying more land. A study of over 83
countries reveals that just over 3% of landholders control about 80
percent of the farmland.

The Worldwatch Institute has released a remarkable report entitled
Taking Stock: Animal Farming and the Environment, which lists nation
after nation where food deprivation has followed the switch from a
grain-based diet to a meat-based one.

Most of the nations that now import grain from the United States were
once self-sufficient in grain. The main reason they aren't is the rise
in meat production and consumption. In Taiwan, for example, per
capita consumption of meat and eggs increased 600 percent from 1950 to
1990. With this change, vastly increased amounts of grain have gone to
livestock, raising the annual per capita grain use in the country from
375 pounds to 858 pounds. In 1950, Taiwan was a grain exporter; in
1990 the nation imported, mostly for feed, 74 percent of the grain it
used.

In mainland China, the situation is similar. Increased meat
consumption has meant less grain available to feed people. Since
1978, meat consumption has more than doubled, to twenty-four
kilograms. The share of Chinese grain fed to livestock rose from 7
percent in 1960 to 20 percent in 1990.

Beginning over 300 years ago, the Western Colonialist powers
established the plantation system in their subject lands. The
plantation's sole purpose was to produce wealth for the colonizers -
tobacco, rubber, cotton, tea, coffee, cocoa, etc. - all of which had
little or no nutritional value. The name subsequently giver to them,
"cash crops," is quite appropriate.

Cash Crops became established in world trade, so that even after their
emancipation from formal colonial control, Third World countries were
"economically hooked" on these crops as their only means of survival.
Coffee, for example, the second most valuable commodity in world
trade, is the economic lifeblood of fourteen developing countries.
Coffee symbolizes millions of acres of agricultural land in a hungry
world.

In Central America, where over 70% of the children are hungry, 50% of
the land is used for "cash crops" (such as lilies). While
multinational corporations use the best land to grow their cash crops
(coffee, tea, tobacco, exotic foods), the natives are forced to use
slopes and eroded land on which it is difficult to grow food.

Since 1960, the rumble of landless people in Central America has
multiplied fourfold. American aid goes to prop up Latin America's
livestock industry. According to economist Bruce Rich: "No other
single commodity in developing countries has ever received such
extraordinary outside support."

Nor does this support benefit the impoverished. Over half Of Latin
America's beef production is exported, and the rest is too expensive
for any but the wealthy to purchase. From 1960 to 1980 beef exports
from El Salvador increases over sixfold.

Meanwhile, increasing numbers of small farmers lost their livelihood
and were pushed off their land. Today, 72 percent of all Salvadoran
infants are underfed.

In Brazil, major portions of the Amazon tropical rain forests have
been destroyed so that wealthy multinational corporations can produce
beef for the wealthy. Corporations such as Volkswagen, Nestle,
Mitsubishi, Liquigas, King Ranch, and Swift-Eckrich have bulldozed and
burned literally hundreds of millions of acres, replacing the world's
oldest and richest ecosystems, home to two million or more species of
plant and animal life with a single crop - pasture grass for cattle.
And here, the beef produced has not gone to feed hungry Brazilians; it
has been primarily exported to Western Europe, the Middle East, and
North America. In 1987, the United States imported three hundred
million pounds of meat from countries in Central and South America.

With the help of international lending institutions, Brazil has
mounted an enormous effort to increase agricultural production, but
this has been primarily meat-oriented production and for export.
Twenty-five years ago, soybeans were almost nonexistent or Brazil.
Today, this crop is the nation's number one export - but almost all of
it goes to feed Japanese and European livestock. Twenty five years
ago, one third of the Brazilian population suffered from malnutrition.
Today, the figure has risen to two thirds.

Oxfam, the international charity, reports that in Brazil huge cattle
ranches take up some of the most fertile soil in the whole country,
yet 60 percent of Brazilians are malnourished. Oxfam estimates that in
Mexico, 80 percent of the children in rural areas are undernourished,
yet the livestock are fed more grain than the human population eats!
The livestock are exported of course, to satisfy the developed
nations' craving for cheap hamburgers.

Only thirty years ago, sorghum was almost unknown in Mexico. But by
1980, it covered literally twice the acreage of wheat. Sorghum isn't
grown for humans. It is fed to livestock. Twenty-five years ago,
livestock consumed only 6 percent of Mexico's grain. Today, the figure
is over 50 percent. This is a trend throughout the Third World.
Copying the United States' meat-oriented diet, these poor countries
devote increasing percentages of their resources to meat production.

In Mexico, land that was once used for growing corn for Mexicans is
now used for the production of fancy vegetables for U.S. citizens; the
profit is 20 times greater. Hundreds of thousands of former farmers
have found themselves landless. Unable to compete with the large
landowners, they first lease their land to make at least some money
from it; the next step is to work for the big firms; finally, they
find themselves migrant workers, roaming in search of work so their
families can survive. Such conditions have led to repeated waves of
rebellion.

Throughout Latin America, land availability is a prominent social
issue. Revolutionaries as well as reform-minded moderates have made
land reform a major issue. Yet in many Latin American countries,
forests are being leveled in order to create pastures for cattle
grazing land. In a region where land availability is a central social
issue, existing land is being gobbled up by livestock agriculture.
The resulting social tensions have resulted in civil wars, repression
and violence.

In 1975, Columbia's best soil was used to produce 18 million dollars
of flowers. Carnations brought 80 times greater profit than did the
former crop, wheat. Our food security is not being threatened by the
prolific, hungry masses, but by elites that profit by the
concentration and internationalization of control of food resources.
In Guatemala, 75 percent of the children under five years of age are
undernourished. Yet, every year Guatemala exports 40 million pounds
of meat to the United States. It borders on the criminal!

courtesy of http://www.all-creatures.org/article...i-polveg8.html

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"The American fast food diet and the meat eating habits of the wealthy
around the world support a world food system that diverts food
resources from the hungry. A diet higher in whole grains and legumes
and lower in beef and other meat is not just healthier for ourselves
but also contributes to changing the world system that feeds some
people and leaves others hungry." -- Dr Walden Bello

courtesy of http://www.geocities.com/passtheveggies

They'd just **** more and have more babies.

Don