By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network<\/p>\n\n\n\n
NEW YORK, 7 March 2023 (IDN) \u2014 Once on the decline, global hunger has reversed course over the last ten years, as multinational food companies increasingly replace domestic production and leave populations \u201cfood insecure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to a recent Greenpeace International report, food imports from factory farms have jumped 650 per cent in Kenya alone, making huge profits for a handful of corporations and generous dividends for their shareholders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Twenty agribusiness corporations \u2014the largest in grain, meat and dairy\u2014gave as much or more in dividends to their shareholders than could have fed the entire world\u2019s most vulnerable people in a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis reflects how, with the support of many African governments, the global food system forces imports on Africans when they could be producing and profiting from a higher proportion of their own food,\u201d Greenpeace found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to the UN, multinational food corporations gave $53.5 billion to their shareholders in 2020 and 2021\u2014or more than enough to fund the basic needs of the world\u2019s most vulnerable people in that year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Four companies in the U.S. and Europe\u2014Archer-Daniels-Midland, Cargill, Bunge and Dreyfus\u2014control 70 to 90 per cent of the world\u2019s grain trade but are not obligated to disclose what they know about global markets, including their own grain stocks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This allows companies to withhold information that would help to stabilize prices were it published with full transparency, Greenpeace alleged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is the new colonialism,\u201d declared the group\u2019s Communication and Story Manager, Hellen Dena.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAfrica\u2019s governments have allowed the ultra-rich of the US and Europe to retain too much power over Africans and our food system,\u201d explained Dena \u201cIt\u2019s because of them that war and plague lead to famine\u2014and to the rich getting richer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ghana, for another example, imports rice, wheat, soybean meal, and poultry. Even bananas are imported from the US. Nigeria relies on $10 billion of imports to meet its food and agricultural production shortfalls (mostly wheat, rice, poultry, fish, food services, and consumer-oriented foods). In 2021, food inflation rose to 22.95%, with wide-ranging price increases across items such as cereals, yam, meat, fish, and fruits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Europe, Asia, the United States, South America, and South Africa are major sources of agricultural imports from commercial food exporters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBut it doesn\u2019t have to be this way,\u201d continued Dena. \u201cAfricans are rising up to demand change. Smallholder farmers have filed a case in court over a punitive seed law that criminalizes farmers for selling and sharing seeds\u2026 Limiting farmers from sharing and selling seeds will reduce diverse seed access, thus further aggravating food insecurity and over-dependence on imports in the country,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cKenya\u2019s government must promote sustainable farming methods such as ecological farming that are resilient to climate shocks and help producers and consumers control the food chain. Ecological farming will ensure that Kenyans have better access to food; it will protect jobs, reduce the emissions that cause extreme weather and protect the biodiversity we depend on,\u201d Dena concluded. [InDepthNews]<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Image: Burkina Faso, rice-factory workers. Credit: IISD<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK, 7 March 2023 (IDN) \u2014 Once on the decline, global hunger has reversed course over the last ten years, as multinational food companies increasingly replace domestic production and leave populations \u201cfood insecure.\u201d According to a recent Greenpeace International report, food imports from factory farms have jumped 650 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5552,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,18,5,16,32,3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5551","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-africa","8":"category-injustice-corruption","9":"category-goal2","10":"category-news","11":"category-regions","12":"category-sdgs-2"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5551"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5553,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5551\/revisions\/5553"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}