Dismantle Civilisation

In Haiti people are eating ‘cookies’ made from mud, vegetable fat and salt, baked in the sun. Many simply cant afford food, and even mud cookies have now increased in price so many cant even afford them - while speculators and investors grow rich from the present world food ‘crisis’. This article from Counterpunch by maurice Dufour looks at the ‘recipe’ that is forcing people to eat dirt.

Start by pouring dollops of any cheap American grain–say, rice– into any poor country’s market–say, Haiti. The imported rice should be heavily seasoned with subsidies from the US government. While pocketing millions in subsidies, be sure to sing the praises of “free” trade, peppering your verses with denunciations of government interference in markets. If the importing country resists, turn up the heat, withholding crucial loans until its leader agrees to cut tariffs on American rice imports. At the same time, force him to eliminate both domestic support programs for farmers and subsidies that are making food affordable to the poor. The flood of cheap imports will effectively destroy domestic rice production, push local farmers deeper into poverty, and make the entire population dependent on food imports. Reassure Haitian farmers with the old saying that expresses the great virtue of open markets: “A rising tide lifts all goats.”

To ensure Haitians get a balanced diet, you can add some “greens” in the form of grain-based ethanol. The biofuel should also be generously seasoned with subsidies from the US government (this could also be followed by condemnations of the market distortions caused by government interference). Ramping up ethanol production will drive up global food prices even more. Fortunately, the mud cookie industry has been well established by now.

Sit back and watch as the Haitians simmer with rage. Don’t let the crisis boil over, though. If food riots erupt, toss in some troops with orders to crack open a few heads. After all, you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs. To prevent the American public from getting squeamish at the sight of blood-filled streets in Haiti, get CNN to focus its attention on the Dalai Lama. Before long, a collective feeling of detachment will set in, and images of a corpulent Buddha will draw public attention away from the skeletons walking the streets of Cité Soleil. Eventually, the crisis on the Caribbean island will move to the back burner all by itself. Mud cookies will continue to sell like hotcakes.

You can remove your apron now, but only after blaming out-of-control “Asian demand,” another way of saying the Chinese should not be eating as many hamburgers as Americans. Then claim that bad weather and bad harvests have left the global food pantry practically empty. Pay no attention to the fact that over two-thirds of the US corn crop, which was the biggest ever last year, is used for animal feed and ethanol production. Ignore the $40 billion in pet food consumed every year in the US alone. Also ignore the fact that Canadian hog farmers have recently been given $50 million by the federal government to kill 150,000 pigs to reduce the supply in order to raise the price of pork. Trust us…there’s a real food shortage out there.

Remove the mix from the back burner. Invite chefs from Wall Street to whip up their favorite dishes: an alphabet soup of financial instruments (with an original turkey stock base), followed by a soufflé, leavened with the nostrums of laissez faire. The soufflé will expand enormously after government regulators shut the oven door and fall asleep. The soufflé will eventually deflate, once it’s revealed that the pastry pros in pinstripes have adulterated their gastronomic creation with SPAM (Securities Packaged with Assets like worthless Mortgages).

Having gorged themselves on several entrées (inspired in part by the Ivan Boesky Culinary Institute), these “free” market manipulators will then line up in front of Chez La Banque Centrale, hoping to sample its delicious (wel)fare. There are often specials at this restaurant, like free lunches in the form of bailouts. The bailouts are in American dough, however, which does not relieve their hunger pangs, since the nutritive value of the dough has been declining as the soufflé has been deflating. Losing their appetite for the dough, the chefs will ask their chauffeurs to drive them to the commodities futures exchange, where they can feast on grain futures at the all-you-can-hedge banquet in the food court. Their voracious appetites will push up grain prices even more, forcing Haitian bakeries to add extra shifts to meet the demand for their cookies. This is market efficiency working its magic. To absolve speculators of any responsibility for escalating food costs, invoke “Asian demand” anew.

You can now hand over all responsibility for global food production to the head chef–US agribusiness. Already bloated from subsidies, this chef will take advantage of government-granted monopolies — patent-protected GM crops — to further consolidate his control over global food production. While delivering encomiums to unfettered markets, the head chef will assure the starving masses that he can feed the world. Pay no attention to the epidemic of farmer suicides in India; they have nothing to do with the debt-inducing purchases of fertilizers and pesticides that need to be purchased along with the costly patent-protected GM seeds. Remind yourself that the subcontinent could become a huge market for Haiti’s cookies. If the price of the mud cookies themselves begins to soar, you can blame “Asian demand” once again.

Hm, asian demand not US corporate greed?

And what about you? How much food can you grow around your house?

Peak Moment TV.

Very simple version. After each use of the toilet, a handful of straw, ashes, or other compostable material should be dropped in to cover the ‘doings’. When full the bucket should be emptied onto your compost heap, and again covered with other material (kitchen waste, weeds, grass, straw etc). This keeps down smells and flies. Well managed there should be little problem with these - and once well composted you will have turned your ‘waste’ into good soil in which to grow your vegetables.

The current 1.1 billion people worldwide without access to potable water only opens one of the smaller windows on the injustices and the multiple casualties being wrought by private water-related industries. In fact, many are clueless to the magnitude of the victims — present and projected — of the growing water crisis as well as to the inhumane implications of the role of the private sector in regards to treating water as a commodity that can be owned and sold for profit. As of now, 2.6 billion people are at high risk for not having access to potable and an additional 1.8 million children die each year from water-related diseases.In the mix of chaos, despair, and confusion, which most affects the poorer elements of society, it is important to note the private corporations’ role, which some critics have identified as being among the major culprits in causing the crisis. Within recent decades, water privatization firms such as Suez, Vivendi, and RWE have bought control of a number of communities’ municipal water services, and then drastically increased the price of water; with some of them failing to effectively purify the water resources they had come to monopolize.

This article by Ashley Powdar highlights the role that privatisation and corporate ownership is playing in a global catastrophe.

The World Bank and IMF are among the principle factors behind the implementation of water privatization. The commodification of water began in earnest in the 1990’s in various developing regions of the world in an effort to address a number of water-related issues varying from its scarcity to a woeful mismanagement of the resource. To begin, the World Bank and IMF, along with multinational enterprises, argued that by placing a value on water, the general public was less likely to abuse, waste, and indiscriminately consume large amounts of the increasingly scant product. It has been found by a vast array of non-profit organizations that the average European uses 200 liters of water every day whereas North Americans use 400 liters of water a day. This can be compared to the average person in the developing world who uses 10 liters of water every day for drinking, washing, and cooking purposes. Independent environmental journalist Carmelo Ruiz Marrero explains the role played by pro-privatization international lending agencies by stating that “water is wasted because people get it for free or for artificially low prices. Therefore, if its price reflected its true ecological and economic cost, people would avoid its abuse and overuse.”

Yeh, right! In the UK the greatest waste of water is due to outdated and leaking infrastructure, with water companies unwilling to invest in improvements. Its ridiculous to say that people waste water because it is free, when the figures show differently. ‘Rich’ countries waste far more water, and even use drinking quality water to flush away their waste. UK statistics show that households only use 20% of water used. 300 million gallons a day are used to produce newspapers in the USA.  40,000 gallons to make a car. 400 gallons to grow a chicken. 150 gallons to grow the ingredients to make a loaf of bread! 120 gallons for one egg and 4 gallons for a tomato! (Water Trivia Facts). Obviously the more resources a society consumes, and the more industrial that society, the more water is used. Peasant farmers know how to conserve their water supplies because they have to - while civilised people simply turn on a tap, with no awareness of how precious that water really is.

The next time a consumer purchases a bottle of water, think of its true cost. There are several patterns of water privatization, but none are as offensive as the bottling of water. In fact, most people are unaware of the veritable scandals existing behind the bottled water industry. Characteristically, these multinational water companies go into less industrialized countries, where they monopolize water reservoirs (most often, these public reservoirs are the only available water resources that a given community might have), and sell the water back to the community at a price that invariably is far too expensive for its residents to pay. Water commodification is a global movement. In Africa, where privatization and lack of access to water is most prevalent, over half of the population earns less than one dollar a day; one can imagine the burden of trying to afford a bottle of water that is often priced a little higher than a dollar. Furthermore, women and female children are most affected, as they are forced to travel an average of five miles a day to fetch available water — often times this water is not even potable. The time-consuming task of searching for water impedes women from obtaining jobs to help feed their families and hinders female children from attending school on a regular basis. It is stated that 40 billion working hours are spent carrying water each year and 26 percent of women’s time around the world is spent on physically obtaining the water. In addition, it is estimated that 443 million school days are lost each year due to water privatization and the consequences it has on individual lives.

Not that we are going to promote centralised schooling. Education and schooling are not necessarily the same thing - as shown by the dumbing down of America, and the huge home-schooling movement there. (Thats a subject for a future post). But people should not be forced into spending their time walking miles to find water, while local sources are owned and controlled by companies bottling it for sale to western consumers.

Once the attendant injustices of water privatization became evident to the international community, activists, environmentalists, and average citizens alike have been arguing for a greater local presence in the decision-making process affecting water use. Also, advocates have been urging the World Bank, IMF, WTO, as well as national governments to discard their privatization scenarios, as, due to their high cost, they more often than not cause dissension among communities. There are alternatives. Advocates for democratizing water, Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke, assert that there are three essentials the public must control in order to secure their water from any conglomerate monopolization. First, they stress the need for conservation. The population is predicted to exponentially increase while the ecosystem’s water supply is likely to decrease by at least 30 percent. Therefore, preservation is a vital measure to take in order to safeguard this precious resource. Second, they emphasize the importance of equity in regards to water allocation.

Although some nations are blessed with abundant access to fresh water, others are burdened with an egregious lack of this fundamental source of life. Third, in order to institutionalize conservation and equity, water democracy must be obtained at all costs. Water management, its proponents maintain, should be in the hands of the people, not under control of corporations whose principle desire is to generate revenue. It is also notable that accountability, transparency, and consensus are vital in the management of water. Water is for life, not for profit. If the commodification of water continues — thus possibly undermining the basic right to life, it is not absurd to conclude that other vital resources might only become available on a for-pay basis. The coming water crisis must be dealt within a transparent, democratic process or else the globe will fall victim to a series of potentially violent and life threatening consequences. Barlow and Clark state that “In the 21st century, our water is becoming a commodity. Some want to profit from it and others are ready to go to war over it, but every form of life must have it.” The overarching question will be, “who will control this source of life?”

It is indeed absurd to give control of water sources to for-profit companies.

Michel Chossudovsky points out in this article that the present food ‘crisis’ is the result of economic restructuring and investor speculation, exacerbating problems created by climate change, poverty and 
other factors causing reduced supplies.

The media has casually misled public opinion on the causes of these price hikes, focusing almost exclusively on issues of costs of production, climate and other factors which result in reduced supply and which might contribute to boosting the price of food staples. While these factors may come into play, they are of limited relevance in explaining the impressive and dramatic surge in commodity prices.

Spiraling food prices are in large part the result of market manipulation. They are largely attributable to speculative trade on the commodity markets. Grain prices are boosted artificially by large scale speculative operations on the New York and Chicago mercantile exchanges. It is worth noting that in 2007, the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), merged with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), forming the largest Worldwide entity dealing in commodity trade including a wide range of speculative instruments (options, options on futures, index funds, etc).

Speculative trade in wheat, rice or corn, can occur without the occurrence of real commodity transactions. The institutions speculating in the grain market are not necessarily involved in the actual selling or delivery of grain.

The transactions may use commodity index funds which are bets on the general upward or downward movement of commodity prices. A “put option” is a bet that the price will go down, a “call option” is a bet that the price will go up. Through concerted manipulation, institutional traders and financial institutions make the price go up and then place their bets on an upward movement in the price of a particular commodity.

Speculation generates market volatility. In turn, the resulting instability encourages further speculative activity.

Profits are made when the price goes up. Conversely, if the speculator is short-selling the market, money will be made when the price collapses.

This recent speculative surge in food prices has been conducive to a Worldwide process of famine formation on an unprecedented scale.

The richest 200 people have about as much money as 40% of the worlds population. The rich have manipulated the markets, regulations and the food system, to push more people into dependency on the economic system.

Since the 1980s, grain markets have been deregulated under the supervision of the World Bank and US/EU grain surpluses are used systematically to destroy the peasantry and destabilize national food agriculture. In this regard, World Bank lending requires the lifting of trade barriers on imported agricultural staples, leading to the dumping of US/EU grain surpluses onto local market. These and other measures have spearheaded local agricultural producers into bankruptcy.

A “free market” in grain –imposed by the IMF and the World Bank– destroys the peasant economy and undermines “food security”. Malawi and Zimbabwe were once prosperous grain surplus countries, Rwanda was virtually self-sufficient in food until 1990 when the IMF ordered the dumping of EU and US grain surpluses on the domestic market precipitating small farmers into bankruptcy. In 1991-92, famine had hit Kenya, East Africa’s most successful bread-basket economy. The Nairobi government had been previously placed on a black list for not having obeyed IMF prescriptions. The deregulation of the grain market had been demanded as one of the conditions for the rescheduling of Nairobi’s external debt with the Paris Club of official creditors. (Michel Chossudovsky, The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order, Second Edition, Montreal 2003)

Throughout Africa, as well as in Southeast Asia and Latin America, the pattern of “sectoral adjustment” in agriculture under the custody of the Bretton Woods institutions has been unequivocally towards the destruction of food security. Dependency vis-à-vis the world market has been reinforced leading to a boost in commercial grain imports as well as an increase in the influx of “food aid”.

Agricultural producers were encouraged to abandon food farming and switch into “high value” export crops. often to the detriment of food self-sufficiency. The high value products as well as the cash crops for export were supported by World Bank loans.

Famines in the age of globalization are the result of policy. Famine is not the consequence of a scarcity of food but in fact quite the opposite: global food surpluses are used to destabilize agricultural production in developing countries.

We’ve all been fed the lie of ‘the american dream’, forced to sell our time/labour for cash, to be part of the system that centralises power and control into the hands of a few.

Coinciding with the establishment the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995, another important historical change has occurred in the structure of global agriculture.

Under the articles of agreement of the World Trade Organization (WTO)), the food giants will have unrestricted freedom to enter the seeds markets of developing countries. The acquisition of exclusive “intellectual property rights” over plant varieties by international agro-industrial interests, also favors the destruction of bio-diversity.

Acting on behalf of a handful of biotech conglomerates, GMO seeds have been imposed on farmers, often in the context of “food aid programs”. In Ethiopia, for instance, kits of GMO seeds were handed out to impoverished farmers with a view to rehabilitating agricultural production in the wake of a major drought . The GMO seeds were planted, yielding a harvest. But then the farmer came to realize that the GMO seeds could not be replanted without paying royalties to Monsanto, Arch Daniel Midland et al. Then, the farmers discovered that the seeds would harvest only if they used the farm inputs including the fertilizer, insecticide and herbicide, produced and distributed by the biotech agribusiness companies. Entire peasant economies were locked into the grip of the agribusiness conglomerates.

With the widespread adoption of GMO seeds, a major transition has occurred in the structure and history of settled agriculture since its inception 10,000 years ago.

The reproduction of seeds at the village level in local nurseries has been disrupted by the use of genetically modified seeds. The agricultural cycle, which enables farmers to store their organic seeds and plant them to reap the next harvest has been broken. This destructive pattern – invariably resulting in famine – is replicated in country after country leading to the Worldwide demise of the peasant economy.

The creation of terminator genes and breeding of food plants that cannot be replanted is a truly evil act. Allowing these companies to dominate our food supply, concentrating on a handful of varieties on a global scale is planetary suicide. Diversity is a life saver when crops fail, as is the ability to save seed from this years crop to plant next year.

Michel Chossudovsky is the author of ‘The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order’ available from Global Research.

In this new and expanded edition of Chossudovsky’s international best-seller, the author outlines the contours of a New World Order which feeds on human poverty and the destruction of the environment, generates social apartheid, encourages racism and ethnic strife and undermines the rights of women. The result as his detailed examples from all parts of the world show so convincingly, is a globalization of poverty.

This book is a skilful combination of lucid explanation and cogently argued critique of the fundamental directions in which our world is moving financially and economically.

In this new enlarged edition –which includes ten new chapters and a new introduction– the author reviews the causes and consequences of famine in Sub-Saharan Africa, the dramatic meltdown of financial markets, the demise of State social programs and the devastation resulting from corporate downsizing and trade liberalisation.

Another inspiring article about food and the wonders of hemp.

The latest “crisis” spreading throughout the world, the food crisis, may actually backfire on the giant capitalists reaping great profits from all they have sown without mercy for nearly a century. The US food crisis is in part being experienced because during the past 80 years, our government slowly formed partnerships with huge, profit-seeking corporations. Local food production was taken away from small family farmers who could not compete with big industry. The critical responsibility of providing food for the masses then fell into the profit-seeking hands of conglomerates that were heavily armed with chemicals, plastics, pesticides, fossil fuels, and topsoil-destroying machinery.

Like a microcosm of what would eventually occur throughout most of the world, people in the US became increasingly dependent upon the agricultural, chemical, and petroleum industries for the production and delivery of “food.” Diets that were once healthy became unnatural and based largely upon processed, powdered, light-weight, (easily shipped and stored) grains instead of locally grown, nutrient-dense, fresh organic vegetables and fruits. This dependency began in earnest around the 1930s, the years referred to by some as “the Dirty Thirties.” Those were years when corporate profits at all costs seemed to take precedence and business became more important than people.

Within this civilisation the needs of the few at the top of the heirarchy have always taken precedence over the well being of the masses, whose needs take precedence over ‘heathens’, nature and slaves.

The grain foods created by synthetic practices, are clearly not natural. After foods are processed with pesticides, chemicals, plastics and fossil fuels, they become, in part, synthetic, many with additives to hide or enhance taste or appearance and to “extend shelf life.” Throughout these years of dependency on “agro-giants,” the health of Americans has steadily declined until we have become the top consumers of pharmaceuticals on earth. We who live in this plastic, synthetic kingdom that was born in the 1930s are now a nation completely dependent not only upon synthetic foods, but are now seeking relief from our toxic symptoms via expensive, synthetic drugs.

With the food supply lying in the hands of a few corporations, manipulation and price gouging have apparently been made easy, but these tactics would have little impact on any of us if we began independently growing our food locally as it should be grown. According to the Washington Post, global food prices rose 83% during the last three years, partly due to the rising costs of fuel for shipping. We have paid the price in many ways, poisoning ourselves with synthetic chemicals, then waiting unknown days or weeks while products are shipped over the hemispheres, or stored indefinitely thus losing more nutrients with each passing moment. This food crisis could turn out to be a godsend for the world if the situation is addressed individually and quickly.

For those of us who have grown tired (sick and tired) of supporting the pseudo and synthetic food industry, there is a simple way out of this giant mess. Anyone who has access to a little dirt can reclaim the responsibility of growing at least a portion of our foods right in our own yards, and we can begin today and start out very simply.

If people reduce their reliance on the corporate food market they reduce their reliance on the monetary system and so those at the top make less profits from us and have less power over us.

The potato has more potassium than a banana, and comes in a delicious rainbow of different colors and types, offering a wide variety of nutrients from a natural, fresh, whole and very satisfying food. It now appears that the lowly spud, long ignored or completely dismissed as a joke or a mere starch bomb, is far superior in nutrients to the cheap powdered grains, chemicals, and plastics found in many industrialized breads, cereals, pastas and other processed foods that form the sad bulk of Americans’ diet at this time. In addition, while grain foods tend to create an extremely high acid pH residue in the human body, it appears that potatoes do not.

It generally makes sense if you are trying to grow your own food to look at altering your diet too. Root crops such as beetroots are fantastic health-giving and liver-cleansing foods. At least 50% of your diet should be raw, salad crops are very easy to grow, and many herbs and salad veg grows wild.

The importance of taking our food back and establishing organic gardening practices can perhaps best be observed by noting two other microcosms in our world that are right now showing us again extraordinary examples of cause and effect, as though another profound message is desperately being offered to us if we would only stop and notice. As though to make this message as clear as possible, these two opposing microcosms are a mere 50 miles from one another. They are Haiti, and Cuba.

Find out about both countries. They are examples of ‘how to’ and ‘how not to’. Cuba isnt perfect, but it is a great example of grassroots action to combat a difficult situation (similar to what we are all now or soon facing).

For those of us throughout the world who are tired of paying the price for, and helping fuel the synthetic kingdom, it is time for each of us to arm ourselves with potatoes and join together in a global revolution that will remove food production from the synthetic kingdom and return it locally to the green kingdom and to the people who are born with an inalienable right to have decent food. Think of Cuba. Pray for Haiti. Join the revolution.

Ok, its not specifically about bringing down civilisation, or even news about what our industrial society is doing to the planet. But, the more people who learn how to grow their own food, reducing their reliance on capitalism, the better. We plan to publish and create links to a wide variety of ‘how to’ information - with out own comments and thoughts.

There is no need to secure the corners, as Dave says. And no need to use that good quality, new timber. We simply use old timber, found on building sites, junk heaps etc and we hammer short lengths of wood into the ground front and back of the plank, to secure it in place. This way with varying lengths of old floor boards (stuff ‘normal’ people throw away) secured to the ground with ‘pegs’ you can create all kinds of interestingly shaped beds, around trees, paths and walkways. Far more interesting and natural than all those straight lines. Once the beds are built you never again dig or walk on them, just simply add more compost or mulch on top, around any perennials in place. Some vegetables can be seeded straight into the beds, while others are started in trays, and planted out in the beds later.
As Dave says you dont need much space to grow food for a family, but why not grow extra and sell, swap or barter with your neighbours? Go on, have a go - the rest of the world cant keep growing your food while you work for a meaningless job, or watch someone elses life on television. And there is no greater joy than eating a meal made up of things that you have watched grow in your garden!

Another great article by Sharon Astyk.

I have come to feel that the term “mess” does not adequately describe the complexity of our present food crisis. In fact, the whole thing reminds me of that old Calvin and Hobbes cartoon in which Calvin complains that scientists give things lame names, and that the “big bang” should be called “the great big space kablooey.” As I attempt to sort the present food situation into something that can be clearly articulated in our book, I find myself thinking that what we are experiencing might well be described as the “Great Big Food Kablooey.”

What do I mean? Well, for a fairly long time, the world food system (if we can speak of such a thing as a coherent mass) went along mostly doing much of what it was supposed to. It didn’t work super well - for example as Lappe et al document in _World Hunger: 12 Myths_ most of the claims that Green Revolution food increases reduced hunger were pretty much false - hunger increased even as food production increased in most nations, except China, which had huge reductions in hunger. But whether communism or Borlaug was the cause, the number of hungry got kinda smaller, as long as you only looked at it on a world scale, and as long as you felt that the better diets of chinese peasants somehow compensated for starving Guatemalans. And while the industrial food system shortened some lifespans and raised medical costs in parts of the rich world, still, lotsa people were eating - some too often.

That’s not to say that the system was optimal - for example, we’ve known for years that you could get the same yields with fewer inputs at lower cost using organic agriculture. Many studies suggested that even if yields fell slightly (and that wasn’t necessarily the case) poor people would be able to have more food in total because their profits wouldn’t be so badly eaten up by the cost of fertilizers and seeds. Certainly, agricultural dumping drove millions of farmers off their land and into cities, and shifted agricultural production in complex ways. It made poor use of land, since smaller farms are more productive and can be managed sustainably. It stripped resources that will be needed by future generations and essentially threw them away. It was a crappy, unjust, toxic system that sorta worked in the short - and thus, any solution that suggested that we didn’t have to have things be quite so crappy, unjust and toxic had to bear up under the shouts of protest by entrenched powers that nothing else could work, and this did.

But the system has more or less stopped working, rather, I think to the surprise of all of the people (me included) who thought it would eventually stop working. It wasn’t that we hadn’t been saying that all these problems would build up - but to have it happen quite so rapidly is something of a shock. And it brings home the message - food is complicated. Moreover, the driving forces of our present crisis are precisely the same structures that worked so well. In order to change our present model, we’re going to have to back up, pick a new course, and go over some heavy ground (rendered heavy by us) as lightly as possible. Is that feasible. Sure - I wouldn’t be writing a book about it if I didn’t think it was possible. But it is also the case that what is falling apart is rather larger than the food or energy system itself.

We are on a juggernaut of global industrial capitalism, heading onwards at full speed, gradually falling apart. Somehow we need to stop, reverse, and find a new route. Or we would argue, get off, start on foot while doing all we can to stop that juggernaut before it makes it impossible for life to live on this planet.

And it is worth noting that this destruction of small scale agriculture is not an accidental consequence of industrialization, it is intentional. That is, the concentration of wealth into smaller and smaller numbers of hands is the intended result of growth capitalism. We are told, endlessly, that if we just increase productivity and yields a bit more, eventually some of it will leak down to the poor, but, of course, the opposite has occurred - inequity has spiked, and many of the gains of the developing world have come at the cost of working class denizens of the Global North, as analysis after analysis suggests. That is, the industrial system *works* in part by displacing farmers into cities, and paving agricultural land, and by impoverishing farmers. It is not at all clear that a system in which they were enriched, or even just paid fairly, would work.

Centralised heirarchical civilisation by its very nature strip mines everything. There really arent rich or poor people. Just people, who are either successful in this system or not. And those who are ‘in power’ have no problems forcing those they regard as ‘lesser beings’ off the land into slavery and poverty. You play the system how you are told to, or suffer violence from those above you in the heirarchies. And even doing as you are told doesnt protect you from those ‘above’ you or those clambering over you to improve their lot. Civilisation rewards those who have the least morality, who are most inclined to do what it takes to acquire more, sell more, turn more forest into desert… and so on. We dont just need a change in the food system, we need a total change of worldview, politics, land distribution etc etc

Most radical changes in society occur when they *have* to - Cuba transformed its agriculture, not when its agronomists made a compelling case for organics, but when people were going hungry. Already, world hunger is driving both good and bad responses - one government already overthrown, the Egyptian army baking bread, nations concerned about food sovereignty. Articulating that we can no longer go on as we have been is not, I think a distraction, but of great utility in creating food sovereignties and economies that can feed the people.