Global Food Crisis as the Consequence of Capitalism

Food prices escalated considerably just from the beginning of 2007 thereby creating a social unrest and a universal food crisis in both developed and developing countries. The increase in the prices of food was indeed greater than the rate of inflation and larger than the working class income increases. Since the onset of global food crisis, the problem has caused and even still affects millions of people worldwide in the form of malnutrition and hunger. The swift escalation on the increase of food prices caused over hundreds of millions of people to experience hunger. It is well known that malnutrition and hunger are serious forms of human rights violations since people cannot produce or buy adequate food for themselves and families. The universal food crisis is considered as one of the vilest of disparities in the socio-economic context.

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Accordingly, the main reason attributed to the cause of global food crisis in capitalism. The escalated food prices is not only caused by the shortage of lowered crops yield, but presently the food model is structured in a way that do not meet the world food requirements. On the contrary, food prices are designed to the fiscal, business needs of the food hulks as well as businesses in the world. In the contemporary society, capitalism is grounded in food markets, and regards food as a commodity instead of nutritive needs of the people. According to Patnaik (2003), agribusiness as well as the production of food worldwide has been designed to maximize or increase the profit margin. The people who own huge industries normally view the act of providing food to the hungry as a non-profit activity. In fact, rich people normally have no interest to provide money to assist others unless there are precise reasons of doing so. Another significant matter is the universal challenge of taking the land that the poor people depends and feed on, then rich people convert such lands into cultivation of crops that are just exported to some other rich individuals in different parts of the world. The world is surely possible to encounter a considerable growth in the large-scale agricultural business production beyond the fundamental of customary systems due to the companies control.

Presently, the phrase, food crisis has been socially constructed in line with increased food prices and the decrease in the income due to imperceptible market forces. This can be fundamentally linked to the capitalism factors as the major force for the increased food prices. Another mainstream about the cause of increased global food prices is the insufficient supply of food and this has resulted in increased rates of malnutrition and hunger. This research asserts that the major cause of the global food crisis is the aspect of capitalism of agribusiness being controlled by a few transnational corporations. The research refutes the predominant perspective of the universal food crises and asserts that is been brought as a result of changes in the political policies and the national economic.

Literature review

Initially, the idea of capitalism brought many benefits for the ordinary man such as many job opportunities, increased wages, more varieties and variations for consumers. The flourishing of the fast meals as well as ready to eat foods turned to be so attractive to the ordinary man while offering huge monetary profit to the capitalist. In fact, even more recently, with the many awareness campaigns that touch on obesity and unhealthy feeding habits that are related to fast-junk meals and carbonated drinks, these kinds of food are still consumed by many people. On the other hand, capitalism has brought a huge mess to our society; the universal food crisis. The problem has left many people across the world in some developed and developing nations to struggle in curbing this problem brought capitalism. Several pieces of literature have addressed the matter as well as offer an insightful analysis on how capitalism has been the key factor that contributes to food crisis.

In the view of Rangan (2007), several agribusiness companies have showed huge interest in minimizing or even reducing the much available competition that often originates from other food producers such as farmers found in developing nations who have weak economy and political influence. These kinds of agribusiness companies have the capacity to influence procedures and laws that do favor them at the expense of the ordinary farmers that work very hard to produce food for own family use. Another universal challenge comes in the form of food industrialization production. Consequently, this has led to the emerging of novel skewed trends of the commodity consumption. Some of the foods that are manmade may be detrimental to the consumers as well as have a low nutritional value and can have impacts on the health of consumers in both rich and poor nations.

The author Bello Walden unfolds certain other factors to illustrate the scenario. The present hype of universal food crisis is more of synthetic than caused by environmental or climatic changes. To further substantiate his position, he offers same scenario in Philippines to give a clear picture of what is happening. He states that Philippines joined WTO in 1995 and this membership needed the nation to scrap the quota on the agronomic products, permitting the foreign traders of similar agricultural produce to enter the market. The subsequent conditions were slightly same to that when Mexico and rice farming country-Philippines were bound to buy rice form the foreign traders. Huge amounts of import kept on escalating from 1995 at 263, 000 metric tons to 2.2 million by 1998 as the domestic production kept on reducing with discouraged farmers as their local rice production was suppressed by two suppliers of the nation.

Further, Bello (2009) provides a vibrant rationale on how capitalism has impacted the global food shortage. The capacity to grow and produce sufficient nutritious food is the basic need in humanity universally, though more than 50 years ago; western nations such as the U.S have imperatively shifted the methods of food growing and production to be used by humans. By the use of the mechanism of vicious food implement procedure and growth of dependent on oil as well as industrialization, the food production approach stays to rise persistently in the period of lowering the accessibility of clean water.

In the views of Williams-Forson&Counihan (2011), the food production structure has been a threat to the human health, the worldwide food security as well as detrimental to the environment at large. Autonomous research organizations as well as scientists have for several years raised the red flag concerning the worldwide food predicament and the capitalism factor. Though the political and social status of eating, what is commonly supported by the food policy specialists and researchers is the holding accountability and identification for the real cause of the food structure which has been wrecked by the open market capitalism. Nonetheless, it is established that corporations have total ownership of numerous supply channels right from the seed up to the marketplace. It appears that all aspect of food production as well as industrialization stages is manipulated, managed, and owned by the top corporate conglomerates with huge amounts of dollars under their name. In fact, Akram-Lodhi (2013) states that some get huge profits that are more than the GDP of some developing nations. Certainly, capitalism is the main reason behind the cause of global food crisis. In the view of Kukathas (2009), the global food network is in total crisis. He asserts that the world has the capacity to generate food that can feed all the existing population, yet you find that every year, a vast number of people go hungry just because food production is controlled by individuals. Just as mentioned earlier, the beginning of 2007 market the period when food prices relentlessly went high leading to different countries to engage in protests. While the world is experiencing huge food crisis, the domestic food producers remain very frustrated by the steps that are taken by the capitalists to dominate the food industry and suppress the local producers.

Discussions

The section addresses various questions that shall help expound more on the problem. The major problem is the global food crisis. The problem is linked with capitalism as the major causes. Capitalists have always been out to monopolize control of the global agriculture. The problem has been expounded in a more clear way. First, from the common concept, food is an essential human need and we cannot do without it. With the concept of capitalism, the free market has facilitated the establishment of various multinational as well as huge businesses that solely focus on food production. The companies are owned by the rich capitalists that that virtually sells food at high prices to the common people and this still continue because the local farmers have had their efforts suppressed by the agribusiness moguls. This has continued to cause global food crisis and the common people and the poorer suffer a lot. In my view regarding the problem, I feel there should be total overhaul in the free market polices in the developing countries where capitalists have more powers to control the process of food production and then selling at high prices.

The food crisis situation just as mentioned earlier has gone global from the developing economies to the developed economies. From 2007, the prices of food have significantly been on the high end and the common people have little efforts to get food that can sustain them. Precisely, the problem is local and global and needs change of systems to make people not go hunger due to constantly shooting food prices. It would be descent if the world comes together to address this serious situation.

The problem of global food crisis, has affected predominantly the poor people in the society. Those who have little income to afford the increased prices that have been placed on food by the capitalists. The poorer are affected in a way that they normally go hungry and are normally experiencing malnutrition among them. Eating nutritionally less foods is very detrimental to the well-being of an individual since this can hamper the growth and development especially children. Food is an essential human want.

Capitalism has a role in constructing and maintaining the problem. First, the perception of capitalism is very effective when used in a more useful way than is it currently practiced. Capitalism merely encompasses political and economic system where the country's industry and trade are regulated by private owners for profit. These people have more resources to produce food and sell it at a cheap price had it not for their self-centered needs that make them to increase food prices. Capitalism however, has just contributed to the problem by making foods that are unaffordable to the ordinary people. They have totally taken the systems of food production and the local farmers have their efforts thwarted by such people.

On the other hand, the state has some roles in creating the problem. The state has allowed the private owners to control the process of food production and as a result, there have been significant increases in food prices. The policies that exist in such states tend make the private owners of food production system to flourish so much and that they have all the powers to suppress the local food production in their favor.

International Financial Institutions (IFIs) such as World Bank and International Monetary Fund has some roles that they can contribute in addressing the problem at hand. First, the recent universal food crunch can be observed as the wake-up call to the financial institutions n...