In the latest edition of the Futurist in an article entitled "The Disappearance of Food: The Next Global Wild Card?" no less than John Rockefeller writes:
Driving costs down and profits up is well and good, but not when we fail to attend to the safety or sustainability of local supplies. We need to consider the consequences of an interruption in the global food supply chain. Since our sources of food are primarily a shrinking number of centralized and distant corporations, rather than numerous and widely distributed suppliers, our food-supply system is inherently fragile. A single failure would engender a large market interruption. Add political and financial uncertainty into this mix, and the risk increases exponentially...
A single failure in our food production and distribution chains could eliminate a large percentage of our available foods, while driving costs up on the remaining food source options. In this situation, the attraction of reduced consumers’ costs in the short run has set up as much of a risk as did subprime mortgages. Unlike losing a home, however, where we have alternative supplies locally (renting a temporary apartment, staying with friends or family), losing a singular, centralized food supply with no alternative sources available locally would mean widespread hunger and hardship. Therefore, I see an urgent need to bolster local food sources.
As we learned from the economic collapse of 2008, risk management was a game being played with a stacked deck by profit-seeking entities, without regard to economic realities. To avoid a similar outcome in the food sector, we need full and accurate information on the consolidation, vertical integration, and contingency plans for producing and distributing food to consumers in the event of a disruption. This is a global imperative.
The question that must be asked when entrusting survival to a small group of profit-based mechanisms is, What happens if profit disappears? Are there structures and fail-safes in place that will provide safety in times of crisis? What are the contingency plans for supplying food in the event of economic and political crises?
A well documented but largely unknown fact is that the world's food supply is now almost completely controlled by five multi-national corporations. This is placing an inordianate amount of power in the hands of a few. As Henry Kissinger said, "Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people" (from the 1974 National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests).
The crazy thing about this is that aside from creating large profits for a few it is not clear what good any of this mass-produced and largely genetically modified food is doing. Its main selling points were increased yields at a lower price with no adverse health consequences. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists:
Agricultural biotechnology is basically an industry that develops products, often expensive products, priced to cover the costs of research and development. In general, new products are of minor importance to sustainable agriculture. Moreover, such products may pose risks, some unique, to human health and the environment.
This is accurate and an understatement. For an excellent and well-documented book on this see William F. Engdahl's Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Adjenda of Genetic Manipulation.
As a side note, shouldn't soverign nations get to decide if they'd like to roll the dice on this issue? Monsanto doesn't think so.
