Nod Glodnig wrote: “Not even
There is enough food on this planet to feed everyone. The problem is distribution – and starvation occurs usually in war-torn or corrupt countries that prevent this – plus no infrastructure like roads, petrol stations and transport to get it there.
This is true but this itself is part of a larger problem that is capitalism and the priorities it pursues which often promote corruption and sometimes war
Dumping food on world markets can sometimes simply have the effect of transferring the problem elsewhere. If I remember correctly, India’s decision to reverse its policy on food exports a number of years ago had adverse consequences for a number of other food exporting countries whose farmers suffered as a result. As it happens much of the food surpluses at the time succumbed to spoilage because of inadequate warehousing facilities due to poor funding. It is also well known that well intended charitable efforts at delivering food to people who desparately need it such as in times of drought can undermines efforts to to revive farming locally. Such is the perversity of the market system
Apart from that, there is the literal dumping (meaning destruction) of food. – not just at the retail end of the supply chain as when supermarkets dump stuff in skips etc but at the production end as well. Locally , here in Spain Ive seen tons of cherry tomatoes rotting in the barrancos around the grotesquely ugly greenhouse belt along the coast between Adra and Almeria (the only other man-made structure you can see from outer space – apart from the Great Wall of China, apparently). These greenhouses proliferating like a cancer are a particularly vivid illustration of the utter irrationality of market capitalism and the ecological disasters it brings in its train. Many of the greenhouses now stand empty. Ilegal wells having drained the acquifer have enabled an inrush of sea water to fill the vacumm leading to salinisation of the water supply.. The surrounding countryside has been affected too and as the vegetation suffers erosion sets in, compounding problems
There is of course also the deliberate withdrawal of agricultural land prompted by apparent overproduction in the form of food surpluses. Millions of hectares of land have been affected by this within the EU alone.
Good . So you are not quite of the Im-alright-Jack-And-Stuff-The Rest-Of-You persuasion that came across strongly in your original post. Glad to hear of it!