Having a snack there? Or are you enjoying your breakfast, the most important meal of the day? Is it a processed food that came in neat plastic wrapping, or maybe something from the refrigerator and you’re heating it up in the microwave? You might be eating out? Perhaps, it’s something you cooked or baked in your own kitchen; did you buy the ingredients from your local Woolies or did you pick them out from your veggie patch in the back yard?
These shouldn’t be rhetorical questions, but I bet these questions are very rarely thought of as we make our way through the day, either filled with three meals or a series of trips raiding the pantry.
Food, the thing that provides us with sustenance and with life, has been commodified over the last century as the production of food became industrial, vertical, and corporatised in the pursuit of convenience and profit. As such, we know less than ever where our food comes from, how it was made, how much the growers and producers are earning, and whether it’s even healthy for us. The distance between the plate and the paddock has never been greater.
The politics of food, often neglected, has been critical in determining what sits on the shelves in our supermarkets, how much of it, and how much it costs. After the greatest development in the history of humanity, the agricultural evolution, there have been few vital junctures: the repeal of corn laws in the United Kingdom, a set of agricultural protectionist policies, triggered the opening of the British Empire to international free trade; a world war and the depression of the 1930s forced nations back into protectionism and led to food shortages and high food prices; the birth of the Bretton Woods System from the ashes of World War 2 embedded liberalism in the international system leading to the rise of industrialised agriculture and food distribution system that we see today.
Our current system has brought great benefits to us, especially if we live in a developed country like Australia, fruits and vegetables all year round, a dozen different brands and many types of one single food, and of course, relatively cheap food as well. But there was and still is a cost to our food lifestyle, often, if not always, at the expense of those most marginalised in our global community and the most disenfranchised by the globalised system of commerce.
Let’s start after World War 2 when the United States had an immense surplus of wheat in its domestic markets. This brought down the price of wheat, which is not in the interest of the farmer when they are looking at making a profit (and consequently, not in the interest of politicians when certain states can give you a seat in Congress or the White House itself). So in 1954, the US began their food aid program which enabled their wheat surplus to be ‘dumped’ in the form of food aid in former colonies. This had two benefits for the US, and also for others like Canada and Europe that were following in their lead: it increased the price of wheat and introduced a developing country’s dependency on wheat from developed countries.
Since around 1985, developing countries have exponentially increased their food import while their food export has remained steady, they import more than they export. This risked their food security, their national food self-sufficiency, as reliance on food imports creates vulnerability—food price fluctuations in the international market makes food more expensive in these developing markets creating food shortages. The power dynamic between developing and developed countries was embedded with the Bretton Woods System, the International Monetary Fund’s conditionality for developing countries wanting loans meant trade liberalisation was imposed upon them. The industrialisation and increase productivity in the global north, through the introduction of fertilisers and pesticides, hormones and irrigation systems, was coupled with protectionist policies and subsidies for farmers in developed countries to protect them from international market price shocks. The global imbalance was made to endure.
This, however, was not enough. The food security of developing countries was also compromised by the financialisation and the commodification of food during this period. There was a desire to for national food self-sufficiency but cash crops—crops grown for the sole purpose of being sold—in demand in the developed world incentivised farmers to pursue higher income over food security. As the global trade system developed, developed countries became even more locked up in trade agreements and the introduction of structural adjustment programs didn’t help either. These developments led to serious blows on the food sovereignty of developing countries—their ability to dictate their own food policies to ensure food security in the face of unstable global food markets.
In Asia, as the green revolution took place, increasing crop production due to the development of high-yield crops and the industrialisation of agriculture, the dependence shifted from food import dependance to input dependance. The rise of the trans-national corporation that control the production of fertiliser, pesticide, and seeds has damaged the pursuit of food sovereignty in both developed and developing countries. In most cases, farmers can only buy seeds from a single corporation, and the fertilisers and pesticides for that crop can only be bought from the same corporation—for-profit corporations based in developed countries alongside uneven trade liberalisation have undermined and continue to undermine the sovereignty and food security of countries that have already had been exploited during European colonialism. Beyond this, the green revolution had a variety of effects, beneficial and adverse, on the health of farmers, the diets of those affected, the social structures in the society as rural and regional communities experienced upheaval, and the environment as natural and agricultural biodiversity and soil health degraded over time.
It’s not just the production side that trans-national agricultural conglomerates are gaining control over. Through the past decades vertical integration has ensured that these corporations are able to control the processing, manufacturing, and the marketing of food. You might have seen this diagram of food companies, ten conglomerates own nearly all of the food and beverage brands you might have ever heard of. Have a look through and find who owns your favourite brand of chocolate, muesli bars, cereals, or soft drinks.
So the next time you sit down to have dinner, at home or out; or the next time you’re browsing the shelf in your pantry or the aisles in your supermarket, think about the journey your food took. The journey it took through more than a century of changing food economics and politics, and the journey it took as it crossed markets, crossed continents, and crossed oceans to be there in front of you for your pleasure.
