FAIR TRADE FOOD SYSTEM; VIS-AV-VIS LOCALLY-BASED FOOD SYSTEM
Mission
Right around the time a barrel of oil was around $150 USD I stumbled upon an article from an "expert" saying that the solution to resolve hunger was to give more money to poor countries in order to buy more tractors and more agrochemicals! So wrong! Then a thought popped into mind: " Do something! No matter what! Anything is better than nothing! ". Mission: increasing awareness of hydroponics and aquaponics as key tools in fighting hunger around the world.
Roger Pilon, Editor
Hello everyone! How I got into hydroponics is a long story...let's just say that it involves a lot of tedious farm work as a child, unsuccessful 'dirt' gardens of my own and a near electrocution from a semi-submersible hydroponic pump. I've learned that hydroponic gardening is the only way to garden for me and I've been working at it for several years now. I've built ebb/flow, nft, Mittleider, wick and passive systems and I'm always on the lookout for the easiest and most efficient means of hydroponic gardening...If you have questions, I would be more than happy to answer them...
My wife and I spend ten percent of our annual expenditures on food [not including alcohol].
Jac Smit, MCP, AAS 4/10/8
My wife and I spend ten percent of our annual expenditures on food [not including alcohol]. Families in the majority of countries in the World pay over one-third of their income. And that's for the total population not the low-income population. Fifty percent and more is common at the lower end of the income scale.
History tells us [see Egypt 4,000 years ago ++++] That at the time of food shortage [price, hunger] population moves from the village to the city and social unrest marches in. This month we have reports of such 'unrest' in Port-au-Price Haiti, Dakar Senegal, Cairo, Egypt, Harare, Zimbabwe and several more cities and countries.
Josette Sheeran, CEO of the World Food Program said in Ethiopia last week that hunger today is unlike any other in modern times, "-a new face of hunger - more urban".
Javier Blas reporting from the African Finance Ministers meeting in Addis Ababa makes the point that as hunger hits the more politically sensitive urban areas than the rural areas, riots are going to occur sooner and more drastically.
Joachim von Braun, CEO of IFPRI [International Food Policy Research Institute] makes the point that the rise in food prices is directly related to global food [trade] system. Export countries are reducing their exports and prices soar. He calls it a "-starve your neighbor policy-".
Data reports at the all Africa meeting said that cereal prices had increased 50 percent last year and 125 percent in the past three years.
One can argue that the vaunted 'Green Revolution', the grand Agriculture Economic principle of 'Comparative Advantage', and the virtuous principle of 'Fair Trade' aren't working well in the 21st century, as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
It can be concluded that the time has come for locally producing what we eat in an ecologically sustainable way. As the Earth becomes more urban, more rapidly where there is the most poverty, International Development might well put more science and money into urban agriculture, or as they still say "urban and peri-urban".
And they need to be told that it is being done and that we know how to do it.
References:
W-Post 4/5/8 "In Egypt, Upper Crust gets the Bread" Ellen Knickmeyer
Financial Times, April 4, 2008
'Rice Today' Oct-Dec. 2007 Rice Prices still Rising, http:''ricenews.irri.org
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