The complicity of the United Fruit Company [Chiquita Brands] in Central American poverty has rarely been acknowledged in the US. It is a history that has been erased. Indeed, the shorthand phrase through which most people come to know of banana-exporting countries . . . reflects not a history of rapacity and violence but the comically inept regimes installed by the export corporations. Such countries are known not as victims of empire, but as 'Banana Republics'. It's a taint which sullies the reputations of these countries' citizens, rather than reflecting back on the cause of their impoverishment. It is, in short, a textbook case of blaming the victim. (101)What is Patel saying in these chapters about the ways in which the global food system arose with and is embedded in foreign policy and economics. Who profits and who suffers? What role does the rhetoric of freedom play? There's a lot in these two chapters, so follow the thread that interests you the most and write about it here. Make sure to use quotes from the book to support and illustrate your point.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Prompt for Stuffed and Starved --Chapters 4 and 5--due 9/8
Raj Patel writes:
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ReplyDeleteI thought one particularly interesting part that Patel wrote about how with the production of tea and sugar, came the plantation, and how it was "industrial agriculture's single most bloody innovation" (78).
ReplyDeleteHe goes on to talk about how beer was a better alternative, (in terms of how it was grown, harvested and made locally) that beer was more nutritious than tea was. Beer was quickly banned from work, creating a greater need for the "bloodier" international trade item.
This really made me think about what i needed to do, to help facilitate change, to support a more local food trade system; what sacrifices i would need to make, and doing more than just buying from local farmers markets.
Chapter 4-5 Response
ReplyDeleteThroughout these two chapters a major theme of selfishness comes into the foreground of the picture that is being painted by Patel. He describes a world in which many, the rich, build an egocentric vision of the world leaving behind any thought of the destruction that they may leave in their wake.
“In India, the British systematically dismantled the existing feudal systems of duties of care for the hungry, in which landlords were expected to feed their hungry peasants in lean years… Indian grain was extracted and transported to England’s grain markets. Peasants could no longer expect to receive free grain from the village lord if the harvests failed… The result was extreme hunger and poverty. And when adverse weather conditions struck, and harvests failed, millions died for want of being able to afford the grain exported to Britain…Through directly extracting food resources from its tropical empire and a new commercial frontier of export agriculture in settler colonies, and with only a twinge of guilt at the human cost wrought, Britain was able to feed its working class.” (82-83)
I can understand a government being concerned for their people’s well being however, to disregard another peoples’ well being for that of your own is an act I cannot comprehend. The unfortunate thing is that we see this face of selfishness far too often. The rich within the global food business are constantly thinking about that extra dollar while it is the poor who suffer and are constantly thinking about how to get that extra item of food. “Since 1984, the real price of a market basket of food has increased by 2.8 per cent, while the farm value of that food has fallen by 35.7 per cent” (104). This fact states nothing more than the food system is allowing the rich to become more rich and forcing the poor to be controlled by those rich. The global food system in essence has risen from the selfishness of its major players. There are solutions to this problem however the idea of an egocentric world must be thrown out in order to build a global food system that is concerned with and will take care of our global community. Through competition there should be “an increase in efficiency and lower prices” (104). There must be more players within this system for it to take care of everyone, consumer and supplier alike.
Text Reflection
ReplyDeleteThis one part that Patel wrote about that was very interesting was in Chapter 5. It stated that “the competitor is our friend and the customer is our enemy…There isn’t one grain of anything in the world that is sold in a free market. Not one! The only place you see a free market is in the speeches of politicians. People who are not from the Midwest do not understand that this is a socialist country” (99).
This quote from Dwayne Andreas is very interesting to think about because it seems like food is only our enemy because it became a business. It seems like Patel is talking about the food system business being a bad thing because most of the food being produced has been making money for businesses. I feel like it can be a bad thing but a good thing at the same time because in our world today, everyone needs money. He notes that it is a bad thing because people may not be able to afford it. He also states that “today, transnational agricultural corporations control 40% of world trade in food” (99).
Businesses and government are the ones who profit from the global food system. The people who cannot afford to pay for food are the ones who suffer. The ones who suffer need to be able to profit from it too not just economically but physically or mentally.
Stuffed & Starved Chapters 4 & 5
ReplyDelete“The United Fruit Company, founded in 1899, was the world's largest banana merchant. At its peak, the company controlled not only in bananas, but also in freight, mail and money across an archipelago of Central American countries, It guarded its power jealously, and little stood in it's way. When locally elected governments tried to curb the company's power, or when residents of the country organized to alleviate their exploitations, it struck back.”
In this section of the reading it just shows how powerful companies are in the world and how much power they have. This banana company is a great example of just how much power a company can hold in this society. Both the government and its people tried to take away this companies power and fail. The company even got the United States to come and invade the country in order to keep the power it had. I don't understand how we can let a company get so powerful that even the government, who is usually the controlling body of the country, can't take away it's power anymore. Over 200,000 lives were lost when the United States invaded, and just because the United Fruit company said that the government was turning Communist, which after the fact they couldn't find any information at all that this was true. Also, this was back in 1899, so it's hard to imagine how much power companies have now as more and more of the world is turning towards capitalism. After reading about how much power this fruit company had over this country, it made me wonder what would be the point of the government there because clearly they had no control over the situation. Even the people, the ones who make up the country, had no way of stopping this company from taking over. How can people all over the world let this happen, because I know that this is probably not the only time in history that this has happened. I think that we need to start taking some power away from these large companies or sooner or later our government will not be run by the people we elect, but by these larger companies that control virtually everything in our lives.
I was born in the United States but both my parents were born in Honduras. I have been there several times and it never ceases to amaze me the amount of poverty I see. Raj Patel brings up the fact that the United Fruit Company has a lot to do with the poverty in the Central American countries. “The complicity of the United Fruit Company in Central American poverty has rarely been acknowledged in the US. It is a history that has been erased” (101). The major corporations continue to thrive while they exploit the goods of developing countries. A prime example is the CIA operation in Guatemala called “Operation PBSUCCESS,” which was authorized by the president of the United States. The United Fruit Company was saying that the president of Guatemala, Jacobo Arbenz Guzman was a communist because “he had in mind to buy unused land from the United Fruit Company to give to landless peasants, at the artificially low price at which the Company had declared the land’s value on its tax returns” (100-101). This war claimed the lives of 200,000 people and the land was kept by the United Fruit Company. It is evident that the major corporations are the ones who profit at the expense of the poor. The power of money continue to drive these corporations and as they get richer the people who are affected are the ones who live on the land and do all of the hard work. There is no redistribution of wealth and it is sad that when someone tries to do something positive and good, as Jacobo Guzman tried, they are shut down and sometimes ends in innocent bloodshed. Much of the global food system is controlled by a couple of these corporations and as long as the government is on their side, it will be difficult for the people who put their sweat and tears into the land to progress and move forward.
ReplyDeleteThe two chapters being read told of an entire new viewpoint on supply and demand. These chapters surprised me by giving real life examples of how the world’s food supply is not necessarily met by what is available, what is in surplus, or the natural supply and demand scenario; but by politics. Chapter 3 talks about the “cold war of food” (88). It begins by talking about the famine and hunger in Europe after the war; and how those people received food: “the surprising re-emergence of hunger in Europe and the febrile climate of the Cold War turned food, not for the last time, into a weapon of class politics” (89). People’s starvation and hunger became a political game. America decided to be the hero and bring an abundance of food into some of these countries. Yet, was America performing an act of kindness, or was it a little bit of a profit opportunity as well? It seemed that when America could pull out and let the countries stand on their own feet, it didn’t. It in turn ended up hurting and debilitating all of the local farmers of these counties. If it was a true act of kindness, wouldn’t America have helped the local farmers to grow their own crops within their land, instead of just bringing food grown by American farmers into the land? This is an example of where the demand was there, but the supply was coming from a place where maybe it should not have been coming from.
ReplyDeleteAnother example of how politics runs the food supply is the situation with the United Fruit Company. “The United Fruit Company used its connections in the Truman and Eisenhower administrations…to argue that Jacobo Arbenz Guzman, the democratically elected president of Guatemala, was about to become a communist. The reason? Arbenz Guzman had in mind to buy unused land from the United Fruit Company to give to landless peasants, at the artificially low price at which the Company had declared the land’s value on its tax returns. In response, the president authorized in 1954 a CIA-backed invasion of Guatemala, Operation PBSUCCESS. The resulting war claimed 200,000 lives, over forty years. The land, however, remained in the company’s hands” (101). This is a prime example of where the food supply was not run by the customer, or supply, but by politics. Would it have been so terrible to give the Guatemalan people a chance to grow crops on their own land? Guzman was not trying to take all of the land away from the American company, but rightfully buy the unused land from them to be able to be used and nourished by his own people. A communist? That sounds like a legit business deal; to buy land, and grow crops in his own country. In the name of “politics” 200,000 lives were lost over this food supply.
From what Patel is claiming, “The foundational argument is Darwinian: the market is a mechanism through which the fittest survive and the government ought not to interfere to save an entity doomed to extinction at the hands of the rival” (Patel p. 104), the ones that profit are those of high business such as the agribusiness giants, those who are able to import and export goods without any problem what so ever. However, farmers are the ones that suffer the most because they are put into an overwhelming debt that they might not be able to pay back and are forced to keep working. Also, the small local farmers suffer because they grow their own agriculture to make a living. Surprisingly, much of the trading of food was not to help the poor out of poverty or for agriculture development, but for the prevention of bankruptcy. Many countries were more worried about being bankrupt instead of the increase in poverty. This shows that greed has a big role in the food system and many of the big countries seem more worried about themselves instead of the real issue on food.
ReplyDelete“The law doth punish man or woman that steals the goose from off the common, but lets the greater felon loose that steals the common from the goose” Anonymous (pg. 76). This quote applies to the point made by Patel. It applies because its bigger message is synonymous to the situation occurring in the world’s poor countries. In the book, he references the situation in Columbia. The media always mentions guerilla warfare and the war crimes committed by these individuals but neglect to mention that it is the global food companies that fund their actions. “The company recently paid a US $25 million fine as part of a guilty plea in its funding of paramilitary death squads in Columbia.” It is clear that such situation repeats itself for reasons of business and the common folks always end up losing. So where does justice falls into all this? The global food companies bring their businesses into theses countries and disrupt the political balance while profiting from cheap labor and exports. You never hear about it because the attention is diverted towards the paramilitary entities that attract attention through their violent methods.
ReplyDeleteThe rhetoric of freedom is brought into play when we are told to buy local because of the economy. A popular belief is that when we buy local our business is going to the local farmers and the common people when in fact we are giving the money to the same people who profit from the cheap labor. The notion that we have the freedom to choose has allowed these companies to continue growing and ultimately stealing from the people.
Christina Kwok
Patel describes the global food system that abuses the labor of farmers and slaves in order to gain a profit. Patel states on page 87 that it is the slaves who kept food prices low for the white working class and it is those slaves who are the ones not getting the food that they need. As I read how much these farmers and slaves suffered to help feed everyone but them, it made me wonder at what point do people take a step back and look at how corrupt the system is. The poor are the ones who put in all the effort and suffering and the rich are the ones who reap the benefits with cheap food prices and an abundance of food that rarely ever trickles down to the poor.
ReplyDeleteOne of the most upsetting things for me to read was Patel’s description of the social contract that went on in Europe. Patel states on page 87, “ The solution to worker dissatisfaction in Europe involved blunting the edge of discontent. It involved adhering to an unwritten social contract, keeping levels of hunger and deprivation within manageable limits by making sure enough quantities of cheap food were available. The cheap food demanded slaves and low paid agricultural workers.” The situation that was occurring in Europe is exactly how our food situation is now. The people who help grow our food are the ones who get paid the least and are the ones who need to find cheap ways to eat. It is a cycle that has been going on as far back as when tea and sugar were in high demand in Europe.
By reading these chapters it made me take a step back and see at what price do we pay and who has to suffer for us to get food for cheap. How many farmers and slaves have to go hungry at night because they can’t even afford the food that they sell us for cheap because of how backwards and corrupt our food system is.
Erica Garcia
Hayley Harb
ReplyDeleteLiving Justly or Just Living
Julia Van de Ryn and Lynne LoPresto
September 8, 2010
Coming from a Nicaraguan family and seeing firsthand what happens to the farmers, is devastating. My uncle owns a farm and suffers immensely, but even worse his workers suffer even more. The Socialist government is so corrupt that they leave these innocent, uneducated workers literally in the dark, starved and unable to provide for their families. “For poorer farmers this has lead to catastrophe. Suicide, poverty and displacement have met many in the rural areas who have been unable to survive the global market” (Patel, 99). When hearing this statement it opens my eyes to the global epidemic that is facing the farmers of Central America and the world abroad. Having this hit so close to home makes me want to take a bigger part in the global food market epidemic solution.
“Yet it is impossible to think about a ‘global food system’ without attending to the corporations that have controlled it for centuries, and who crack the supply chain like a whip” (Patel, 99). The symbolic nature of that statement shows the slave- like tendencies that the corporations hold over the farmers of these developing countries. No matter the situation that these farmer get into the corporations will in the end the come out on top, usually owning and selling the crops national and international within the corporation.