The Greatest Hunger is Justice

Food, glorious food, our lives are dominated by the desire and need to eat and the agricultural industry provides food for the billions of people on the planet. However, some people eat too much food, over 1.5 billion and others have too little food, about 925 million people are malnourished and go hungry.

The people with too much food, most of it bad for the health, are dying from the surplus as they get heart failure, diabetes, cancers and many other conditions. Those with too little are dying too from the lack of nourishing food. It’s truly a matter of social justice on a local and then global scale and needs the just and fair distribution of the world's resources and food above all.

Jesus of Nazareth, a prodigy of wisdom, advised his disciples to share whatever food they had (a few loaves and fishes) with the hungry people who had come out into the desert to hear him preach. The miracle was that the unselfish sharing of their little food inspired all the people who had food to share it with those who had none and there was enough for all.

Unselfish sharing is the way to bring greater balance into the world and the rich with compassion for the poor will have the spiritual insight and knowledge as to what is a good and right way to live and will have the spiritual will power and strength to control themselves and their appetite, greed and selfish urges. People are transformed when they forget themselves and get involved in helping change the world and help others. The real change in the world comes one person at a time, and it can then grow when others are inspired to do their share. Changing attitudes in a community by changing our way of life is teaching by example.

There is more than enough food in the world for everybody to eat well but the distribution is uneven due to corrupt governance, unfair laws and because the rich and well-fed have manipulated many a nation's laws to benefit themselves and their luxuriant lifestyles. The poor have little chance for education, good job and food security. They don't have a chance to provide for themselves.

Roger, a poor boy, asked me to help him get a job as a janitor in a fast food restaurant. He would be paid a minimum wage and allowed to have one meal a day. He just had to mop the floor and clean the toilets for eight hours. But to get the job, the company demanded a bunch of documents. He had to have a high school diploma, a health certificate, an x-ray, a birth certificate, 2 police clearance certificates, a letter of recommendation, a mayor's work permit and money for a uniform.

For every document there is a fee to be paid, so the very poor, they are excluded and can’t even get a job that needs little training as a janitor, a good and noble profession, where would we be without them.

However, hundreds of thousands of youth are unemployed because of these ridiculous and expensive requirements. When he got the job, he was fired after six months so as not to have him qualify as a regular employee and get additional health benefits. That's why hundreds of thousands go jobless and hungry.

If there is greater equality then absolute poverty will be eliminated and if there was less waste of food there would be a lowering of food prices and more people could be better fed. In the United States alone there is 40 million tons of food thrown away daily. In the UK, 15 million tons are wasted every day.

There are statistics showing that up to 30% of vegetables and fruit delivered to the UK supermarkets are rejected because they don't reach the pristine shape and looks demanded by the managers.

In the Philippines, the left-over food from the plates of the restaurant customers are collected by the very poor and boiled and eaten. It keeps them alive. For another estimated 20 million Filipinos, a cup of cooked rice and a piece of dried fish and a scrap of vegetable is all they can afford.

Even the ability of the people to feed themselves by growing their own food is being hampered by the control of the vegetable soya and corn seeds worldwide by companies making genetically modified organisms (GMO). Others have terminator seeds. These are sold with the help of corrupt Department of Agriculture personnel to farmers instead of traditional natural seeds.

The seeds are dependent on fertilizers made by the same company (Shell for example). They don’t produce seeds that will not grow again and the farmers have to go back and buy more seeds every year. Self reliance is taken away. That's why many rural communities are in debt and poverty and some send their children to work in the cities. Many of them are trafficked into the sex trade.

What's needed from most is a people's power, peaceful, non-violent movement to protest and challenge the ruling elites and educate the people to elect honest representatives renowned for integrity with the best interests of the people at heart. Now that's a real challenge.

The Danger of GMO Foods

The pictures of the hungry children holding up placards with the single word "Food" and another that cried out "Help", these among many others were heart-wrenching cries of hundreds of thousands of poor people whose lives, homes, and families were wrecked by the devastating, all powerful storm to hit the Philippines last 7 November.  The memories will never go away and they bring home to us with sharp reminder, that food and clean water are the most basic human needs of all.  In fact, this is such a powerful need that when it is unsatisfied, there is severe malnutrition, hunger, famine, starvation, and that in turn causes mass migration, civil unrest, demonstrations, revolutions, looting, robberies, wars, massacres, and the fall of governments.  

It is when food is plentiful and evenly distributed, there is greater peace in a country and the nation can be stable and prosper. When there is justice and respect for human rights, then it is civilized and developed. Whoever can supply and control a plentiful supply of food for all will grow rich and powerful and rule forever. That seems to be the sinister plan of those who hunger and thirst for political power. Decades ago, the powerful nations dominated the weaker by luring or coercing poorer nations in their debt traps. Governments incurred huge debts which the people had to pay through oppressive taxes and austerity.  

They were then forced to comply with the demands of greater nations to sign unequal contracts to favour the oil, mineral, pharmaceutical multinationals, and the military industrial complex. Military bases proliferated. One more richer and powerful nation could ride roughshod over the sovereignty of small nations especially in Africa and South America and parts of Asia and control and extract their natural resources with the connivance of the corrupted governments. When some patriotic, uncorrupted rulers refused, they were replaced through coups, regime change or assassination.

But some of the agents who were the field officers, implementing this global strategy of the great powers had qualms of conscience and soon it was leaked to the media and a worldwide outcry against it led to the “Freedom from Debt” campaign and the Jubilee campaign. Bono, the Irish leader of the Christian Rock & Roll group U2 was a major inspiration and leader of this movement.  

The great political powers looked for another mechanism to control the smaller nations, the poorest and most vulnerable. Foreign aid was not enough and competing powers could offer more than the other. Through business monopoly, elite fractions that greatly influence democratic elections found another powerful mechanism to exert influence that is the greatest need of all - FOOD. They saw their opportunity in the scientific development that changed the genetic make-up of the humble tomato. 

It all started in 1994. The tomato had a very short shelf life; it ripened very quickly and had a shelf life of only a few days. The big plantations could not deliver in time to dominate the markets so the food science laboratories experimented to find ways to extend the ripening time. By taking the gene of another organism that did not ripen so quickly, they inserted it into the tomato and bingo, after much trials and errors, it worked. The new tomato had a very long shelf life, the big food growers swamped the market with low cost tomatoes, the small farmers went out of business and then with the competition eliminated, the plantation corporations increased the price of their tomatoes and made a fortune. They still do. 

The food science industry boomed and every possible modification to the food we eat has been made. The “not so humble” tomato was to again lead the way. Cold snaps in Florida decimated the tomato crop, the laboratories went to work. This time, as the story goes, they found an organism, (an arctic fish some say) that had a gene that enabled them to survive minus 30 degrees. With this gene spliced into the DNA and genetic make-up of the tomato, the tomatoes had stronger resistance to cold and the plantation owners became even richer. But that is the general idea behind genetically modified plants that make up our food.

The scientific research laboratories of the multinational  food corporations launched frenzied research and development programmes to find ways to genetically modify every possible plant that could be used in food and they own the patent for that food .So tomatoes and corn and many more crops that now dominate the food chain is owned and controlled by these corporations.  The seeds that produced them are terminal. That is they can’t be planted to grow more crops. The farmer has to buy the seed every year from the corporation that holds the patent.

They own and supply the specific fertilizer that makes the seed grow and upon which it is dependent. In this way, the corporations control the food supply through their GMO seed and food products. They will own us too one day and nations will become dependent and subservient to them. If they don't supply the seed people will starve, riot and topple government. That is greater power than that which grows from the barrel of a gun.