The staff of life revisited

Ancient Egyptian wall carving of stalks of wheat

Below is an excerpt from an old post of mine, The staff of life. It was discussing wheat rust, a disease that greatly reduced crop yields and how that might affect countries with poor food sufficiency. I ended it with the following: 

Which brings us to Jimmy Carter in a 'round about sort of a way. While touring North Korea he had the following to say about that country's growing famine:

"One of the most important human rights is to have food to eat, and for South Korea and the US and others to deliberately withhold food aid to the North Korean people is really a human rights violation."

That comment raised a lot of eyebrows, but it shouldn't have been that surprising. The UN, through its Human Rights Council and various Progressive NGOs, has long been banging the drum for Food Justice, sometimes framed as Food as a Human Right.

This is a movement that encompasses the usual bugaboos: climate change (so arability rather than farming practices becomes the culprit for food shortages), sustainable farming, organic farming, cultural diversity, GM food, corporations, exploitation, oppression and lately the much touted obesity epidemic.

They make no bones about the fact that they want to change, from seed to table, which foods are grown and how and to who they are distributed.

Make no mistake, if the Middle East does slide towards famine there will be loud voices, accompanied by pictures of big eyed children with empty food bowls, blaming it all on Western capitalism and demanding free food from the same Capitalists as payment of a fine for their guilt. How that will play with grocery prices going up is easy to imagine, but the agitation will be there none-the-less.

The impact of the Ukranian war on World food supplies will be significant. At best food prices will greatly increase, at worst some regions may slide into famine. All will be affected. This will lead to major food exporters having to take up the slack as best as possible. 

I expect that there will be many voices clamoring for a say in how food is to be distributed. Some will be arguing for a realpolitik approach, but I think there will be a loud contingent arguing for Food Justice. As I said in that earlier post, "They make no bones about the fact that they want to change, from seed to table, which foods are grown and how and to who they are distributed". 

Never leave a good crisis go to waste. It bears careful watching as to how this debate will unfold. There will be many motives in play and much mischief possible.