War and political instability in the Middle East
are the major driving forces behind the soaring price of oil. To counter the energy crisis, profits must be taken out of war
Patel's new book 'Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System'
makes visible the people behind the abstraction and reveals a global
food system that, with our complicity, continues to alienate farmers
and consumers alike, all while fattening the pocketbooks of a few
middlemen.
To continue
business as usual while debating the predictions of complex models in a
world made even more uncertain by the questions we ask is to fail to
pull the ripcord
Monopoly control of crop genes is a bad idea under any
circumstances - but in the midst of a global food crisis with climate
change looming, such control is unacceptable.
The working class may have failed Marx's vision, but the new 'grave-diggers of capitalism' will almost certainly turn out to be those who have gutted the earth of its treasures.
Spiraling food prices, rooted in the 'free market' re-structuring of global agriculture since the 1980s, has led to a worldwide process of famine formation on an
unprecedented scale.
Civilization is what grows up in the margins of leisure and security
provided by a workable relationship with the natural world. That margin
won't exist, at least not for long, this side of 350