Cornell conference focuses on international food crisis

ITHACA - Since 2005, the international food crisis has forced 75 million people into chronic hunger - and things could get worse, experts say, if the United States doesn't begin to recognize and respond to warning signs.
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A two-day conference at Friday and Saturday at Cornell University explored the policies and politics surrounding the global issues of food and hunger at "Visible Warnings: The World Food Crisis in Perspective." The conference was sponsored by the Poison Institute for Global Development, the Mario Einaudi Center for International Development, the Institute for Social Sciences, and the Department of Development Sociology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Experts from around the world presented research and their experiences in several panel and roundtable discussions, including those about food crisis implications and food democracy, control and policy.

The conference came the weekend after a U.N. policy conference in Bangkok, where the director of the food and agriculture organization said to the media that "tighter credit amid the global financial crisis could make it harder for farmers to expand production, increasing chances for a repeat of last year's soaring food prices.

Last March, the price of food hit an all-time high, he said. Combined with oil prices, it created a "food bubble." Now, though prices for food have dropped, the economic crisis threatens to bring another food crisis in 2009.

At a conference session called "Alternatives," speakers presented ideas about how to bring conversations about food and hunger to the forefront of the policies that have come as a result of the economic crisis.

Eric Holt-Gimenez, director of food first institute for food and development policy, said though the United Statse has become more vocal in the larger effort to address hunger, its organizations aren't effective in the current system. "There is a very large network of international food organizations," he said. "The U.S. is cut off from them."

Diamantino Nhampossa, director of the National Peasants' Union in Mozambique, talked about his own efforts mobilizing organizations in the country. He started the union, which offers education to African farmers and consumers, in 1987.
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"Once we began to recognize food as a global value, we started to see change," he said.

Different methods of growing food and their impacts were also discussed by Harriet Friedmann, from the Munk Center for International Studies at the University of Toronto. She spoke about a study of organic avocado farming in Mexico, which had more negative than positive impacts on the surrounding community.

Friedmann said while the export was successful, it took the variety and quantity of avocados away from the natives. It also affected a nearby indigenous settlement's water flow, which hurt that community's crop as well.

Holt-Gimenez said there were several aspects of the issue still missing from mainstream conversation - like the issue of food labor, which he said is a large issue given the 1.4 million food workers in the country. The other is between the farmers and consumers.

"This has to be brought back into the discussion - the whole food system is under a threat," he said. "We can help farmers and eaters meet each other to build a sustaining ecological system.

All three speakers also stressed a need for a system built from the bottom up. Friedmann said that can't happen unless countries stop their current practice of building systems from the top down.

"If the train is going really fast in the wrong direction, you don't just slow down," she said. "The first thing you do is stop the train until you figure out where you're supposed to go."