Hunger in the Land of Plenty : There’s Plenty of Food for a Price

From work and wages with a place to live; to no work, no wages, no home and no food is the slide from economic and social stability to absolute poverty. Today, millions of Americans are experiencing this horror for the first time in their lives. Entire families are being driven to the brink. Many are lashing out at everything. They are confused and angry and are blaming others just like them. However, it’s the market-based system of production and its distribution of the social product that is out of whack, not those who are victimized by it. When the economic system no longer feeds its people and is unable to provide this most basic human right, the people must change that system.

Hunger is growing dramatically in the United States. Today, 1 in 8 Americans are receiving emergency food assistance from Feeding America, the largest food provider in the country, through the food pantries, soup kitchens and shelters it serves. Over one third of them are children. This new hunger is almost 50 percent higher than in 2006. Is it because less food is produced? We all know this is not the case. In this America of ours, we must have money to buy all the necessities of life, including food. And if you are forced to choose paying the rent or utilities, instead of buying food, then you and your family will experience hunger in America.

An abundance of food is produced in America. However, much of it is never placed into the marketplace. By withholding it from the market, farmers and food processors create an artificial shortage to maintain or inflate food prices. Meanwhile, the number of hungry Americans grows amidst an increasing abundance of food.

California is a good example of this national problem. Its farmland spans 25 million acres and produces about half of the nation’s fruits, nuts and vegetables, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture. More than 6 million tons of California food products are dumped annually, according to state studies. Food is the largest single source of waste in California, making up 15.5 percent of the state’s waste stream, according to the California Integrated Waste Management Board.

At the same time nearly 40 million Americans, at some time or another can’t buy enough food. Like everything else in a market-based economy, food is for sale just like any other product. But food is not a luxury; it’s a most basic need of human beings. When it’s denied to people, it leads to human hunger and even death.
Food production is controlled by a handful of giant agricultural and financial corporations. Global conglomerates such as Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Monsanto, Cargill, General Mills and Kellogg’s (to name a few) own most of the world’s food. They, along with their financial partners, decide how much food is produced and destroyed, who will get it and how much it will cost.

With today’s high-tech production methods, food is produced in such abundance that every person on the planet can be fed. There is no justifiable reason for anyone to go hungry. Only the corporations and their lust for profits and a government that protects them stand in our way. It’s time for the American people to take over the death merchant corporations and demand our government run them in the interests of the people. Either we take over the corporations or they take over us. Feed the people. Nationalize the food industry.