The global food crisis II

Following on from Nursel’s recent post, I’d like to draw readers to a recent New York Times article about the “global food crisis”. According to the article, rising commodities prices, especially fuel and food prices, are producing unprecedented stress and anger across the globe, resulting in unrest and even riots. The article includes disturbing descriptions of people in Haiti eating concoctions made in part from mud in order to still their hunger pains. It is worth being reminded that what is experienced as a bit of additional pain at the checkout for the world’s wealthy can be an issue of survival for the world’s poor.

The article states:

“It’s the worst crisis of its kind in more than 30 years,” said Jeffrey D. Sachs, the economist and special adviser to the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon. “It’s a big deal and it’s obviously threatening a lot of governments. There are a number of governments on the ropes, and I think there’s more political fallout to come.”

Significantly, the article also acknowledges the interconnectedness of the global economy in that rising prices have “pitted the globe’s poorer south against the relatively wealthy north, adding to demands for reform of rich nations’ farm and environmental policies”. The production of biofuels putting upward pressure in prices is mentioned, though the competition between animals and humans for grains is not.

Given the likely future impact of rising fuel prices, climate change, the expansion of economies such as China and India on food production and prices, the fact that the situation appears already to be so bad is worrying indeed.

See also the NYT’s index of articles on food prices.

The Global Food Crisis

George Monbiot’s latest article ‘The Pleasures of the Flesh’ on 15 April 2008  is about the causes of the current global food crisis. Currently there are food crises in 37 countries. Monbiot says “the price of rice has risen by three-quarters in the past year, that of wheat by 130%(1).” and according to the World Bank one hundred million people could become poorer by the high prices. Actually there is no scarcity of food; for example “at 2.1 bn tonnes, last year’s global grain harvest broke all records” and “it beat the previous year’s by almost 5%”.

A significant amount of food produced are used as biofuels; for instance according to the World Bank “the grain required to fill the tank of a sports utility vehicle with ethanol … could feed one person for a year”. And according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), this year 2.13 bn tonnes is likely to be consumed, and only 1.01bn will feed people. Monbiot complains that now in the UK, all sellers of transport fuel have to mix fuel with ethanol or biodiesel made from crops. He says: “In the midst of a global humanitarian crisis, we have just become legally obliged to use food as fuel. It is a crime against humanity in which every driver in this country has been forced to participate. “

Monbiot also discusses the other cause of the food crisis, which “is a bigger reason for global hunger, which is attracting less attention only because it has been there for longer”. This year 100 m tonnes food will be used as biofuels, and a bigger amount, 760 m tonnes, will be used to feed animals. Since meat consumption in Asia and Latin America has been booming, and the UN estimates that the population will rise to 9bn by 2050, Monbiot tries to answer the question “What level of meat-eating would be sustainable?” and he says “ If you care about hunger, eat less meat”.

At the end of his article, George Monbiot says:

Re-reading this article, I see that there is something surreal about it. While half the world wonders whether it will eat at all, I am pondering which of our endless choices we should take. Here the price of food barely registers. Our shops are better stocked than ever before. We perceive the global food crisis dimly, if at all. It is hard to understand how two such different food economies could occupy the same planet, until you realise that they feed off each other.

Applying Anthropology in the Future: the future is now

I’m sure many of you have heard about Masdar, the ‘green city’ being built in Abu Dhabi.  For those of you that haven’t the city is touted as:

a world model of energy conservation with zero carbon emissions and zero waste. Compared to average urban levels, fossil fuel consumption will be reduced by 75%, water demand by 300% and waste production by 400%. Cycling and walking will be the most common means of travel.

Accoring to the city’s master plan, no one will be more than 200 meters from essential facilities, including shops selling locally grown produce. A fully automated, electric Personal Rapid Transit System will provide a flexible and comfortable alternative to private cars. A Light Railway Transport system will link the Masdar development to adjacent developments, the airport and in the future with the center of Abu Dhabi.

Through a micro-chip-like network of connections, developers plan to coalesce the expertise and resources to enable global technological breakthroughs in advanced energy technologies. There will be a university education and research center - the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology (in partnership with MIT) - which will offer Masters and PhD programs in science and engineering disciplines focused on advanced energy and sustainability. Its research and educational institutions and partnerships will search for solutions to mankind’s most pressing problems: energy security, climate change and truly sustainable human development.

For the full story see –

http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.feature/id/1497

While I applaud the effort to build more sustainable cities I recently came across an article which asks a provocative question; what impact will cities like Masdar have on cultural diversity?

If successful, Masdar City could act as a model for environmentally friendly urban planning and sustainable development. “Green cities,” such as Masdar, could become a future trend around the world. But are there unforeseen consequences for such initiatives? While the environmental advantages of promoting and constructing green cities are clear, such planning may also accelerate the homogenization of, and even destruction of, cultures around the world. Cultural diversity is currently in decline. Globalization and the dominance of Western (especially U.S.) economic and cultural practices have influenced and altered almost all regions of the world. Languages and cultural traditions are becoming extinct at greater rates than ever before.

For the full story see - http://www.wesleyanargus.com/article/5989

 

While there is arguably potential in the development of ‘green cities’ to accelerate cultural homogenization historically people have found an almost infinite number of ways to diversify and differentiate and I’m relatively confident this will  continue to be the case.  However, as planed cities ‘green cities’ offer anthropologists a unique opportunity/burden in influencing the future of culture and cultural diversity. 

It seems probable that governments and city planners will hire anthropological consultants to advise them on the design an implementation of ‘cultural spaces’ (for example) within ‘green cities’. So while anthropology has typically been directed at documenting, analysing and comparing culture, if we take on a role in helping to plan the cities of the future will we become instead the creators of culture? If so on model will we rely?  Will the ‘cultures’ anthropologists instil in these ‘green cities’ be based on notions of tradition, authenticity and existing diversity or on notions of progress and sustainability?  Ultimately will anthropologists ask what kind of cultures have there been or what kinds of cultures should/could there be?  And what are the potential benefits and risks associated with our choices now?

Biofuels and Indigenous Peoples

Thailand’s The Nation reports on the impact of biofuels on the world’s indigenous peoples.   Of particular concern is the impact of deforestation and monocropping that the demand for biofuels is producing. Here’s an excerpt:

Indonesian activist Abdon Nababan of the AMAN group said the impact of growing oil palm plantations had seriously hit indigenous people in his country - socially, culturally and ecologically.

“Often, human rights violations occur,” he said.

“The climate pact in Bali must take the rights of indigenous people into consideration more seriously than today. We cannot solve one problem by creating another problem,” said Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, chairman of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

GFC’s Lovera said biofuel itself was good if implemented properly. But to promote biofuel for export or for emissions trading would cause huge consequences for indigenous communities and the ecology, he said.

“It will be okay if you promote biofuel in the right place, in communities to replace the use of fossil fuel, but not for export and without the effects on food security in the community, as fuel crops are also food crops. All these conditions could not be met in reality,” he said.

“Carbon trading could be done among real renewable energy industries like wind, tidal and solar, not in the ‘grey’ area like biofuel,” he said.

It’s an important point, I think, that biofuels are not necessarily bad, it’s just the way they’re being used.  I can imagine that on a particular scale they would be very useful, not only to reduce greenhouse emissions but to free certain communities from dependence on the oil economy.  I also think that production of biofuels from waste products of other industries is probably legitimate.  It is the trend towards biofuel crops that is pushing up the price of the world’s staple food products and leading to even greater pressure on forests than was previously the case.

Read the full article.

Jovan Maud

The dangers of biofuels

George Monbiot has just written a powerful article about the dangers of biofuels.   Amongst other things, he points out the enormous social impact they will have if agricultural land is increasingly used for vehicles during a time of unprecedented demand to produce food in the Third World.  Essentially, the increasing production of biofuels, unless strictly regulated, means that the cars of the rich will compete with the poor of the world for food — and market forces will determine that cars win this battle.

I see here shades of the ‘Green Revolution’ of the 1960s, in which advanced agricultural techniques, the use of chemical fertilizers and machinery was sold to Third World farmers as a panacaea that would bring them out of a state of ‘underdevelopment’.  In effect, the benefits for the West were much greater.  Consumers benefitted from a drop in global food prices, but the Third World farmers encouraged to mass produce monocrops were left with large debts and diminishing returns on their harvests.  In a similar way, biofuels, presented as a Good Thing will turn out to be anything but for the global South.

Monbiot writes:

Even the International Monetary Fund, always ready to immolate the poor on the altar of business, now warns that using food to produce biofuels “might further strain already tight supplies of arable land and water all over the world, thereby pushing food prices up even further.”(5) This week the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation will announce the lowest global food reserves in 25 years, threatening what it calls “a very serious crisis”(6). Even when the price of food was low, 850 million people went hungry because they could not afford to buy it. With every increment in the price of flour or grain, several million more are pushed below the breadline.

The cost of rice has risen by 20% over the past year, maize by 50%, wheat by 100%(7). Biofuels aren’t entirely to blame - by taking land out of food production they exacerbate the effects of bad harvests and rising demand - but almost all the major agencies are now warning against expansion. And almost all the major governments are ignoring them.

They turn away because biofuels offer a means of avoiding hard political choices. They create the impression that governments can cut carbon emissions and - as Ruth Kelly, the British transport secretary, announced last week( - keep expanding the transport networks. New figures show that British drivers puttered past the 500 billion kilometre mark for the first time last year(9). But it doesn’t matter: we just have to change the fuel we use. No one has to be confronted. The demands of the motoring lobby and the business groups clamouring for new infrastructure can be met. The people being pushed off their land remain unheard.

And, because they only apparently benefit the environment, but in fact produce much greater levels of greenhouse gases when deforestation and the fertilisers used to grow them are taken into account, they are going do more harm than good for everyone.

Grounding those narratives

Joana’s earlier post about uses of ICT in low-income communities emphasised the value of ethnographic research to challenge widely-held assumptions. When I read it I was reminded me of a post on Savage Minds from about the same time which referenced a Guardian article on British anthropologist Melissa Leach.

Working in the field of development studies, Leach makes clear her disdain for “bullshit research”: i.e. research which constructs grand narratives about a topic without being grounded in empirical, field-based research. In her opinion, this kind of research primarily serves to reinforce assumptions and stereotypes about a particular topic rather than accurately representing what is happening “on the ground”. I tend to agree that one of the primary virtues of good ethnographic work is to challenge and “talk back to” orthodoxies of various kinds by throwing up uncomfortable details “from the world”.  This was illustrated at a seminar I attended some time ago when a historian who was giving a paper threw up her hands in mock despair at yet another “but what about?” question from an anthropologist and exclaimed “That’s the problem with you anthropologists; you’re always ruining our nice neat theories!”

Leach also shows how ethnographic research can ruin a perfectly good master narrative:

“It’s easy,” she argues, “to come up with narratives about deforestation: all the world’s trees are disappearing fast; or, water scarcity will lead to water wars. But these are often contradicted by evidence on the ground about how environments are really changing.”

And the article lists another couple of examples:

Leach and her colleagues had shown how experts can reach wildly wrong conclusions if local knowledge and history are not taken into account. Their findings became a book, Misreading the African Landscape, and a film, Second Nature: Building Forests in West Africa’s Savannahs. A decade later, they are still being used to illustrate the power of anthropological methods.”It shaped my entire career,” she says. “A lot of my work since has been about trying to bring to life the knowledge of local people.”

Seven years later, she struck another blow for social anthropology. Leach and a local anthropologist in northern Nigeria uncovered the reasons for villagers’ fears about taking the polio vaccine, administered to them by the World Health Organisation. Polio was either not seen as a priority, they found, or it was perceived as a spiritual affliction that was impossible to prevent. Leach argued that the polio vaccination campaign was using resources that weakened, rather than strengthened, local primary care health systems.

Original article

See also this recent post on Leach on antropologi.info which also emphasises the value of “local knowledge”.

The Forgotten Farmworkers of Apopka: an applied anthro blog from Florida

Here’s a new blog to keep an eye on: http://apopkafarmworkers.blogspot.com/. It tracks a collaborative applied anthropology project between a student, Nolan Kline, and an anthropology professor, Rachel Newcomb, both at Rollins College in Florida (in the very southeastern U.S.), who are working with a local nonprofit to, as they describe it, “find solutions to the problem of healthcare for former migrant farmworkers, many of whom are living in poverty and still experiencing the effects of exposure to pesticides and other work-related hazards.”

The mostly African-American farmworkers used to work on farms in the Lake Apopka area in Florida. The lake was partly drained in the 1940s for farmland and then, in 1998, the government bought up 14,000 acres of the farmland to restore to the lake. When the water started to fill the lake, it attracted birds, some 1,000 of which promptly died from the great quantities of pesticides and phosphates in the water. The former farmworkers suffer from a host of health problems as the result of long exposure to the pesticides. The project aims to create some sort of healthcare solution for the workers among other possible interventions.

The project is notable both for its activist angle and for its model of student-professor collaboration. I think, also, that we’ll see more anthropologists using blogs to post fieldnotes (of a sort) in a public forum, both to get ongoing feedback and an audience for their research.

L.L. Wynn

‘Scientists find new gene’ talk

Although we usually deal with ‘sociocultural’ anthropology issues on Culture Matters, those of you who know me know that I’m neck deep in biological anthropology, neurosciences and other research, in part because I’d like to help reinforce a meaningful connection between cultural and physical discoveries on issues like physical education, the senses, gender-sex relations, and the like. Almost always with new discoveries in biology, the problem as I see it is not the research methods or the data that is generated, but the way that these results are interpreted.

A great example of this is the recent discovery of a gene seemingly linked to the relatively well-known effect that calorie-reduced diets have on lifespans in a lot of species. The original article, by Steve Connor, can be found on AlterNet:

http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/51394/

The research is fascinating, as this material so often is. Calorie-restricted diets tend to increase the lifespan of all sorts of organisms, from worms and rats, potentially to humans. As Connor explains in the piece:

The latest study focused on a gene common to nematode worms, mice and humans. When the gene was blocked in the worms, the benefits of a calorie-restricted diet were lost and the worms lived shorter lives. Similarly, when the scientists were able to stimulate the gene they found that they could enhance the longevity of the worms so that their extended lifespans came close to matching those worms on a calorie-restricted diet.

What I find annoying in the story, however, is that the mechanism that is being described is quite complex: a gene is part of a system that causes calorie-restricted diets to increase a whole organism’s lifespan, that is, it is part of a complex interaction that starts with food intake, cycles through whole-organic processes like digestion, which themselves include diverse populations of symbiotic organisms in animals’ digestive tracts, affects cellular-level processes that lead to gene expression, producing some sort of protein (because this is what genes do), that somehow affects some organs or cells in the bodies to generate some sort of effect that changes longevity. In other words, a complicated dynamic, living system, with relationships of cause and effect that stretch from the behavioural (how much one eats) to the genetic, with steps of all sorts of scales in between (and I’m not even trying to describe some of the complications. Far from having found the gene that causes longevity, the scientists are very well aware, and clearly describe, how they are only beginning to scratch the surface in understanding the whole way that restricted diets affect organisms’ lifespans.

Of course, you wouldn’t know this from the initial reports. The discovery is reported as ‘Scientists Have Found the Gene That Decides How Long We Live,’ instead of ‘Scientists Discover Gene That Allows Eating Behavior to Influence Longevity’ or ‘Scientists Create Effect That Mimics Natural Longevity Effects of Restricted Diet’ or ‘Genetic Part of Complex Biological Process May Have Been Isolated’. In other words, yet again, the thrall of the Western journalistic brain to the assumption that the smallest unit must be the ‘cause’, that genes must be an executive ‘blueprint’, is clearly evidenced in this story. The irony, of course, is that facts, data, and loose threads in the story hold out numerous possibilities for these counter-narratives and better understandings.

The implications for applied anthropology are indirect; if we assume that there’s a gene ‘causing’ longevity instead of a complex, multi-scaled process linking, in humans, political-economies of food production and ideologies of diet and body image to all sorts of other processes (such as genetic protein synthesis, psychological processes around food and hunger in individuals, digestive dynamics, all themselves linked to each other), we assume we are looking for a ‘genetic’ way to manipulate the phenomena. Enter the pharmaceutical and biotech companies and cue arguments for extending patent rights over age-old wisdom that moderation in diet, as with many things, leads to better health (because obviously, too-restricted a diet has other well-known negative effects, such as malnutrition and starvation).

A holistic approach to this health effect would recognize that the gene does not ‘cause’ longevity any more than the yeast in a bread recipe is the ingredient that ‘causes’ the bread. In fact, using technological mechanisms to manipulate naturally-occurring biological phenomena should aid us in locating these phenomena, integrating them back into the complex dynamic systems of which they are a part.

Course: Applying Anthropology To Nature and Heritage Conservation

Ethnographic Field School-Natural Res Conserv-Guatemala

NC State University announces the Fourteenth Annual

Ethnographic Field School, Summer 2007
Lake Atitlán, Guatemala
May 18 - July 8, 2007

Applying Anthropology To Nature and Heritage Conservation

field school website: http://www4.ncsu.edu/~twallace
Objectives: Students learn how to do ethnographic fieldwork, design a
research project, carry out independent research and study the effects of
tourism and change on the local environment and communities. During the
seven week program students live with local, Maya families in the Lake
Atitlán area of the Western Highlands, a region with an ancient and rich
cultural heritage. The effects of globalization and tourism growth are
having an significant impact on their way of life. In this fourth summer of
research in Guatemala we will focus on the political, economic and
environmental impacts of tourism, religion and globalization on the
indigenous Mayan communities around Lake Atitlán. Students will study how
these Tzutujil and Kaqchikel Maya are adapting to changing demographics, the
effects of the global economic slowdown on the export of coffee and
traditional textiles, as well as on the continuing presence of more and more
tourists and foreign residents. The program is designed for 10-12
undergraduate and/or graduate anthropology majors or minors or students in
related fields wishing to learn applied ethnographic field methods. Students
will be encouraged to develop an applied component to their research
projects that will complement the 2002-2005 applied research efforts. Some
of the participants will be Guatemalan undergraduate anthropology students.
The program is also affiliated with the Universidad del Valle-Guatemala City
(UVG) and the Universidad del Valle-Altiplano (Solola).

The Research Site

Lake Atitlan is one of the most majestic and scenic spots in all of Latin
America. Ringed by dormant volcanoes and about a mile in elevation, Lake
Atitlan was formed out of an ancient volcanic basin. Dotting the shores of
the Lake are about a dozen small villages inhabited by the contemporary
descendants of the ancient Maya. Panajachel (pop. 9000) is the largest town
and will be the headquarters for the program. The view of the lake from
Panajachel is magnificent, and its attractive sunsets and views daily lure
many tourists, which in turn has transformed the town into a tourist Mecca
with small hotels, delightful restaurants and plentiful souvenir stores.
Yet, the town and the other communities in the region have retained much of
their traditional Mayan heritage. Each student is free to choose any topic
for his or her independent ethnographic research project, but environment
and tourism inevitably will play at least some role in nearly all potential
topics. Guatemala has the largest indigenous population in Mexico and
Central America. There are approximately 23 different languages spoken in
Guatemala and three of them are spoken around lake Atitlan (Kaqchikel,
Tzutujil and Quiche). Despite conquests and civil wars, the Mayans have
survived for nearly two millennia. Lake Atitlan is one of the best places in
the country to learn about this amazingly durable and vibrant culture.

Six Course Credits (graduate or undergraduate):

Prerequisites are two courses in anthropology, one of which must be in
Cultural Anthropology. No previous experience in ethnographic fieldwork
required. Priority will be given to students who have completed at least two
semesters of Spanish.

ANT 419 Ethnographic Field Methods. (3 cr.) This is a field methods course
that emphasizes practical training in ethnographic fieldwork and ethics.
Applied research methods such as focus groups and rapid assessment
procedures will also be demonstrated. Students learn research design,
systematic observation, interviewing, fieldnote-taking, coding, ethics data
analysis and report writing.

ANT 431 Tourism, Change and Anthropology (3 cr.) This course focuses on
tourism and the role of culture as it affects the interactions between hosts
and guests. Students learn through seminar discussions and field work the
problems underlying the achievement of sustainable tourism and maintenance
of cultural traditions.

Graduate students will be enrolled in ANT 610 Independent Study in
Anthropology (6cr).

Note: English is the language of instruction, but Spanish is an invaluable
tool for a full experience. The focus of all course work is the design,
implementation and write- up of an independent research project with an
applied focus.

Housing

Each student will be housed with a local Mayan family in one of ten
communities around Lake Atitlan. Each student will receive room, breakfast,
lunch and dinner and laundry services. Families also will help students
learn Spanish and establish networks in the community.

Program Costs

The cost of the seven-week program is $2995. Other than airfare, the fee
covers all expenses including:

-room, board (three meals/day), laundry
-in-country excursions (Antigua, Chichicastenango, Quetzaltenango, Patzun,
Tecpan and Iximche among others)
-local transportation costs and transfer fees
-national park entrance fees
-program fees and instruction
-tuition for six credits in anthropology
-full coverage health insurance during stay abroad
-research supplies and free rental of a cellphone.

Airfare from most US cities is approximately $500-600. Students are strongly
encouraged to bring a laptop word processor to the field. Other than a valid
passport, US and Canadian citizens need no other documents to enter
Guatemala for a stay of up to 90 days.

Applications

Students from any university or country, regardless of major - graduate,
undergraduate or post-graduate - may apply. Applications may be accessed
through the field school website: http://www4.ncsu.edu/~twallace or through
the NC State University Study Abroad Office website
http://studyabroad.ncsu.edu/ . Please feel free to contact Dr. Tim Wallace,
the program director, for additional information or any type of inquiry
about the program at 919-815-6388 (m) or 919-515-9025 (o). Fax
no:919-515-2610; E-mail: tmwallace@mindspring.com. All applications must be
accompanied by a $200 registration fee, applicable to the total program
cost. The registration fee will be refunded to students who are not accepted
for the program. In previous years the program was full by mid-January, so
acceptance is more likely the earlier the application is received. The
applications are submitted online, but if you have any problems, please
contact Deirdre OMalley at the NCSU Study Abroad Office, Box 7344, NC State
University, Raleigh, NC 27695-7344, deirdre_omalley@ncsu.edu, 919-515-2087.
The official deadline is February 9, 2007, but applications received after
that date will be considered if there are spaces still available. A copy of
the application for the brochure is attached.