When I woke up this Sunday morning (day three of the fast), my heart was still pounding. So I thought I would drink some organic grape juice, but didn’t have any in the house. I didn’t know when Rainbow Blossoms (a 1/3-mile walk from my house) would open and suspected it would be later on Sunday, and I was feeling terribly weak. SO – yup, I ate a piece of bread and broke my fast.
But while debating this in bed, I had a thought that I’ll share. We should no longer call it a "food crisis." Instead we should call it a "food distribution tragedy." Ultimately, God provides enough and in fact this is a bumper year for most producers around the world. The mal-distribution of food into biofuels, into heavy meat consumption by some (we in the U.S. average 275 pounds a year compared to 68 pounds in the Philippines or 7 pounds in Bhutan, for example), and the food just plain wasted in the fields is a tragedy because most of it is preventable. On the Agribusiness Accountability Initiative website is a review of a book that addresses the roots of the problem: an unsustainable and unjust modern food system – from seed to plate – where few gain and many lose out. Here is a blurb from the review:
Hungry for Profit: The Agribusiness Threat to Farmers, Food and the Environment demystifies the reasons why hunger proliferates in the midst of plenty
and points the way toward sustainable solutions. Perhaps most
important, it highlights the ways in which farmers, farmworkers,
environmental and sustainable agriculture groups — as well as consumers
— are engaged in the struggle to create a just and environmentally
sound food system which, its editors argue, cannot be separated from a
just and environmentally sound society.
Sounds good, though I haven’t yet read it. If anyone has read it, please write a comment below. Thanks!
And the Agribusiness Accountability
Initiative is a great place to learn more about agribusiness’s influence in and
shaping of our food system.