TIGblogs - Christopher Baan

What’s behind the world food crisis? Yes, the growing world population is a huge contributor to the need for more food. Yes, reckless food- and oil-seed-based biofuel subsidies have added to the problem. Yes, the climate crisis will contribute enormously. Yes, greater prosperity by previously vegetarian consumers in India and China will increase demand for feed grains.

But the media only occasionally touch on why we are having this particular food crisis: market fundamentalism and the privatization of world food security. Sunday’s New York Times has a devastating article on the dismantling over the past 20 years of the network of publicly funded and accountable agricultural research centers.