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Hypocrisy, vast cultural changes, and sheer incompetence are dominating factors in the history of the globalization of food. As one explores the readings, it appears that those in charge of the situation in the 19th, 20th, and now the 21st centuries are either uncaring, not cautious, or simply have no idea what they are doing. Perhaps, in each situation, a different combination of these is at work.
Hypocrisy, vast cultural changes, and sheer incompetence are dominating factors in the history of the globalization of food. As one explores the readings, it appears that those in charge of the situation in the 19th, 20th, and now the 21st centuries are either uncaring, not cautious, or simply have no idea what they are doing. Perhaps, in each situation, a different combination of these is at work.
Examples of hypocrisy permeate the history of the agri-food industry’s rise to a global scale. The “green revolution” was to end hunger by creating a massive production increase that would allow everyone to be fed. Indeed, the green revolution has created a surplus of crops, and today every person on the planet could have thirty-five hundred calories a day just from the world’s grain supplies. There is enough food for approximately 4.3 pounds of general food per person per day: 2.5 pounds of grain, beans, and nuts, a pound of fruits and vegetables, and nearly another pound of meat, milk, and eggs (Lappé 1999a: 10). However, there are still 800 million people suffering from hunger in the world (Lappé 1999a: 4). This is due, in large part, to a number of problems with the methods that were spawned from the green revolution and from a devastatingly backwards food aid system. Most countries with high percentages of hungry people still produce enough to feed everyone, yet many of these ‘hungry countries’ actually export quite a bit of their food (Lappé 1999a: 11).
While claiming that they have their citizens’ best interests at heart, nation-states often exhibit behavior that conflicts with that supposed benevolence. One example of this is in broiler production. The state subsidizes promotion of broiler exports and subsidizes promotion of the industry in other countries. However, broiler-processing plants have high environmental impact, and the industry is a major environmental polluter, so the state supposedly regulates and monitors the industry within the confines of environmental law (Hefferrnan 1994: 34-36). It is not difficult to see that there is a conflict of interest here; how can the state be thought of as partial to its citizens if it is, at the same time, doing business with and promoting an industry known to be a major polluter?
The culinary advice offered to immigrants and others in order to create homogeny in the early 1900s showcased some strange cases of hypocrisy. Everyone was seemingly given conflicting advice on what foods were healthiest. Schoolgirls in St. Paul were told that corn was an “excellent, cheap source of fat and starch,” and that cornmeal mush made a good breakfast (Gabaccia 1998: 128). At the same time, Cherokee food rations typically did not include corn but rather white flour and baking powder, even though Native Americans had first cultivated corn in the Americas (Gabaccia 1998: 130). Perhaps this is because different officials made the suggestions to different ethnic groups, but more likely, this is because it would force people to leave the ways of their homelands behind and “assimilate.” Those who argued that immigrants should eat more like Americans failed to realize or wholly ignored the fact that there was no “American cuisine.” Cuisine differed widely between regions (Gabaccia 1998: 124-125). When ethnic foods became necessary or popular, however, they were heavily marketed and, suddenly, many ethnic products became all-American (Gabaccia 1999: 151).
In some cases, globalization brings about changes in societies and cultures that no one predicts. The introduction of sugar and other “drug foods” or “dessert crops” to Europe is one of these cases. Sugar consumption increased drastically in the 17th and 18th centuries, bringing about not only more international trade but also new eating habits and traditions. Sugar, coffee, and tea were “the first edible luxuries to become proletarian commonplaces” (Mintz 1997: 359). Obviously, tea created an entire cultural phenomenon in England, and the same can be said for coffee in much of Europe. Fruit could be preserved with sugar, because it killed microorganisms that would normally spoil it.
Certainly, the increase in store-bought bread is closely connected with the availability of jams made with sugar (Mintz 1997: 364-365). The increase in sugar production and use allowed the decline of home-prepared food, and the increase in the use of these new ingestibles, the growth of the factory system, and the increase in the use of processed food are all very closely linked. It is interesting to question which of these are causes and which are results, or if they all formed symbiotically. Did the spread of stimulants and cheap energy from sugar allow laborers to work longer hours? Did the increase in availability of processed foods create a demand that had to be supplied through industrialization?
The societal changes brought about by globalization might not always be unexpected. Since transnational corporations are beholden to their stockholders, they will typically do whatever it takes to turn a profit. TNCs such as Cargill, ConAgra, and Phillip Morris are huge players in the agricultural market. Because very few corporations, most of them large transnationals, control the agricultural industry, producers have very few choices. For instance, midwestern hog farmers were forced to take a contract or lose their farms during the farm/debt crisis of the 1980s. Beef and pork processing plant workers also saw their unions attacked, causing losses in pay and benefits (Heffernan 1994: 39-40).
Because these TNCs have multiple inputs and outputs spread throughout several countries, it is difficult to enforce regulations such as environmental protection and wage laws. “The TNCs have a more global vision of food-system coordination than any given nation-state,” and because of this, they are often more influential than those nation-states. What is being seen is a situation wherein nation-states are giving way under the power of these global giants (Heffernan 1994: 42). The nation-state can be expected to “decline, become somewhat irrelevant, but not disappear in the foreseeable future.” This will likely bring about the importance of more transnational state forms and regional and local political organization (Bonnano 1994: 3-4). Whether this is intentional or not, it is creating a system of power that is unprecedented in the history of the planet.
Although the changes brought about by globalization might sometimes seem intentionally malevolent and hypocritical, it seems likely that they happen out of ignorance. During the food crisis of the 1970s, a shift from surplus to scarcity caused grain prices to soar and threatened food shortages. Eventually, nation-states continued to support agriculture by purchasing commodities, so surpluses reappeared, causing people to start ignoring the fact that the system itself had serious problems that needed to be dealt with. “Disappearance of the symptom simply masked survival of the disorder” (Freedmann 1993: 32). Frances Moore Lappé makes a similar point before she points out what she sees as the cause of this ignorance: “a heritage of a colonial order in which people with the advantage of considerable power sought their own self-interest, often arrogantly believing they were acting in the interest of the people whose lives they were destroying” (Lappé 1999b: 63).
The new losers, those who will lose in the global market, are characterized by “their relative inflexibility and arrogant belief that their control of the U.S. market [is] untouchable.” This belief in control without taking steps to make sure that control is held onto shows real ignorance on the part of these new losers. One obvious example of this is U.S. automakers that did not do enough to keep up with Japanese automakers (Boonnano 1994: 13).
American nutritionists and cultural elites gave some very bad advice to people, especially immigrants, in the early 20th century. For instance, Asians and southern Europeans were told that their diets should include more milk, even though Asians and southern Europeans are notably among the most lactose-intolerant in the world, for the most part because they didn’t have milk in their diets for thousands of years (Gabaccia 1998: 124). Mexicans were told to reduce their use of tomato and pepper because it was supposedly harmful to the kidneys. Hungarian, Polish, and Jewish children were discouraged from eating dill pickles, because they thought it was bad for the urinary tract. Jewish mothers also faced ridicule for feeding their children well, because they weren’t teaching self-denial. Schoolgirls were told that “vegetables are served with butter, salt, and pepper, or with a medium white sauce,” and students in New Mexico were told that baked potatoes, suet pudding, rice or baked beans were inexpensive substitutes for meat (Gabaccia 1998: 128-129). It does appear that the point of all of this could have been to open these people up to eating a purely “American cuisine,” even though more ignorance masked the fact that such a cuisine didn’t even exist, as discovered by those who tried to compile the America Eats project.
Ignorance, cultural changes, and hypocrisy are widespread when it comes to the globalization of the agri-food business. Whether one or all of these is involved in the examples used by the authors, they paint a picture that begins to look disturbing. The weakening of nation-states and the strengthening of TNCs means less power in the hands of people and more power in the hands of corporations whose only real loyalties are with their stockholders. Dietary changes and discrimination have helped some ethnic groups and hurt others while blurring the line between cultures. More processed food and hypocritical treatment have changed almost everything about how the modern world eats and in some cases have hindered the ability of some people to eat as they should. The future of the food industry rests on very shaky ground.
References Cited
Bonnano, Alessandro
1994 Introduction. From Columbus to Con Agra: the Globalization of Agriculture and
Food. University of Kansas Press. Lawrence, Kansas
Friedmann, Harriet
1993 The Political Economy of Food: a Global Crisis. New Left Review. Vol. 197 Pp. 29-
57
Gabaccia, Donna
1998 Food Fights and American Values from We are What We Eat: Ethnic food and the
Making of Americans. Pp. 122-148. Howard Press. Cambridge, Mass
1999 The Big Business of Eating. From We are What We Eat: Ethnic Food and the
Making of Americans. Pp. 149-174. Howard Press. Cambridge, Mass.
Heffernan, William D. and Douglas H. Constance
1993 Chapter 1: Transnational Corporations and the Globalization of the Food System from
From Columbus to ConAgra: the Globalization of Agriculture and Food Pp. 29-51,
Alessandro Bonnano, et al., eds. University Press of Kansas. Lawrence, Kansas.
Lappé, Frances Moore, Joseph Collins, and Peter Rosset, with Luis Esparza
1999 Beyond Guilt and Fear from The Paradox of Plenty: Hunger in a Bountiful World,
Douglas Boucher. Pp. 4-60. Food First Books. Oakland, CA.
Lappé, Frances Moore and Joseph Collins
1999 Why Can’t People Feed Themselves? from The Paradox of Plenty: Hunger in a
Bountiful World, Douglas Boucher. Pp. 61-70. Food First Books. Oakland, CA.
Mintz, Sidney W
1997 Time, sugar, and sweetness. From Food and Culture: A Reader, Carole
Counihan and Penny Van Esterik, eds. Pp. 357-369. N.Y. Routledge. |
