food costs | Clipmarks

food costs | Clipmarks: "clipped from: www.crikey.com.au

* Food costs, how did we get here? (Answer: misery is profitable) The ability of developing nations to feed themselves has been progressively undermined by trade policies and Structural Adjustment Programs (see also) forced upon them by the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. This ‘unholy trinity’, as these partner institutions are often described, has brought our current food crisis upon us through their neoliberal ‘free’ trade agenda, tailoring markets in developing countries to suit Northern corporations. Recipients of IMF and World Bank loans must open their borders to the influx of highly subsidised agricultural produce from countries like the U.S. of A., who sell their food at below the cost of production (a practice called ‘dumping‘), undercutting local producers and putting them out of business — causing mass urbanisation as millions leave their fields to work or beg in cities, as well as swelling numbers of illegal immigrants into the North. -- Craig Mackintosh, Celsias