From: harelb@math.cornell.edu (Harel Barzilai)
Subject: How USA-Today Lies (2)
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: ?
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 03:01:21 GMT


    "However, 55 percent of the grain we export is fed to animals [...]
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    "According to the World Bank's 1982 figures, there are 17 
    countries in the world with a total food supply of less than 2,000 
    calories per person per day. In 1982, the United States sent twice 
    as much agricultural exports to Canada than it sent to all 17 of 
    these countries combined. Canada, itself a grain exporter, has a 
    population of 24 million. The 17 hungriest countries have a 
    population of just under one billion. 
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****************************************************************** 
****	[From Oxfam's _Honduras: Why Farmers Go Hungry_ (under 
****	"Food Exports from the Third World") 
****************************************************************** 

Many people in the United States believe that "America feeds the 
world."  Textbooks and the mass media often contrast images of hungry 
people in Asia, Africa, and Latin America with pictures of silos 
overflowing or ships being loaded with grain from the American 
midwest. 

It is easy to come away with the impression that the millions of Third 
World people who face hunger every day are able to survive because 
they ureceive a small share of America's agricultural bounty. But a 
closer look reveals that increasingly, it is not we Americans who are 
feeding people in the third world, but they who are feeding us. 

In 1981, the most recent year for which figures are available, the 
Inited States imported more food than any other country in the world! 
Most of our food imports come from the Third World. 

Americans are eating increasing amounts of vegetables from Mexico, 
beef and bananas from Honduras, sugar from the Dominican Republic, and 
pineapple from the Philippines. Malnutrition is widespread in all four 
of these countries, yet all four send more agricultural produce to the 
U.S. than we export to them. 

Is there no basis, then, for the idea that our country is "the 
breadbasket of the word"? It is true that the United States produces 
more than enough food to feed its citizens. It is also true that the 
U.s. is the world's largest exporter of food, most of it grain. 

However, 55 percent of the grain we export is fed to animals, not 
people. Few of the world's hungry people can afford to buy meat, milk 
or eggs raised on american feed grain. 

Furthermore, U.S. agricultural exports do not go where they are most 
needed. 65 percent of U.S. agricultural exports go to the developed 
countries, primarily Europe and Japan. In 1982, the Netherlands alone 
receive more of our agricultural products (over $3 billion dollars' 
worth)than the entire continent of Africa. 

According to the World Bank's 1982 figures, there are 17 countries in 
the world with a total food supply of less than 2,000 calories per 
person per day. In 1982, the United States sent twice as much 
agricultural exports to Canada than it sent to all 17 of these 
countries combined. Canada, itself a grain exporter, has a population 
of 24 million. The 17 hungriest countries have a population of just 
under one billion. 

Only a very small portion -- 3 percent in 1982 -- of U.S. agricultural 
exports are sent abroad as "aid." Most of this food aid is not given 
away but is sold with low-interest financing to Third World 
governments [Thus another taxpayer subsidy to agribusiness, Chomsky, 
Cockburn, and others point out --HB]. In a majority of cases this food 
is then resold, often at prices the very poor cannot afford. Thus, 
even our food "donations" do little to alleviate hunger worldwide. 

Meanwhile, malnutrition and consequent infection cause the death of 
about 40,000 children every day. 

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   -->  [Send the 1-line message GET OXFAM HONDURAS ACTIV-L to   ] 
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        [listing with brief descriptions of other files available] 
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Oxfam America _Facts for Action_ (No. 12, 1984) 
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Some PeaceNet accounts:

oxfamcom@igc.org
  Martha Mhlanga, 26 West Street 
  Boston MA USA 02111 
  (617)482-1211 
  (Oxfam Communications) 
  Keys: hunger, famine relief, third world development 
oxfama@igc.org
  Karen Williams, 26 West St. 
  Boston MA USA 02111-1206 
  (617)482-1211 
  (Oxfam America) 
Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive