May 30, 2008 (LPAC)--Over the next months, LPAC will be releasing a series of policy memorandums for use by the entire Democratic party. We present the first one, today, "LPAC Food Policy Memorandum: Kill the WTO; Double Food Production", which is available here, in PDF.
Introduction: It is well established that the world today faces a food crisis, which is brought on by decades of free trade policies and recent bio-fuels insanity. However, we do not have years to debate whether or not the kinks in globalization can be ironed out. The more success- ful globalization is, the more imperiled civilization becomes. This current food shortage is an intentional effect of free trade, a system once (and still) enforced by the gunboats of the British Empire. The modern gunboats are politely called “trade agreements,” “debt restructuring,” and “conditionalities.”
We have merely days for the world’s policy makers to find their spines, kill the World Trade Organization, and double world food production. This is the LaRouche PAC policy, issued by economist Lyndon LaRouche in April, to be adopted by the June 3-5, 2008 FAO conference, and by nations in the immediate days ahead. An international mobilization around this policy was launched by the Schiller Institute chair- woman Helga Zepp-LaRouche in early May. Since then, statements and initial strategies to address the food crisis have come from world leaders. However, only LaRouche’s policy explicitly addresses the systemic cause of the problem.
The FAO’s “Hunger Map” identifies some 2 billion people, across 82 nations, have inadequate food. Food riots have erupted in 37 countries so far, and prices continue to soar. This descent into Hell starts in the not-too-distant past. The post-WWII world had every reason to be optimistic: Fascism was defeated, and U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt put in its place the Bretton Woods system, designed to guarantee stable economic conditions for long-term development. Industry and agriculture could now thrive, along with waves of political freedoms, in nations where Europe’s empires never allowed them before. Programs like the Marshall Plan, Atoms for Peace, and the “Green Revolution” created a food, water, energy, and transportation dynamic that had the potential to substantially raise the standard of living for people everywhere on the planet.
This policy memorandum features an analysis of total food production from 1970 to 2007, showing the severe inadequacy given population growth, and projects that were online that would have met today’s food requirements were they built. Following is a developed strategy for self-sufficiency, immediately averting today’s threat of starvation, and a long-term alliance between the four powers of Russia, China, India, and the U.S.
The entire document is available here, in PDF.
