Cultivating Hunger: An Oxfam study of food, power and poverty

8/7/2019 Cultivating Hunger: An Oxfam study of food, power and poverty

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CULTIVATINGAn Qxfam Study of Food.Power & Poverty

by Nigel IWose


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First published in 1984 Oxfam 1984Reprinted January 1985

ISBN 0 85598 071 0Printed by Oxfam Print UnitPublished by Oxfam,274 Banbury Road,Oxford, 0X2 7DZEngland.Cover Photo: Nick Fogden2

This book converted to digital file in 2010


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CONTENTSIntroductionHunger MythsDeb t: Precipitating the CrisisAgriculture: Increasing Pressure for ChangeLoaded Dice: The Terms of TradeAid Under A ttackPassing the Buck: The International Monetary FundFull Fields but Empty StomachsThe Need for ChangeThe C hallenge for BritainA Case Study: BrazilNotes & ReferencesFurther Reading

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Cultivating Hunger was published in duplicated form in the autumnof 1984 with the launch of Oxfam's Hungry for Change campaign. Itraises a number of issues which Oxfam believes to be crucially relatedto the imbalances of food production and distribution.The purpose of the docum ent, and of the campaign, is to call forgreater attention to be given to the interests of the poor and thehungry in international policies and negotiations. Further discussionbriefs will be issued during 1985 and more detailed studies on somekey aspects will be published later.In view of the encouraging response from the public and thecontinuing demand for this initial publication, it has been decided tore-issue it in this booklet format.


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INTRODUCTIONAt the World Food Conference of 1974, the then Secretary of State ofthe United States, Dr. Henry Kissinger, said:

"The profound comment of our era is that for the first time wehave the technical capacity to free mankind from the scourge ofhunger. Therefore today we must proclaim a bold objective:that within a decade no child will go to bed hungry, that nofamily will fear for its next day's bread and that no hum anbeing's future and capacity will be stunted by ma lnutrition."

In fact the number of hungry people has roughly doubled during thedecade that Dr. Kissinger referred to, and which has now passed.Over 500 million people an eighth of humanity suffer today fromchronic malnutrition and the number of hungry people men,women and children is increasing year by year. Over 15 millionchildren a year die in infancy from hunger and related causes. Thissilent holocaust is equivalent to death by starvation of the entirepopulation of London every six months; it is equivalent to the deathtoll of an H iroshima explosion every three days. In any circumstancesthis fact would be an unspeakable tragedy; what transforms it into amoral horror is that as Dr. Kissinger implied it need not happen:it could be stopped.Something has gone terribly wrong with our world food system. Morethan enough food is being produced to feed the entire population ofthe planet, but the food is increasingly out of the reach of the poor.The current emphasis on increasing food production is no solution;it's not food that is in short supply, but simple justice.

World food supplies are at record high levels. But the food isbeing grown in the wrong place, and at a price that the world'spoor cannot afford. The new systems of crop production which have beenintroduced into the Third World, for food crops and for exportcrops.use large quantities of expensive seeds, fertilisers andpesticides wh ich the poor cannot afford. The new systems alsoneed less labour; the poor, excluded by their very poverty, are


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left to manage as best they can as farmers on the world's mostmarginal land, or as migrants to city slums. Aid from the rich world for development is being cut back atthe very time of greatest need in the poor world. Deprived ofadequate investment and assistance in agriculture, poor farmersare obliged to overwork their land in an increasingly vain effort togrow the food they need. Every year an area of once fertile landthe size of England and Scotland is lost to production. Poor countries which borrowed money from commercialbanks when oil prices rose are unable to repay, now that interestrates have risen so high and the price of the Third World'sexports has dropped so low. The International Monetary Fund's strategy for solving thecrisis is putting the brunt of the austerity firmly on the shouldersof the poor. One catastrophic consequence has been theacceleration of changes in Third W orld agricultural practices,resulting in a concentration on crops for export at the expense offood crops for local consumption. Increasing numbers of the poor cannot afford to buy thefood which others have produced, and their one lifeline tosurvival the food that they grow and eat has been takenaway from them. Instead of food self-sufficiency for all, the newcapital-intensive schem es of crop production are helping createmarket gluts in the rich world. The poor could grow the food that they need, if we couldonly get the system off their backs. Changes in Third Worldagricultural policies are certainly necessary, but they can onlycom e about in a significant way if they are preceded by changein the institutions controlled by the rich.

What kind of a world is it that seeks a solution to its sophisticatedproblems of high finance by taking away food from the poor?


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HUNGER MYTHSWhile many will acknowledge that there is a problem the explanationsof it and solutions to it which they advance are tragicallymisconceived. The very myths that are believed about what causeshunger actually make matters worse and help to perpetuate it. Thekey thing about these myths is that they enable us to live with the evilof hunger by transferring responsibility elsewhere to the poorthemselves by blaming hunger on overpopulation or to God! byblaming it on the weather.The weather mythMany have argued that little can be achieved in the Third Worldbecause of the unpredictability of the weather. They point out how asudden drought or flood can wipe out the annual harvest, leavingfamilies with absolutely no food for the year that stretches ahead ofthem.But in fact, the weather in many Third World countries is very good forfood production. Traditional agricultural practices represent a long-evolved adaptation to particular features of the tropica l climate. Hugenumbers of techniques and strategies have been developed over theyears to increase the security of food production in the face ofuncertain rainfall. For example, seeds may be planted at differenttimes; different varieties of seeds with different maturing times used;or several crops intercropped so that harvests are staggered.After all, we have had to come to terms with the climate in Britain aswell. In this country, we have what could be considered a disasterwith our weather every year: it gets so cold that almost nothing willgrow for m onths on end. We call it winter and, knowing that it recurs,we have found ways to cope with it. Just like our winter, many of theThird World's floods and droughts are not the unexpected naturaldisasters we often imagine. In the Sahel region of West Africa,drought appears to be part of the normal environmental cycle '; inparts of Asia, it is known that floods will occur again every year. Ifthese weather extremes are to be expected, then nobody has an


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excuse for only responding afterwards. They can generally beplanned for, so that people will be in a better position to cope.But even when precautions are taken, the poor remain especiallyvulnerable simply because of their poverty. Oxfam's D isasters Officer,Marcus Thompson, says: "We are forever attempting to help peoplewho have been forced off the land, piling up in the slums of cities likeBombay or Calcutta. Because of their poverty, they are always morevulnerable to whatever com es along, whether it is a flood, a fire or anepidemic."

The weather does not create disaster for the world's poorestpeople. The weather does no more than tip the balance forpeople already living on the brink of survival.This becomes even clearer when we remember that there has neverbeen a famine in which all sections of the population suffered equally.Different people have very different powers when it comes toacquiring food. Marcus Thompson gives the example of the floods inCalcutta at the beginning of 1984. "A couple of feet of water was agreat inconvenience to people living in brick and cem ent houses, butit didn 't destroy the house, and food stocks were just lifted on to theroof out of harm's way. But for people living in a hut, when the rainscam e they lost the hut and everything in it." In the Sahel, poor farmers8


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on the margins of the Sahara desert are most vulnerable to theinevitable droughts. It's not the fault of the weather but of the forceswhich push people to the margins of existence. A change in theweather accentuates existing inequalities, pushing some peopleunder while a few actually make a profit from the high prices causedby the food shortages.So while the drought or flood may be temporary, it has permanenteffects for many of the poorest.Emergency aid efforts often do little more than attempt to help thepoorest pick up the pieces, without ever coming to terms with theforces that have taken away their means of survival. It is poverty notthe weather that is to blame, and it is the relentless pauperisationof those who were already poor that this report will investigate.The population mythIt is often argued that the poor stay poor because they have too manychildren. During the summer of 1984, an International Conference onPopulation in Mexico City drew attention to population growth as amajor cause of world hunger. The 1984 World Bank report said muchthe same thing 2. But while there is no doubt that the crisis for thepoor is compounded by the continuing growth in population, is it fairto say that population growth is itself causing the problem?The world already produces enough food to feed everybody in it. Sowhat do people mean when they talk about 'too many' people? Does'too many' perhaps relate to the amount of food people eat? Arethere too many Americans, because they consume 35% of theworld's resources even though they are only 6% of the world'spopulation 3? The entire population of the Third World uses up onlythe same quantity of the world's resources as the United States \Or does 'too many' relate to the amount of land available? But Boliviahas 12 people per square mile, Holland has 1,117: so why is therehunger in Bolivia but not in Holland? India has 568 people per squaremile, Britain has 583 5. Are there too many people in Britain?If we look at rates of population growth rather than at absolutenumbers, then it is no co incidence that rich countries have low ratesof population growth and poor countries have high rates. The poorwho live off the land have always needed lots of children to help growthe family's food. Even today, many parts of Africa still suffer fromshortages of labour at key times of the year, shortages which limit the


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amount of food which they can produce. In Burkina Faso (formerlyUpper Volta), Oxfam field staff visited a leper hospital during the rainyseason and found it almost empty: labour shortages are so acute thatthe severely disabled patients had temporarily d ischarged themselvesto help in the fields.Poor families in the world's poorest countries never know if theirnewborn will survive or not, and have always tried to have morechildren than they actually need just to ensure that some survive. Buteven when the poor decide that they want fewer children, familyplanning is often either not available or is too expensive. Acomprehensive survey in 1983 showed that 68% of women with fourchildren did not want any more; 39% of women w ith only two childrendid not want more 6. All too often it is poverty which is increasingfamily size.

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PRECIPITATING THE CRISISIn June 1984, the Presidents of six Latin American countries sent aletter to Mrs. Thatcher calling for the London Economic Summit tolook at new ways of relieving the poor countries' burden. "Anintolerable situation has been reached," they wrote.To understand the exacerbation of their plight in the last few years,and the hunger crisis facing so many of the poor today, we need tolook back to 1973. In October of that year, the price of oil doubled;two months later, it doubled again. These unprecedented increaseshit developing countries acutely, and they quickly began to look forloans to help them pay their oil bills. The oil producing countries weremeantime generating big financial surpluses; they deposited themwith Western banks who had to look for ways to lend the money outagain as fast as possible. The result was a startling rush of privatebank lending to the Third World.Money was available quickly, in large amounts, and with fewconditions. In his book 'The Money Lenders', Anthony Sampsonquotes one Latin American Minister of Finance remembering "howthe bankers tried to corner me at conferences, to offer me loans. Theywouldn't leave me alone"7. Of course, some responsibility must restwith the governments which accepted the loans, but mostcommentators agree that it was this over-enthusiastic lending by thebanks which did more than anything else to precipitate the crisiswhich was to come.The money the banks made available completely overshadowed theresources of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund:responsibility for international financial assistance suddenly shiftedinto private hands 8.Banks are commercial institutions wh ich lend for profit. This shift fromofficial to private lending meant that loans were made for a shorterterm, and were increasingly made at a floating rate of interest w hichwould adjust to the market rate, rather than being made at a fixedrate. The money was not evenly distributed according to need, but

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went instead to those countries which the banks assessed couldgenerate sufficient foreign exchange to repay on time.All the big banks rapidly increased the proportion of profits madeabroad. In 1976 alone, Citibank derived 13% of its worldwideearnings from just one country, Brazil9. As a general rule, the poorerthe country was, the higher the interest and charges 10.A crisis became inevitable by the late seventies. Recession inindustrial countries led to a fall in demand for Third World exportsand, in consequence, to an even bigger drop in commodity priceswhich had been falling continuously for several decades. The price ofoil doubled again in 1979 because of supply disruptions in Iran. Andthe United States budget deficit and high interest rates meant that thedollar began its surge against other currencies. Since more and moreof the banks ' loans to the poor countries had been made at a floatinginterest rate, this meant that interest repayments shot upwards.A few countries mostly in Latin America had borrowed soheavily that the only way the banks could avoid immediate disasterwas to lend more. Low income countries had borrowed much less inoverall cash terms, but the debt often represented a much largerpercentage of their national income.Governments of the powerful industrialised countries were suddenlyafraid that the entire international financial system could be underthreat if debtor countries declared that they were unable to repay. Weshall look at how an attempt to avert this threat has pushed theburden of repayment onto the shoulders of the world's poorestpeople, thus ensuring that som e of the world 's richest institutions cancontinue to make high levels of profit.

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AGRICULTURE:In need of foreign exchange for their imports, developing countrieshave concentrated on producing crops for export since colonialtimes. Rising import bills (because of inflation in industrialisedcountries), combined with lower prices paid for their export crops,meant that exports had to be increased. And as countries becamemore heavily in debt because of the increase in oil prices, they wereleft no option but to continue to encourage the production of cropsfor export, even on land where families used to grow their own food.It is not difficult to increase production of export crops. You payfarmers more for these crops than they would receive if they grewfood, and you only offer credit facilities to farmers growing the cropsthat you w ant. Farmers respond quickly to such incentives. In BurkinaFaso, farmers with a huge millet harvest in the south of the countrytold Oxfam field staff that they intended to grow more co tton in placeof this food crop the following year, because it would be collected bythe State at harvest time instead of sitting in their granaries waiting fora buyer. Also, they would receive a guaranteed price for it from theState 11. Grass roots observations such as these from Africa areparalleled in India: Oxfam's Field Director in Gujarat writes that "richerfarmers in many States have increasingly gone for cash crops andneglected food cropping. Here in Gujarat the State is deficient in foodproduction because of this" 12.Over the last twenty years Africa has doubled its sugar cane output,and tea production has quadrupled 13. Many of these increases andthose of other export crops are due to higher yields, as a result of theintensified research that has been carried out on these crops asopposed to food crops. They are also due to an expansion of the areaunder cash crops: more than a quarter of the land on which crops aregrown in the Third World today is given over to non-food crops. Thearea of land under soya-bean cultivation in India, primarily for export,increased five times between 1974-1982 u, while in the Philippines bythe end of the seventies one-third of all cultivated land was used togrow food for export rather than for local consumption.Another significant change in land use has been taking place with

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Harvesting millet in Burkina Faso future years may see this important food crop almost totallyreplaced by cotton14


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cattle raising. Between 1960 and 1980, exports of beef cattle fromCosta Rica, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua increased morethan five times, from 19,570 tons to 110,000 tons 15. The cattle areraised on grass rather than grain, so the meat is very lean; it is alsohalf the price of similar beef produced in the United States to wheremost of it is exported. The pressure of the debt crisis means thatthese beef exports continue to expand, resulting in less and less landbeing available for food crops.

Beef herd in Central Ame rica; exports of beef cattle from Central American countries increasedmore than five times between 1960 and 1980.But the sudden increases that were needed to generate sufficientforeign exchange could not be achieved just by changing land usefrom food crops to export crops; the poor countries also began toturn in increasing numbers to multinational companies, which couldsupply new technology and expertise. The new systems of cropproduction the companies introduced are capital intensive,needing less labour but large quantities of hybrid seeds,fertiliser, and pesticides, almost all of which have to beimported. But the majority of farmers in poor countries aresimply not in a position to buy these inputs.

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Export crops such as tea, cotton and tobacco can be verysuccessfully grown on tropical soils. Indeed, cotton has been grownover large areas with yields which are over twice the average yield inthe United States16. But such crops use up soil nutrients m uch fasterthan most food crops. If the nutrients are not replaced with regularsupplements of fertilisers, then the soil becom es infertile very quickly.The poor cannot afford to buy the fertilisers, and are not eligible forcredit: if they do attempt to grow these crops, they quickly end upwith exhausted soils.Intensification in the level of cropping can only be sustained with agreatly increased use of pesticides. Cotton, now the world's mostimportant non-food crop, covering 5% of the planet's cultivated landarea, uses more pesticides than any other crop 17. When tobacco isgrown, vast quantities of pesticides are applied virtually throughoutthe crop's seven to eight months' growing cycle 18. Many of thesepesticides are dangerous if handled improperly. Indiscriminate use ofpesticides can also result in pests developing a resistance to thechemicals, so that the farmer must apply more and more powerful pesticides. Even if they are able to afford these expensive imports,poor farmers are unlikely to be able to read the instructions, to be ableto afford the protective cloth ing, or to have had any training in the useof the pesticides. The World Health Organisation estimates that oneperson in the developing world is poisoned by pesticides everyminute of every day. For the richer farmers and landowners,pesticides have brought immediate (though not unqualified) benefits.But these have largely failed to trickle down to the poor 19.More than half the population of the Third World depend on the landfor their livelihood. The majority simply cannot afford imported seeds,fertilisers and pesticides. These capital intensive approaches aregenerally inappropriate for the majority of farmers, who get trappedinto indebtedness as they try to compete. In Brazil, the large sugarcane growers purchase more land from small food growers, who endup as wage labourers on someone else's land, or are forced off thefertile land altogether. Sometimes this has involved brutal evictions.The system leads inexorably to ever larger farms: in North East Brazil,9% of landowners now possess more than 80% of the land, withmechanisation resulting in fewer and fewer people employed in full-time agriculture 20. The poor have become rapidly poorer, andtheir one lifeline to survival the food that they grow and eat has been taken aw ay from them .16


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Spray ing tobacco with pesticides in Sri Lanka ; vast quan tities of pesticides are applied totobacco throughout its seven to eight month growing cycle.17


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Food productionWhile more land continues to be given over to export crops, andresearch continues to be directed towards increasing production ofthese crops, per capita production of food crops for localconsumption has been falling throughout the Third World.

Maize crop decimated by drought in Kenya.Africa has suffered a consistent decline in per capita food productionsince 1970, and the rate of decline is increasing every year. WhileZimbabwe had to import 400 ,000 tonnes of maize in 1984 to feed thepopulation, the Deputy Minister of Agriculture was able to announce arecord harvest of tobacco, cotton and soya-beans for export, dueprimarily, he said, to larger acreages having been planted 21. Kenyasuffered from severe drought in many parts of the country in the sameyear and, at the time of writing this report, the food harvest looked atgreat risk. But an Oxfam consultant pointed out that the parts of thecountry where rainfall almost always remains sufficient are the areaswhere export crops are grown

22. These crops are increasingly luxuryitems for the European market such as strawberries and asparagus.

Today, by far the majority of all developing countries are regular net18


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importers of grain. In 1960, the Third World as a whole imported 20million tonnes of grain; the figure has now risen to more than 100million tonnes a year.Poor countries are doubly caught. While prices for the crops theyexport have been falling, they are also paying very high prices for theirgrain imports. The World Bank estimates that in 1981 developingcountries paid 10-15% more than the average best market rates fortheir grain imports: without qu ick and reliable market information, theywere unable to buy at the right m oment. This "added around threebillion dollars to their food bill that year.Green Revolution: no answer for the poorFaced with these increasing bills for imported food, many countriesworried about local food needs have used the export crop technologyfor a quick increase in food production for local consumption. Thiswas the so-called Green Revolution, using scientifically developedvarieties of wheat, maize and other foodgrains.The new techniques certainly succeeded in producing more food inIndia, the Philippines, Mexico and many other countries, and continueto do so today. The new varieties are extremely responsive tofertilisers and have made investment in these inputs very profitable. Infact, crop production rapidly became so profitable that intensecompetition for land ensued, bringing about even more concentrationof property. In many cases some of them extremely violent landowners became direct producers themselves, dismissing theirtenants and taking the land under direct cultivation. The formertenants have become seasonal wage labourers. In other countrieswhere small farmers have retained access to the land but have lackedcapital to buy the inputs, they have sometimes found the new seedsworse than their traditional seeds.The Organisation of Rural Associations for Progress, a partner ofOxfam in Zimbabwe, found that the new varieties only give their bestwhen they are combined with large amounts of fertiliser and water."Since the majority of our peasant farmers cannot afford the wholepackage of seed, fertilisers and irrigation, the hybrid seed has tendedto yield less than the traditional varieties. Unless the presentadvocates of hybrid-fertilisers training schemes are prepared tosupply better land and irrigation facilities, they have to realise that theyare partly responsible for (village families') vulnerability and starvationin times of drought."23

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Within recent years, for any new variety to be released it needs toyield at least as much as traditional varieties under traditionalcircumstances. But factors other than yield do not seem to have beengiven sufficient emphasis.SR52 is a variety of maize introduced into Southern and East Africawhich yields as much as traditional varieties. But the leaves whichshield the cob very tightly on the traditional maize do not completelycover it with SR52: as a result, beetles attack and rip the cob toshreds 24.Almost all the new varieties were only developed to produce higheryields; it is only in the last few years that plant breeders have startedto test with regard to cooking, storage and even whether the newvariety is actually edible or not.Although it has become technically possible for those farmers withcapital to grow more food, in fact food is not often chosen as a crop.While a rural family with secure use of a piece of land will be likely togrow the food they need before they consider any other crops, thesame land in the hands of a landlord will be used to grow whatever ismost profitable. This is unlikely to be food for local consumption,since many governments choose to keep food prices as low aspossible to satisfy the non-producing but always potentiallytroublesome urban dwellers. As the cities of the Third World continueto grow, especially in Latin America, this practice has becomeincreasingly expensive and the target of much international criticism.The World Bank recently encouraged many countries in Africa toincrease the price farmers receive for their food crops, as an incentivefor them to grow more food. But unlike export crops which arebought by the State or directly by a multinational company, most foodcrops in Africa are sold on the open market to private traders or to the.consumer. This makes official government prices for food mostlyirrelevant. And for countries faced with a heavy debt burden, it hasbeen simply impossible to encourage the production of food ratherthan a crop which will earn foreign exchange.But even in those countries which have succeeded in growing morefood, this has not, in itself, solved the problem of getting food into themouths of those w ho need it. In India, the food harvest has increasedenormously; the harvest is generally sufficient to meet market needs,yet millions of people are malnourished, unable to afford marketprices. Barry Underwood, Oxfam's Field Director in Gujarat, explains:20


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"The poor farmers and the landless hardly get a look in. They aretreated as som ething separate from the overall 'strategy', and at bestthey receive some 'bandaid' treatment from Government agencies orother donor agencies"25. Oxfam's Field Director in Calcutta, TonyVaux, concurs: "To service the debt, projects which mightconceivably have benefited the poor are cut back, except whereother aid sources can be found"26.With land and resources in the Third World increasingly devoted toexport crops, the poor are being denied the possibility of growingtheir own food. In global terms, food supplies in the middle of 1983were at record high levels. But more and more of the poor are unableto buy the food which others have grown. We are forced to concludethat an increase in food production, no matter how great, cannot initself solve the problem of hunger, which is caused by lack of accessto that food or to the resources to produce it.

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LOADED DICE:THE TERNS OF TRADEIt did not take long for the world's poor countries to discover thatincreased national production of export crops was not going to resultin the increase in national income which could have been anticipated.By 1982, world prices for the raw materials exported from the ThirdWorld were at their lowest level for fifty years.Much of the problem is due to the extreme vulnerability which resultsfrom concentrating on just a few commodities. Nine countries inAfrica are dependent on just one crop for over 70% of their incom e27 .60% of Bangladesh's export earnings come from selling jute or juteproducts 28; almost 9 0% of Burundi's come from coffee 29. To be soreliant on just one commodity is to be in a very weak bargainingposition.By 1981, it took one Latin American country almost ten times asmuch beef to buy a barrel of oil as it did in 1973 30. Similarly, profitsfrom the export of one tonne of bananas at the end of the seventieswere only enough to purchase half as much steel as they bought tenyears earlier31. Any price rises for individual commodities that occurare patchy and are invariably not sustained.But while falling prices result in even greater export crop production,with consequent strains on domestic food production, it is pricefluctuations which make economic planning a nightmare for theexporting countries. With so many countries being encouraged toproduce the same export crops (those which are wanted in the richcountries), it is easy to set them in competition against each other.The result is that companies in rich countries can stop buying fromone country temporarily, to force prices down.One classic example occurred in 1975: the United States bought 100million dollars' worth of sugar from Brazil but the following yearbought none and, instead, increased sugar purchases from thePhilippines three times over. In the same tw o year period, exactly thesame thing happened with cotton : the United States purchased 50%less Mexican cotton and 90% less Pakistani cotton than it had theprevious year, but bought four times as much Indian cotton 32. Such22


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Purchasing powerof developing country exportsBeef One barrel of oil

1971

Beef

1981 s K

1980 f

~7

One barrel of oil

BananasProfit from 1 tonne One steel bar

7

BananasProfit from 1 tonne Half a steel bar

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practices may keep prices low for the purchaser, but five-year plansbecome meaningless if a government does not know what its budgetis likely to be from one year to the next.Faced with falling prices and fluctuating markets, even those ThirdWorld governments wh ich are concerned by what is happening to thepoor in their countries have to export even more, if they are not to beeven more in debt. Oxfam's former Field Director for coastal WestAfrica, Wyndham James, reports that Guinea Bissau has seen nooption but to ban the sale of peanuts locally, so that the absolutemaximum can be exported M .But peanuts are a crucial source of protein locally at key times of theyear especially for ch ildren: their disappearance from markets is likelyto have a serious impact on nutrition levels. And what happens toGuinea Bissau's peanuts? Most of them come to Europe to feed ourpigs and our cows.So the poor have been left to fend for themselves, and foodproduction has been left to stagnate but all for no thing, if nationalincome levels from rising exports are not going to cover the cost ofdebts and imports.

The poor have been left to fend for themselves with no land, increasing unemployment andever-rising food prices, millions are forced to scratch a living wherever they can.24


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AID UNDER ATTACKThe poorest countries with little to export still need to import a varietyof products from industrialised countries, as well as increasinglyexpensive fuel. They are generally not deemed creditworthy by thebanks, because they have such a low capacity for generating foreignexchange and have becom e dependent on foreign aid to finance theirdevelopment schemes. But at the very moment when their needswere greatest, with inflation pushing up the cost of their imports andwith oil prices rising so drastically, the flow of external aid began tofall.The amount of official development assistance from Westernindustrialised countries has stagnated since 1980. In 1983, it actuallyfell 1 % from the previous year34 . Aid from OPEC countries hadincreased substantially after the oil price rises, but this also fell in 1983to almost 20% less than the previous year35. Only aid from EasternEurope increased during 1983, but the total figure remainscomparatively low when expressed as a percentage of GrossNational Product: the Eastern Bloc has never accepted any generalresponsibility for aid to the Third World.In the United Kingdom, public spending cuts have hit the budget ofthe Overseas Development Administration harder than mostGovernment departments. In 1983 the share of our national incomegoing in aid dropped to almost the lowest level for twenty years.But of course, it is not just the quantity of aid which is significant, butthe quality. We now know that aid given to one section of thepopulation may directly damage the interests of another, but a largeproportion of British aid is still being disbursed without properappraisal of its impact on the poor. In many cases, too, aid is beingused primarily to w in export contracts for this country by tying the aidto the purchase of British goods which are not necessarily the mostsuitable.The age-old tradition of using aid as political largesse rather than asassistance to the world's poor continues, with particularly tragicexamples today. The needs of Ethiopia's 40 million citizens are

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immense, but the country only received 3.4 million in aid from Britainin 1983 (the same amount as the Seychelles received that year fortheir population of 60,000).At the same time as bilateral aid was being cut or increasingly usedfor political ends, those multinational agencies with the specificobjective of helping the poorest countries have been coming undersharp attack, just when the poor are so much in need of assistance.The International Development Association is the soft-loan affiliate ofthe World Bank, giving interest-free loans over a fifty-year period tothe poorest countries; at the start of 1984, the United States reducedits own contribution and despite an initiative led by Sir GeoffreyHowe used its political power to persuade other donors to keepthe total down.So even the very poorest countries that were not caught in the banks'debt trap have seen their own development schemes hit by fallinglevels of aid, while commercial and narrow political considerationshave been given even greater priority, at the expense of the relief ofpoverty. Once again, the needs of the poorest have been largelyignored.

Food Aid: going against the grainWith our grain production increasing so rapidly, it is usually assumedthat sending food directly to poorer nations can only do good: afterall, what could be more logical than to transfer our market surplus toareas of greater need?The major problem is that about 70% of all such food aid goes directlyto governments, who then sell it to those who can afford to buy it(usually not the poor) and keep the money to supplement theirbudge ts. Some governments have come to rely on these food salesfor a significant part of their revenue; it is not in their interests to haveagricultural policies which would stimulate greater food productionand thereby lose this part of their revenue.Only 10% of food aid goes to where it is most needed: for emergencyrelief. The priority given to helping people in these desperatesituations is low, and the food often arrives late: when a millionGhanaians were expelled from Nigeria at the start of 1983, Oxfamfield staff reported that m ost people were already back in their villagesbefore the food aid had even arrived in the country. In the summer of1984, Ethiopia urgently needed 441,000 tonnes of grain to avoid26


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widespread starvation. But at the time of writing this report, only afraction of the desperately needed relief food had been dispatched.Oxfam's food aid consultant, Tony Jackson, says that while food aidhelps get rid of our own market gluts and can certainly help thepoorest at times of emergency, "it doesn't address the basic problemof why food is not being grown where it is needed, and in fact it stopspeople even considering the issue, by allowing them to think that theproblem has been solved".

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PASSING THE BUCK:THE INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUNDWhile changes in agriculture which the Third World had hopedwould generate more foreign exchange were failing to increaserevenue sufficiently, the, second oil price rise in 1979 was finallyenough to persuade the leaders of the rich world that they had to act.Poor countries that were by now hopelessly in deb t had not managedto export enough to cover their import needs, as well as repay thecommercial loans they had taken out.Governments from the rich world feared the collapse of theinternational financial system, but were unwilling to give or lend anymore. A summit of Western political leaders held in Venice in 1979recognised that they had to do something, but decided not to tacklethe debt crisis themselves. Instead, they remitted the entire problemto the International Monetary Fund, despite the fact that the IMF wasequally inexperienced in dealing with a problem of this kind. But it wasthe only choice offered to poor countries, who were left with nowhereelse to turn.The IMF's role has traditionally been to help redress short-term balance of payments problems of industrialised countries. It was notestablished as a development agency, and its staff have consistentlydenied any responsibility for aiding development36. Critics of thedecision to involve the IMF argue that if prices for oil and other importsremain high, and prices for export crops remain low, then the ThirdWorld's balance of payments is always going to be difficult.Developing countries are not facing the kind of short-term financialhiccough in which the IMF specialises, but a long-term structuralproblem.But the poor countries are not just worried about the appropriatenessof the IMF's experience. They are equally concerned by the powerbalance within the structure. All member countries of the IMF areallocated quotas, based on features such as the size of theireconom ies and their participation in world trade. It is this quota whichdetermines a country's voting strength in the Fund. Today, 77% ofIMF members are non-oil exporting developing countries, but theirvoting strength is only 30% 37. In contrast, the seven nations attending28


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the 1984 Western economic summit in London control 46% of thevote. This means that the policies of the IMF are effectively those ofthe governments of the rich world.The IMF does not have anything like the financial reserves necessaryto tackle the balance of payments problems facing so much of theThird World. But a solution of sorts was found: commercial banksstopped all loans to developing countries unless they adopted an IMFprogramm e of adjustment to the economy, and obtained the Fund'sseal of approval. The IMF refers to this as "the catalytic effect theFund can have in helping to unlock additional finance from otherexternal creditors"38.Since 1983, any increase in commercial bank lending to the ThirdWorld has been almost entirely due to rescheduling of existing debt,under the auspices of IMF agreements. Ghana's Finance andPlanning Secretary, Dr Kwesi Botchway, recently stated that Ghanacould not find help anywhere until it went to the IMF: they had beenleft "no realistic alternative"3g .But when we begin to look at the economic adjustment programmeswhich the IMF has introduced into the ThirdWorld, it quickly becomesclear that their solution for the debt crisis is no different from theirsolution for short-term hiccoughs in rich countries. Their adjustmentprogramm es aim to reduce expenditure and at the same time to buildup the productive base of the economy40 . But when the starting po intis a very low level of income for the poor, then any austerity measuresrisk catastrophic consequences for those at the bottom of the pile.Adjustment programmes generally include, in part, import reductionswhich lead to reduced economic activity and higher unemployment.They also include credit ceilings being imposed on both the publicand the private sectors 41; in the short term, at least, this increasesunemployment and reduces real wages. Government expenditure isreduced, and the targets of such cuts are invariably the socialservices and food subsidies. IMF staff accept that their programmesare unlikely to be 'distributionally neutral'"2, and it is the poor who areleast able to protect themselves against such cuts. Third Worldcountries have no welfare state and, for those millions of familiesalready living below the poverty line, the IMF's lack of 'distributionalneutrality' does not just mean temporary discomfort. It meanshunger, often with permanent effects.But it is not just the austerity measures which affect the poor. A s far

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as food needs are concerned, the major result of an IMFintervention in the Third World is the acceleration of changesin agricultural practices, resulting in even greaterconcentration on crops for export, at the expense of foodcrops for local consumption.Clearly, the economists in Washington and the governments of therich world which decide the policies of the IMF do not believe thatthere is a structural problem. Abysmal terms of trade do not seem toconcern them. It was not until September 1984 that an IMF annualreport made a point of criticising the effect of the US budget deficitand the resultant high interest rates. In the same month, the WorldBank added its powerful voice to the growing body of criticism of thepresent handling of the debt crisis. Can it be right for the world'spoorest people to be asked to tighten their belts even more? We shalllook at some effects of the IMF's programme in the next chapter.

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FULL FIELDSBUT EMPTY STOMACHSIt does not look as if the IMF 'solution' of increasing exports evenmore will ever be able to counterbalance the effects of appallingterms of trade and high interest rates. But even if it could succeed, itis still legitimate to ask: can it be right to make the world'spoorest people pay for a crisis that they had no part increating?Despite public lip-service to food self-sufficiency, national foodstrategies in the Third World are left to one side, and agriculturalproduction is geared to generating foreign exchange. The poor areleft to manage as best they can on already vulnerable and poor qualityland on which export crops cannot be grown. They struggle everyyear to produce enough food to feed themselves and their families,but more and more of them are failing to do so.They are forced to take more from the soil than they should, while notpossessing the resources to put back the necessary nutrients withmanure or chemical fertilisers. The land is not being allowed time toregenerate, and the protective top cover is not being restored. Waterand wind erosion gradually thin the topsoil, and every year 80,000square miles (the area of England and Scotland combined) of oncefertile land declines to a point where it will no longer yield anything 43.Migration: the final solutionOn arid land along the edge of deserts like the African Sahara, poorfarmers have no choice left to them but to encroach onto thetraditional land of the pastoralists. Their flexible grazing system isbased on tracking down pockets of good pasture created bylocalised showers; they need access to large areas of this marginalland for their system to work. But, compressed onto ever smallerareas, the crucial flexibility of their system has been limited and, withit, their ability to withstand erratic rainfall or drought. As more andmore of the poor are left with no choice but to attempt to grow theirfood on marginal arid land, the pastoralists' system becomes lessand less workable 44.

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Every year, 80,000 square miles of once fertile land declines to a point where it w ill no longeryield anything.In other parts of the world, poor farmers have begun to exploit tropicalforests in a manner that simply cannot be sustained. This has beengoing on for decades, but now governments are searching for placesto relocate the poor for wh om there is no longer any room on thefertile land, and are actively prom oting the migration of impoverishedpeasants into lowland forest zones. Small-scale farming has becomethe major factor in the destruction of the world's forests. As everlarger numbers of peasants have been pushed into the forests bycircumstances beyond their control, less forest land is available; thesystem the farmers practise becomes more intensive, the soilbecomes exhausted and quickly degenerates into scrub. In thePhilippines alone, over 2,000 square miles of forest are permanentlyabandoned every year after the soil has been exhausted beyondrecovery. The Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that morethan 43,000 square miles of forest worldwide are being cleared eachyear to make way for agriculture. Tropical forests harbour more thantwo-fifths of the world's plants and animal species, they contain four-fifths of the world's land vegetation; they help regulate the climate,and they keep rivers running throughout the year. But with growingpressures on them , they look likely to be all but destroyed w ithin thelifetime of our children45 .32


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Sm all-scale farming has be come the major factor in the destruction of the w orld's forests.33


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Other farmers who cannot participate in cash crop productionbecause of their poverty take the road which leads to the city. Theworld 's largest urban areas are increasingly in the Third World, wherecities are growing at almost twice the rate of overall populations.London, which was the world's second largest city as recently as1950, will not even rank among the 25 largest by the end of thecentury46. Over half of the population of Latin America are now urbandwellers 47, as are 38% of Zaire's and Egypt's populations. Once inthe cities, the poor may still look for seasonal work on nearbyagricultural land; they may find other low wage labour; they mayremain unemployed; or they may send their children out to work. Thenumber of children who make their living on Brazil's city streets hasrisen 90% in the last three years, to more than 30 million48 . The hugenumber of urban poor no longer growing their own food creates anadditional burden on national food production which must now makesome attempt to feed these people. In 1978, a survey of LatinAmerican cities showed that 6 0% of the expenditure of households inthe lowest income categories went on food and beverages4g. Such ahigh percentage of an already minimal income makes the poorespecially vulnerable to the sorts of price rises which the IMF hasencouraged, making it ever more difficult for them to get the foodwhich their families need.In the 1960s the predominant development philosophy was the'trickle down1 theory: wealth injected into a country, stimulatingeconomic grow th, would eventually trickle down to the poorest. Mostobservers now agree that this 'trickle down' of wealth simply hasn'tworked the poor on the whole do not benefit from developmentachievements. Oxfam's Campaign Manager, John Clark, points out:"What we're witnessing today is the successful working of anothertype of 'trickle down', the trickle down of poverty. Through the IMFausterity conditions, through a transfer from food to export crops,through spiralling food prices and plummeting wages, the impact ofthe debt crisis is successfully trickling down to the poorest of thepoor".The poor may not have benefited from development efforts; theydidn't create the debt crisis, but now they are paying for it.

Predictable ill healthActual starvation is still rare in the world, even among children, but it isestimated that 500 million people are suffering from malnutrition, a34


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The number of children who make their living on Brazil's city streets has risen to more than30 million in the last three years.35


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lack of calories 50. It is not a question of people eating the 'wrong'food. The poor just do not have enough to eat.Such shortages affect children most acutely, since a young childneeds twice as much protein and three times as many calories as anadult, per kilo of body weight51. This lack of food increases both thefrequency and the severity of disease: children with even moderatemalnutrition are three times more likely to contract diarrhoealinfections, and up to ten times more likely to die from simple diseaseslike measles. 97% of the world's infant deaths (that is, under 1 year)and 98% of the world's child deaths (1 -4 years) occur in the ThirdWorld 52.Commenting on these quite unnecessary levels of sickness anddeath, an Indian magazine declares its belief that w e are already in themiddle of the Third World War: "A war waged in peacetime, withoutprecedent, and involving the largest number of deaths and the largestnumber of soldiers without uniform"53.ReactionWhat kind of world is it that seeks a solution to its sophisticatedproblems of high finance by taking away food from the poor? Lessand less land is available for food production in the Third World; littleinvestment is made to increase food crop yields in the countrieswhere food is most needed; food prices are rising; wages are falling.Who can blame the poor if they object? They are being m ade to paythe price of a crisis which they had no part in creating.Oxfam offices in Latin America are reporting dramatic stories aboutthe reaction of the poor to this imposed hunger: food riots resulting in60 deaths in the Dominican Republic; crowds of hungry peopleraiding supermarkets at night in Brazil; street demonstrations andmarches in Mexico; food riots in Haiti. With traditional means ofsurvival being taken away from the poor, their reaction is notsurprising: what was once a struggle for justice and a fairerdistribution of food, land and power is increasingly becoming a fightfor survival.Many governments are responding with repression. The Third Worldis currently importing nearly 25 billion dollars' worth of armamentsfrom the major industrialised countries 54. Increasing proportions ofthe weapons and technologies they are importing are designed tocontrol hungry and angry citizens: riot weapons, crowd monitoring36


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equipment, computerised intelligence networks, prison and tortureequipment M .World arms exports are dominated by sales from the USA and USSR,but the leading suppliers of this specialised repressive technology arethe United States and Britain. 350 people are employed at theMinistry of Defence to sell our weapons. 77% of British arms exportsare to the Third World 56, and it is a British company which holds thedubious distinction of having been the first to develop a vehiclespecifically to 'deter' riots: the AMAC-1 has nineteen weapon points,four multiple grenade launchers, a water cannon, an infra-red videocamera for surveillance, and its body-work can be electrified with a7,000 volt charge. It was advertised by its makers early in 1984 as"the ultimate riot deterrent"57.Twenty-five countries which have had to reschedule their foreigndebts since 1981 spent 11 billion dollars in the preceding five yearson equipment like this to repress their own hungry citizens 58.

Many governments are responding with repression. Since 1976 approximately 35,000 peoplehave disappeared in Guatem ala, which Amnesty International has accused of being the mostconsistent and brutal violator of human rights in Latin A merica.

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THE NEED FOR CHANGEIt is important to remember that these are complex issues: there areno simple solutions. Nonetheless, 500 million people theequivalent of the total population of Europe are being denied oneof the most basic human needs: food. For any change to take place,we must first recognise that it is the present system of world foodproduction and distribution which is failing disastrously.The world 's poor are being brought into a world food system in wh ichthe crude power of economic forces prevails over all moralconsiderations. All that the poor are offered is food grown elsewhereat a price they cannot afford. The poor could grow the food theyneed, if we could only get the system off their backs. Instead,our taxes continue to subsidise the market gluts of the rich world.

. It appears that governments of the world's rich countries are unwillingto negotiate meaningfully on the key issues which would allowgovernments of the poor to work towards food self-sufficiency for all.Without change in the world trade system, producers will never get afair return for their commodities. Without change in the terms of loanrepayments, the poor's food supply will remain in jeopardy. Withoutchange in aid programmes, smaller farmers' attempts to grow theirown food w ill become increasingly unsuccessful. And without changein the agricultural policies of the rich world , poor countries w illcontinue to be encouraged to produce more and more export cropsto help us create market gluts.This report has concentrated on the need for change in theinstitutions controlled by the rich. But, were such changes to takeplace, then it would be up to Third World governments to instituteparallel changes in their agricultural policies. Agrarian reform basedon the needs of the poor. Pricing strategies that would encouragefood production. Greater access to agricultural credit and inputs forthe poor. More research on food production. And more resources forthe redistribution of grain harvests from surplus areas of a country todeficit communities. Such moves are essential, but can only comeabout in a significant way if they are preceded by change in the rich.It's our decision.38


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IHE CHALLENGE FORIn this report we identify five main areas, five forces, by which we inBritain in particular are connected with the Crisis of Hunger. We arenot suggesting that this is a complete list, but we are convinced thatthese areas need special and urgent attention.Oxfam does not have the answers. We do not know exactly how theinstitutions and policies should be reformed to lessen the oppressionof poverty, but we are certain that, through these five forces, oursociety is contributing to the creation and maintenance of hunger inthe world and that this is morally indefensible.Of course, Oxfam and other organisations have put forward andwill continue to do so arguments for reform, calls for change. Thereare a number of campaigns relating to these proposals. We aresuggesting here some new initiatives, and some strengthening ofexisting calls.The five areas of focus are:DebtRemoving the burden of the debt crisis and crippling interest ratesfrom the shoulders of the very poor.In particular Removing IMF austerity conditions which lead to the poor havingeven less food. Protecting poor countries from fiercely crippling interest charges. Reforming the international financial institutions (especially theIMF) or, if this is not feasible, creating new structures that cancope sensitively with the crisis of poverty.

Renewing the imperative for official Government aid: that it should bea powerful weapon in the fight against poverty and hunger in the39


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world and not an instrument for furthering our political andcommercial self-interests.In particular Increasing the level of appropriate Government aid. Targeting a much greater proportion of this aid to the directneeds of the poor and especially to the fundamental problem offighting hunger. Reforming food aid so that it is more freely available when neededin times of emergency or special needs, but so that it does notinterfere with the production and distribution of basic food needsin developing countries. Giving paramount consideration to social issues (particularly the

impact on women and children) and to environmental factors inthe planning of any aid project.TradeImproving the terms of trade so that the poor are no longer exploitedin the world market place.In particular Setting up com modity agreements that ensure reasonable pricesfor Third World commodities. Supporting mechanisms that limit the drift towards more andmore export crop production, and greater competition betweendeveloping countries. Contributing to the establishment of clear and binding ethicalcodes governing the operations of international companies,particularly in the fields of food and commodity production and

marketing. Reducing the barriers to trade with developing countries(especially in processed and semi-processed commodities).Agricultural Policies of the NorthReforming our agricultural system so that it is no longer so wastefuland so draining on the world's food and such a heavy burden on thehungry.In particular Increasing self-sufficiency by using land to grow Europe's needs,40


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not food that is destroyed or wastefully used to feed animals. Reducing dependency on exotic animal feeds such as soya fromBrazil, groundnuts from West Africa, cassava from Thailand andanchovies from Peru. These feeds contribute to growingsurpluses and drain nutritious foods from developing countries. Ending the dumping of sugar and other comm odities on theworld market, depressing world prices of commodities on whichtrade poor countries may depend.

Arms TradeEncouraging a transfer of spending from the Arms Race toDevelopment.In particular Cutting out Government encouragement for arms-dealing withthe Third World (e.g. through the Defence Sales Organisation andexport fairs). Carefully restricting the export of repressive arms and equipmentlikely to be used for quelling internal disturbance caused by theanger of the hungry.Ten years from now, no child NEED go to bed hungry. Nofamily SHOU LD have to fear for the next day's b read . But willthey?

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A CASE STUDY:BRAZILBrazil is one of the largest food exporters in the world, yet the countryhas huge levels of malnutrition. One Oxfam survey in Ceara Stateshowed tha t about half the children under five were malnourished 59.Another survey described 70% malnutrition in North East Brazil.Some areas report 25% infant mortality rates.It wou ld be easy to say that these unprecedented levels of hunger arecaused by drought, but if we look a little closer we see how simplisticthat would be. North East Brazil seems to experience a drought every7-10 years; the impact of this one is different for several inter-relatedreasons:

The debt crisis has gripped. While interest rates were lower,the Brazilian Government felt able to make the repayments, butas US prime rates shot higher and higher it became impossiblefor Brazil to pay the interest charges w ithout massive changes inits economy. In order to reschedule its debts , the Brazilian Governmentnegotiated with the IMF. The terms of the agreement includedswingeing austerity measures. The largest package, agreed inJune 1983, chopped more than 2 billion dollars off governmentspending, and ended the indexing of wages to cost-of-living 60.The wages of the poor (that is, those lucky enough to have jobs)started to plummet. Hyper-inflation ensures that the poor pay a disproportionateshare of the debt crisis, even though they were never thebeneficiaries of loans in the first place. In a twelve-month periodfood prices rose 310%, while wages rose just 175% 6 \ Millionsof the poor can no longer afford to buy staple foods like beansand rice. There is a rapid shift in land use from growing local food togrowing cash crops for export. The acreage of land growingoranges has increased by 6% over the last two years; in contrastthe amount of land under maize has decreased by almost 6%since 1981, and land under rice has decreased 10% during the

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100%

908070605040302010

same period 62. In addition, there has been the enormousGasohol programm e where sugar cane is converted into alcoholto fuel cars, in an attempt to cut petroleum imports (abouttwo-thirds of Brazilian cars now run on alcohol). 1984's tradesurplus will be double the previous year's, but the savings will allbe swallowed up by interest repayments on debts.

These are the factors which have really hit the poor. The wealthiest20% of the population of Brazil now has an income that is 33 timesgreater than that of the poorest 20% the widest income disparity ofany country in the world M . Even larger numbers of poor farmers andfarm labourers are being squeezed off the land, and are flocking toshanty towns outside the sprawling cities. Their food situation isgetting desperate. Mothers are forming together in gangs and, ratherthan see their children starve, they are looting supermarkets for food.Sao Paulo sees one such raid every night. Some parents, unable toprovide food, are abandoning their small children to die.The Growing Burden of Brazil's Foreign Debt

Debt servicing ratio*89

The debt servicing ratio is the cost of debt servicing(capital repayments plus interest payments)expressed as a percentage of export earnings.

1973 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 8343


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Notes and References

1. Nigel Twose, 'Drought and the Sahel: why the poor suffer most', Oxfam 1984.2. Wo rld Deve lopment Report 1984', World Bank, Oxford University Press 1984.3. Susan George and Nigel Paige, 'Food for Beginners', Writers and Readers 1982, P.68.4. Ibid.5. Ibid.6. 'Population Misconceptions', Population Concern 1984.7. Anthony Sampson, 'The Money Lenders', Hodder & Stoughton 1981 .8. Ibid.9. Ibid.10. The banks claimed that their risks were higher.11. Nigel Twose, 'Drought and the S ahel', op.cit.12. Personal correspondence, July 1984.13. Calculated from FAO production yearbooks.14. Ibid.15. Calculated from Norman Myers' 'The Primary Source', Norton 1984, P.132.Since the 1979 revolution in Nicaragua, cattle exports have dropped markedly and foodproduction has increased.16. R. Goodland, C. Watson and G. Ledec, 'Environmental Manag ement in TropicalAgriculture', Westview Press 1984.17. Ibid.18. Ibid.19. David Bull, 'A Growing Problem', Oxfam 1982.20 . 'An Unnatural Disaster: drought in North East Brazil', Oxfam 1984.21. Zimbabwe Herald, 25.7.84.22 . Internal Oxfam report by Brian Hartley, June 1984.23 . ORAP development seminar background paper, April 1984.24. Personal correspondence from grain storage consultant John Rowley, August 1984.25. Personal correspondence, July 1984.26. Personal correspondence, July 1984.27. Calculated from FAO trade yearbooks, and Economist Intelligence Unit quarterly reports.28. Ibid.

29. Personal correspondence from Oxfam Field Director for Burundi, Whitney Garberson,August 1984.30. 'The State of the En vironment 1984', United Nations Environment Programme,Nairobi 1984.31. Ibid.32 Susan George, 'Feeding the F ew', Institute for Policy Studies 1978, P. 10.33. Personal correspondence, September 1984.34. 'World Developme nt Report 1984', op.cit.35. Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, 'West A frica' magazine,2.7.84.36. Graham Bird, 'The International Monetary System and the Less Developed Countries',Macmillan 1982, P.11.37. Tony Killick, 'The Quest for Econom ic Stabilisation', Heinemann/ODI 1984.38. J. de Larosiere, 'Current Policies of the IMF: Fact and Fiction', IMF, Washington, 1983,P.5.39. Interviewed in 'South' magazine, July 1984.44


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Further Reading

FOODFood for Beginners: George, S. and Paige, N. Writers and Readers Collective, London.Food First: Moore Lappe, F. and Collins, J. Souvenir Press, London.Against the Grain the dilemm a of project food aid: Jackson, T. and Eade, D. Oxfam 1982.Food Poverty and Power: Buchanan. Russell Press, Nottingham, 1983.Feeding the Few: George, S.Pelican.How the Other Half Dies: George, S. Institute for Policy Studies, (available from Third WorldPublications, Birmingham.)Seeds of Plenty, Seeds of Want: Pearse, A. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1980.Poverty and Famines an essay on entitlement and deprivation: Amartya Sen.Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1981.NORTH-SOUTHBrandt Report I: North-South a P rogramme for Survival: Brandt Commission, Pan 1980.Brandt Report 2: Common Crisis Co-operation for W orld Recovery: Brandt Commission,Pan 1983.The Brandt Report Study Pack. Oxfam 1980.IM FThe Quest for Economic Stabilisation: ed. Killick, T. ODI/Heinemann 1984.The Poverty Brokers: Latin America Bureau 1983.No to Recession and Unemployment an examination of the Brazilian economic crisis:Furtado, C. Third World Foundation for Social and Economic Studies 1984.ENVIRONMENTAL IMPLICATIONSDown to Earth: Eckholm, E. Pluto Press1982.Desertification: Grainger. Earthscan 1982.A Growing Problem pesticides and the Third Woridpoor: Bull, D. Oxfam 1982.WEATHERAn Unnatural Disaster: Drought in North East Brazil. Oxfam 1984.Lessons to be Learned: Drought and Famine in Ethiopia. Oxfam 1984.Wh y the Poor Su ffer Most: Drought and the Sahel. Oxfam 1984.Disasters and Development: Cuny, F. Oxford University Press 1983.A IDReal Aid: A Strategy for Britain. Independent Group on British Aid 1982. Available fromOxfam, Christian Aid , World Development Movement, ODI.Aid is Not E nough: Britain and the Worid's Poor. Independent Group on British Aid 1982.Available as above.British Overseas Aid 1983: Overseas Development Administration. HMSO 1984.HEALTHThe State of the W orld's Children. UNICEF/Oxford University Press 1984.

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A R M A M E N T SWorld Military and Social Expenditures: World Priorities. Available from Campaign Against theArms Trade.BANKSThe Money Lenders: Sampson, A. Hodder & Stoughton 1981 .

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HUNGRY FOR CHANGEOXFAM'S CAMPAIGN FOR JUSTICE NOT HUNGEROct. 10th 1984 saw the beginning of Oxfam's major new nationalCampaign, Hungry for Change. It is a Campaign about Food andHunger, but m ore than that it's a Campaign about the world foodsystem wh ich is so obviously failing the hundreds of millions of peoplewho go hungry. It is a Campaign which believes in the power ofordinary people in the rich developed countries to help change thatsystem to the benefit of the poor.Hungry for Change offers a great challenge and a great promise:that if you and enough people like you make a stand against thisgross injustice, real change will happen the poor will have morefood. From small beginnings, groups of 10 or 20 in each town, Oxfamintends to build a movement of 1million people active and vocal in thecall for change.STARTING POINTSDeclare your support now Find out more about the Campaign Join the debate about poverty and hunger Organise your local Hungry for Change Group, work togetherand pass your feeling of commitment to others Arrange Hungry for Change meetings to see slide sets and

video films Take the Cam paign out to other people by helping with theHungry for Change surveyFor further details of these and all local Cam paign events and for supporting materialsplease contact your local Oxfam Office (address in telephone directory) or write fordetails to:The Campaigns Unit

Cultivating Hunger: An Oxfam study of food, power and poverty

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