(Photo: US Food Sovereignty Alliance)
The World Food Prize is being awarded this week at a glitzy event that draws international dignitaries to Iowa and showcases Norman Borlaug, the Iowa native who founded the Green Revolution. Also being awarded are the Food Sovereignty Prize and Strong Feisty Woman Award, which honor grassroots efforts to fight hunger.
These other awards also challenge the premise of the World Food Prize, with its reliance on high-yield, genetically modified seeds. These groups, which include Occupy the World Food Prize, say the GMO model can actually increase hunger, and the goal should be to make it easier for people to produce food.
The difference in approaches is well illustrated by the people being honored. This year’s World Food Prize laureate is Indian-born plant scientist Sanjaya Rajaram, whose work in Mexico has led to wheat plants with higher yields, better able to withstand conditions. According to the World Food Prize folks, that has increased world wheat production by more than 200 million tons.
The Food Sovereignty Prize, on the other hand, will honor Palestinian and Mexican American farmers fighting for access to land and water. The first group, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, operates in Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza. Because of Israeli policies, say the prize organizers, Palestinian farmers can’t sell their produce at markets, can’t access the sea to fish, and “face the confiscation and destruction of their land and water to make way for illegal settlements.” The second group, Community to Community Development of Bellingham, Wash., works with indigenous Mexican immigrant farm workers working under prohibitive conditions.
Honoring those organizations, said the alliance, debunks the myth “that growing more food will end hunger.”
The Feisty Woman Award, given by the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, will honor organic food proponent Elizabeth Kucinich, who directs policy for the Center for Food Safety in Washington, D.C., and produced a documentary called “GMO OMG,” which tells you where she stands.
Anti-GMO groups have been increasing their presence every year during the World Food Prize, trying to call attention to alternative ways of addressing hunger. Lisa Griffin of the National Farm Family Coalition, said, “The U.S. shouldn’t tell people to give up their indigenous crops to raise GMOs.” Under free trade agreements, she noted, farmers can be penalized for saving heirloom seeds and crops. “Mexico lost one million farmers since NAFTA.”
Griffin says if industrial agriculture really ended hunger rather than concentrating wealth in the hands of a few, there wouldn’t be 1 billion hungry people. Companies that produce GMOs engineer them to become tolerant of the chemical herbicides and pesticides they also make from year to year, forcing farmers to buy new ones. Not only is that cost-prohibitive, but those chemicals are highly toxic and harm the water, said Griffin.
“We’ve appealed to the USDA and the EPA to oppose releasing these new crops, but they overlook the damage from the GMO,” she said. “Ultimately it’s about money.”
World Food Prize President Kenneth Quinn says all perspectives are welcome at its workshops. “We will address numerous issues that affect all farmers, from water shortages to soil quality,” he said. “We endeavor to bring together all stakeholders to be part of the solution to nutritiously and sustainably feed our growing population.”
But when you listen to these different groups, it’s as though they’re speaking different languages. It is possible to recognize scientific advances while addressing the bind GMOs can put small farmers in. Big ag may be here to stay, but we can work toward stricter controls on water pollution, fairer trade policies and longer resistant herbicides.
Hunger has many roots, some not agricultural. A higher minimum wage would help. So might different tax policies and tuition assistance. We should consider, weigh and care about all of them when we talk about fighting it.