Global Food Systems
What are the pressures on global food systems?
Food prices are increasingly volatile, population growth, climate change and distribution of food is unequal globally.
How does change need to happen?
All stakeholders (producers, business people, government/health authorities and consumers) working together with joined up thinking.
How many people do global TNCs employ?
More than 1 billion.
10 global TNCs control how much of global food production?
28%
Why are there problems with the global food system?
Patterns, redistribution, market control and trade agreements.
Black Gold: How much is a coffee in Ethiopia compared to the West?
$0.12 in Ethiopia and $2.90 in the West.
Black Gold: Why is the World Trade Organisation not necessarily helpful for developing countries?
It is dominated by larger, richer, more developed countries.
Black Gold: What have colonial and post-colonial relationships with HICs caused for LICs/NEEs?
The western nations have forced developing nations to be dependent on them to survive with unequal trade relations and social, economic and poiltical policies.
Black Gold: How has Fairtrade helped developing countries?
Increased consumer awareness and labelled clearly on widely available products.
Black Gold: What cooperative was set up in Ethiopia to cut out the middle men?
Oromia Coffee Farmer's Co-operative Union
Black Gold: How does the Oromia Co-operative help?
74,000 farmers grow and roast their beans.
Why is palm oil so popular?
Its highly versatile, cheap (highest yield of any oil crop), widely available and easy to extract. The UK has 320,000 tonnes per year.
What are the environmental impacts of palm oil?
Needs constant high temperature and humidity so rainforests cleared for monoculture (13 million hectares transformed) and the chemicals used pollute water and soils so other agriculture is impossible.
How much of global palm oil is produced in Malaysia and Indonesia?
90%.
What happened in Borneo due to palm oil production?
50% decline in orangutans.
What are the social impacts of palm oil?
Land appropriation by TNCs forces locals out (violently?), lifestyle changes and locals work for low wages.
Who are the RSPO?
Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil - 2000 members in 75 countries. They reduce costs by issuing Green Palm Certificates to producers.
What is wrong with the RSPO?
They still allow the clearing of normal rainforests for palm oil production and certified plantations still have forced and child labour.
What is a banana republic?
A country whose economy is dependent on one or few commodities. This includes monocultures that exhaust the land and being entirely export operated with little benefit to the host nation.
What are the fundamentals of Fairtrade?
Fair price and cooperatives which represent the farmers, allowing control over everything, and link them to the supermarket and premiums which are reinvested in the local community.