Dedicated to my sparring partner AGRONOMIST
(NEW YORK, USA, September 26, 2008/African Press Organization (APO)/ — Opening remarks by H. E. M. Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann
President of the General Assembly)
The essential purpose of food, which is to nourish people , has been subordinated to the economic aims of a handful of multinational corporations that monopolize all aspects of food production, from seeds to major distribution chains, and they have been the prime beneficiaries of the world crisis. A look at the figures for 2007, when the world food crisis began, shows that corporations such as Monsanto and Cargill, which control the cereals market, saw their profits increase by 45 and 60 per cent, respectively; the leading chemical fertilizer companies such as Mosaic Corporation, a subsidiary of Cargill, doubled their profits in a single year.
At the same time , in response to the financial crisis, major hedge funds have shifted millions of dollars into agricultural products. These funds control 60 per cent of the supply of wheat and other basic grains. Most of these crops are purchased as “futures”. In other words, speculators have been increasingly active in food-related financial markets.
Consider also “we (in Aust) throw away more than $5.2 Billion dollars worth of food and drink each year” (p103 “Affluenza” Hammilton & Denniss) That is in excess of “½ billion on exercise equiptment and hardly used gym memberships” and the billions spent on back of the cupboard nearly unused parefenalia (p104 et al Affluenza”

Dear examinator,

The following website may be of interest:

http://www.panna.org/mag/fall2008/hunger/world-food-system

It's an article by Heather Pilatic, entitled,
"Food is for Eating, Not Profiteering."

In it she states:

" Over the last four decades,
international development projects
and trade policy regimes have effectively dismantled
agricultural self sufficiency and smallholder farming
in the Global South while positioning large agribusiness
corporations to profit from controlling more and more
of the world's food system

Today, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Bunge, and Cargill
control 90% of the world's grain trade. Chemical giant
Monsanto controls one-fifth of seed production while
Bayer Crop Science, Syngenta, and BASF control half of
the total agrochemical market.

This kind of corporate consolidation pays handsomely.
Since the beginning of the world food crises in 2005
ADM's profits have soared 73%, Cargill's are up to 138%,
and Bunge's increased by 105%"

Pilatic confirms that, "food prices have skyrocketed ...
to unprecedented and unsustainable levels...the net result
is that the world's poor have been priced out of the
food market, throwing nearly a billion people
who already had insufficient access to food into acute
crisis..."

However she says that solutions do exist.
"More than 400 experts spent the past four years
gathering ideas on how to ensure that agriculture
addresses world hunger, in April 2008, they laid out
their analyses in the International Assessment of
Agricultural Science, Knowledge and Technology for
Development (AASTD).

Endorsed by 58 contires, this
report calls for investment in small-scale ecological
farming. Emphasizes the need for fair trade; and
urges approaches that protect people's rights to
democratically determine food and agricultural
policies."

Whether anyone pays any attention to the report
remains to be seen.

Gee, food is being treated and traded like a common commodity?

What sacrilege.

Bugsy,
I recommend you read the question and its trick word'profiteering'. No one is saying that it's wrong to trade. The point is that when the President of UN general assembly says it with all his resources maybe... just maybe we should think about it...just a bit.
Eat and enjoy
Examinator.ant

I was under the impression that the worst Australia had to worry about on this front was the handful (so far) of farmers who've sold their souls to Monsanto, selling their neighbours' souls in the process.

Someone recently alerted me to the fact that a well known frozen food brand (Birds Eye from memory, but I could be wrong) is still promoting their product as Australan grown, which is great, but the farms are owned by Sputnik or Slotnik or whatever his name his. This is the man who drove hundreds, if not thousands, of American family farms to the wall with his corporate farming model. These are the farms which supply chains like McDonalds and can easily afford to undercut local suppliers for supermarket chains.

They own everything along the production chain, from the dirt to the processing factories to the storage and transport infrastructure, and have no qualms about chemicals in fertilizers or insecticides, the manner in which they're applied, or where the run off goes.

Operations like that seem to make our often sentimental attachment to farmers worthwhile.

Trading in food futures and hedging has been around since Roman times.

Farmers hedge their crops to guarantee a price so they can get loans. Seed companies do the same to guarantee sales etc.

Unless someone can show that somewhere people are making huge profits by distorting the market, then there is no profiteering. That the market is not socially aware or benefit everyone equally, does not mean that it is rigged.

This post is based on ignorance.