Guest Contributors

“Food is hot.”

I get that a lot these days.

Local food, organic food, slow food, whole food, real food, sustainable food; foodsheds, food deserts, regional food; food patriotism, food justice, food rules, fair food, peak food; industrial food, genetically modified food, superfood, food sovereignty, food celebrity, Food Network; Know your farmer, Know your food: it’s all hot.

If you ask someone to imagine what hunger looks like, many people conjure up the images they have seen on TV—starving and malnourished children with distended bellies living in foreign lands. While hunger in the United States may not look the same as those images displayed on TV, hunger is an all too prevalent reality facing many of our neighbors right here at home. As Feeding America’s recently published Map the Meal Gap study shows, hunger can be found in every county, congressional district, and state in the country.

It makes sense for farm policies to encourage more labor-saving mechanization—through research, for example—and to rationalize and regularize the farm-labor market. This would be in the best interest of everyone: farm workers and farmers, plus the rural areas of the United States and Mexico that farm workers have migrated to and from.

The hoe falls in a rhythmic “thud, thud, thud” as Jane Sabbi and her sister-in-law hack at the undergrowth on Sabbi’s shaded, fertile vegetable farm. The sun is still rising in Kamuli, Uganda, and Sabbi has already cooked breakfast, washed the dishes, cleaned the goat and pig pens, and laid out several pounds of beans to dry. Still ahead: pounding amaranth, harvesting bananas, shelling beans, feeding the animals, and cooking lunch for her husband and seven children.

Do we really know the hidden cost of the food that we eat? Savoring strawberries or an orange, we generally think we are eating healthy fresh produce. Concepts such as Parkinson’s syndrome, cancer, birth defects, autism, and Lupus are the farthest thing from our minds. Yet these are some of the realities that could be awaiting farm workers after a lifetime, or even after just a few seasons, of exposure to the toxic pesticides and fertilizers used today in U.S. fields and orchards.

The Food Aid Convention (FAC) was established in 1967 as a multilateral instrument under the International Grains Agreement. Every year member states commit to provide a minimum flow of food and food-related resources to recipient countries. Since the last renegotiation in 1999, the FAC has guaranteed 5 million tons per year of food assistance.

Trophus Nyaga is a smallholder farmer in Kamwana, a village in eastern Kenya. He has two acres of land, where he plants maize, beans, millet, and sorghum. He also has avocado trees. Last year, Trophus planted maize for the short planting season, and the rains failed. He harvested less than one bag of maize, not even enough to pay for seed and fertilizer for the next planting season.

At a July 2011 congressional hearing on “The Economic Imperative for Enacting Immigration Reform,” Mayor Paul Bridges of Uvalda, GA, praised his state’s farm workers. “The Georgia peaches, strawberries, blueberries, and many other fruits and vegetables they harvest end up on family dinner tables across the country. These crops are harvested by skilled migrant farm laborers who have harvesting down to a fine art.”

Children under the age of 5 are most at risk of death from malnutrition. As Figure 4.2 shows the odds of death from diarrhea, pneumonia, malaria, and measles are higher for children under 5 who are malnourished compared to those who are properly nourished.

A catastrophe that was long forewarned is unfolding right before our eyes. The current drought in the Horn of Africa is the worst in 60 years, and the refugee situation is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. A combination of high food prices, failed rains, and continued conflict and displacement has put more than 12 million people on the brink of starvation.