People aren't hungry because there isn't enough food. Food corporations throw out a ton of food.
Capitalism is what is starving people
World hunger is not just about food waste but also unequal distribution on an international scale. When China develops a rice variety that grows in salty marshes or Brazil develops a soy variety that grows in savannah conditions, you give countries in the Global South the opportunity to grow food not only locally but much more productively. At that point the problem becomes a matter of solving the underlying issues with international financing, which is one of the things Michael Hudson is talking about.
This rice variety seems like a godsend even in a liberal capitalist hole like Brazil.
At that point the problem becomes a matter of solving the underlying issues with international financing, which is one of the things Michael Hudson is talking about.
But that IS the capitalism problem, no?
Show
The point was that new technologies aren't irrelevant because capitalism. Food waste and the shackles of imperialist finance affect different countries disproportionately. But the latter was always cushioned by the fact that, historically, it was straight up impossible for non temperate countries to become food sufficient. At least not in an industrial context. Every advancement in that direction for the past 60 years have created pathways that undermined the basis of imperialist finance.
Yes, if you're American you have an entire temperate continent to exploit. In these conditions it all boils down to redistribution, wether within or outside of capitalist hegemony. But if you've been Indian, Brazilian, Chinese or South African ever since the Green Revolution what you needed was new crops. Productive enough to outcompete cheap exports from the imperial core. That is why countries like Angola became interested in the Brazilian soy, and countries like Indonesia became interested in the Chinese marshy rice. This new rice that the video talks about is revolutionary for pretty much everyone.
I mean, I don't disagree that it's awesome and that waste isn't the real problem, but...
Productive enough to outcompete cheap exports from the imperial core.
The cheap exports are a result of international finance fucking over the labor in the producing countries who are locked into their shitty loans by corrupt puppets of Western imperialism. Those cheap exports are just the international trade equivalent of Loss Leaders. Making a cheaper competitor isn't going to stop the coups or the NGOs or the right wing death squads. The prohibitive problem isn't the cost, it's the barrel of the gun pointed at the third world holding them hostage to the system. If anything, I'd say this is more likely to help those states who are already exiled from the western community like DPRK, Cuba, and Venezuela.
I agree, but you need the potato to have a potato famine (read: British occupation exporting food like they did in India and other countries while the people starve)
Death to clickbait.
Especially in video form where you can't easily skim.
The internet is not a good experience no more.
The worst is when they do it with critical safety info
"The FDA just issued a safety recall on this common food item"
CDC: One Neat Trick to Not Die; Funeral Directors Hate Him
it's incredible how purchased ads trying to aesthetically appear like headlines have had such a dramatic impact on the crafting of editorial headlines.
it's almost like the NEWS under capitalism was always going to suck as the distinction between its press and advertising/marketing are functionally the same.
I know it's reddit, so who really cares, but I get a good chuckle seeing the "promoted posts" (ads) that are something like
TIL that geico has supreme insurance and I could be saving hundreds of dollars a year
but with all the comments turned off to prevent any sort of natural engagement.
It's interesting how advertising co-opts any culture around it
The US will no longer be able to dump cheap agricultural goods on developing countries thus undermining their food security and making them reliant on the exports of empire.
It'll be a good start. The most important thing though will definitely be overthrowing the evil empire which disincentivizes and works to prevent agricultural self-sufficiency across the global south (Prof. Michael Hudson has a great talk on this and more), which uses illegal sanctions and destabilization (like in Syria where they openly state the prime agricultural and oil-producing regions are specifically targeted for occupation) to manufacture famines, and which threatens the shipping lanes of the entire globe.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Its too bad topsoil degradation is accelarating. Something like this could have bought some time.
Doubling the yield is super pog especially with the coming climate crisis.
"the University of Queensland in the USA"
Yes the US loves to name things after their queen. Hope the rest of the stuff in the video isn't as inaccurate.
I found a YouTube link in your post. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
