Onward Corporate Food Crusaders!
This is the part that really gets me:
The question is, why should the private sector invest in global hunger?
"The Next Billions: Business Strategies to Enhance Food Values Chains and Empower the Poor" financed by (you guessed it) Bill Gates comes right out and says it:
"The Next Billions: Business Strategies to Enhance Food Values Chains and Empower the Poor" financed by (you guessed it) Bill Gates comes right out and says it:
Globally, 3.7 billion people are largely excluded from formal markets. This group, earning US$8 a day or less, comprises the 'base of the pyramid' (BOP) in terms of economic levels. With an annual income of US$2.3 trillion a year that has grown at 8% in recent years, this market spends US$1.3 trillion a year on food. Around 70% of the BOP (2.5 billion people) depends on the food value chain for their incomes, either directly as small scale farmers and farm laborers, or indirectly as small scale entrepreneurs... The BOP represents a fast-growing consumer market.That's right, folks. We're not concerned about feeding poor people because they're hungry. We want to feed the poor because then they'll buy more of our stuff and become yet another demographic group we can exploit.
Like I said, hardly surprising. This is corporate business mentality at its essence, in all its sickening, appalling rapaciousness. Anyone got a bucket I can throw up in?
1 comment:
There are so many major, major players involved here that I don't even know who to complain to about this. SO Effed up.
What's left? Tearing up the pavement (a la Starhawk) and growing our own vegetables in the middle of the street? Going all Seattle-WTO, picketing and breaking windows and stuff, on Wal-Mart and Costco?
Clearly, writing to Those In Power isn't helping. (Evidence: Michelle Obama plants an organic garden on the White House lawn, and then does a 180-degree rollover and gets in bed with Wal-Mart in the biggest case of organic-washing to date. WTF?!)
SO Depressing.
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