Decisions You’ll Make
calories. The caloric (or energy) waste goes up as people overeat. In four
decades, global obesity rates have tripled. In too many countries, rates
are rising faster in children than in adults.
Our focus on endlessly ramping up food production also discounts
the drawdown of finite resources. Land used to raise animals, either
to provide pasture or to grow animal feed, comprises 75 percent of all
agricultural land. Annually, agriculture is the world’s largest consumer
of water, with irrigation accounting for some 70 percent of global fresh
water used.
Our belief in the continual need for greater production is reinforced by
a similar belief that America must feed the world. While sharing food
is laudable, it has also been a façade for self-interest. Unloading excess
food on other countries is a longtime public policy strategy to raise farm
prices domestically. More to the point, surplus food is not automati-
cally destined for those populations most in need. Government donor
programs such as “Food for Peace” must first satisfy America’s domestic
and foreign-policy objectives; addressing malnutrition is secondary.
Feeding the world from surplus is not the same as helping the
world feed itself. Mozambique, neighbor to South Africa, offers one
example. For decades, the country relied on local food sold in small
stores and open-air markets. Then came supermarkets, and with
them, food produced abroad. On a trip to the nation’s capital, Maputo,
I went with my hosts to a well-stocked modern supermarket. In the
meat department’s frozen-food section, a display case was loaded with
broilers, imported from Brazil, whose original destination was the
Middle East. When those countries refused the shipment, then—as
always happens whenever food is rejected—it was shopped to other
countries. Eventually landing in Mozambique, the meat was priced low
enough to disrupt the country’s fledgling broiler chicken sector.
More than seven in ten farms in the world are smaller than one hec-
tare (about .5 acres). Unlike in the United States, few farmers count on
an abundance of resources, massive transportation infrastructure, access
to financial capital, or farm and export subsidies. What these farmers
can offer is biological diversity and resilience built up over generations