Food Security - issues, articles, links
Venezuela pursues food sovereignty
posted 4 December 2011
Screened at the EcoCentre in November, the newly released film ‘Growing Change’ shows how food sovereignty has passionately been pursued by the citizens of Venezuela. From sprawling urban centres like Caracas, to regional communities; from fishing villages to cacao plantations; there’s been a change in mood in Venezuela as control of the food system has shifted away from corporations and back to communities.
Take the cacao (cocoa) plantation in Chuao, which is now in the hands of a co-operative of 130 people – it’s just one of a hundred thousand legally registered co-operatives that are reshaping the economic lives of Venezuelans. Around 20% of these co-ops are in agriculture. And where the buck once ended with the harvest of Chuao’s cocoa crop for export, there’s now a production plant in town, so that instead of cocoa beans being shipped offshore, all the value adding processes that go into making a complete chocolate product can be carried out locally.
Like it’s Latin American counterpart Cuba, Venezuela has also undergone a revolution in its approach to growing food in the cities, using largely organic practices. (The worm farms featured in the film beg to be seen to be believed). Food distribution has had a change of face too, with the introduction of a government supermarket chain, Mercal, selling highly discounted staple foods. Most outlets are situated in poor neighbourhoods, and in the interests of strengthening food sovereignty, Mercal has reportedly increased its proportion of domestic suppliers to 40 per cent.
It may seem far removed from Australia’s food distribution paradigm, where retail supermarket giants Coles and Woolworths have a market duopoly, but the movement towards a fairer food system in Venezuela has captured the interest of other Australians, such as Researcher Ferne Edwards, who led an Australian study tour to Venezuela in 2010. Link to Ferne's article on the movement.
'Milk Wars' - Is $1 a litre milk sustainable?
posted 22 March 2011
Dairy farmers will be paid less if the supermarket milk discounting continues, according to the testimonials of farmers and milk processors, presented at this month’s Senate inquiry into the so called ‘milk price wars.’
The enquiry looked at the impact of the major supermarkets decision to slash the retail price of home brand milk to just $1 a litre. Coles made the first move in January and was quickly followed by Woolworths. Together, these players control 70 percent of the nation’s $80 billion grocery industry.
Consumers may appear to be winning, but at what cost are these savings cuts to farmers and small retailers?
On the first day of the enquiry, Australian Dairy Farmers Christopher Griffin had this to say: “We need to focus on sustaining our critically important food producing industries, not de-valuing their products.” And this: “Milk priced at $1 per litre is simply not sustainable. Selling a product for what it costs to produce or less is unsustainable.”
In an interview on the 7.30 report prior to the enquiry, dairy farmer Marion McDonald echoed these sentiments: “For every litre of milk you have to pay the farmer's family to survive, you have to pay the processor's families to survive and also the Coles employees’ families to survive. By shrinking the size of the pie so dramatically, there just isn't enough money to go around all those families. So, at the end of the day, somebody will have to be squeezed out, “
Christopher Griffin explained the flow of prices between retailers, processors and farmers to the Senate enquiry: “Competition from unsustainably based home brand milk is taking market share away from the branded products. This reduces the amount that farmers receive from processors”.
At the senate inquiry, a representative from (processor) Norco said they could be forced to reduce the amount paid to farmers to 30c a litre, if $1 a litre milk became the norm.
Back in September 2009, Tasmanian Senator Richard Colbeck presciently commented: “Dairy farmers, as price takers, are at the mercy of a small number of large milk processing companies.”
Supermarket giant Coles claims its price slashing regime won’t harm far gate prices, countering that it has increased payment to milk processors for its generic milk - in one case, on the proviso that the processor pass on these increases to farmers. It seems this hasn’t occurred, suggesting supermarkets simply can’t distance themselves from the debate and guarantee their price-cutting actions won’t impact farmers.
Meanwhile, the ‘rock and roll’ promotion of price cuts continues and questions are raised about the long term implications for the dairy industry.
Farmers Milk Cooperative Ian Zandstra has been quoted on the dairy industry’s united front on the problem: “Dairy farmers...are united on this one. It’s because this hurts the value of one of their product by damaging it in the market place.”
Sources:
http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/content/201103/s3158093.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/03/08/3158547.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2011/s3153478.htm
http://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/article/2011/03/17/307001_dairy.html