p06 Food

Forel and the Food Crisis

By John Taylor; 2008 Apr 07, 18 Baha, 165 BE

 

Our policy on the Badi' Blog is first things first, always to put the most urgent issues first. Then I try to come up with a Shangri-la solution, if only in my mind.

 

Today food has jumped the queue and is crying for immediate attention. Headlines make it impossible to ignore the fact that food prices have shot through the roof. Our crops are fed by petroleum-based fertilizers, and the price of oil is skyrocketing. Food riots are breaking out in many places, and throughout history this has been the first step to revolution. Man does not live by bread alone, but without bread we there is no avoiding imminent death. For that reason, Abdu'l-Baha advised that if someone in your town has no food or shelter, we have a moral duty not to sleep until they have a meal and a bed. He also said, significantly, that whenever you see things come to such a turn that people starve, tyranny is behind it. The least I can offer are some ideas for eradicating the long-term causes of this problem.

 

The roots of this crisis are unusually clear-cut.

 

Economist Paul Krugman lists the factors concisely in his latest column, "Grains Gone Wild" in the New York Times. People in poor countries are paying more than half of their income for food, and shortages are becoming endemic. Petroleum prices rise from the higher demand of India and China as they grow economically, and especially as the latter switches over to a Western, meat-intensive diet. Eating excessive meat is turning out to be not only suicidal but also a moral form of homocide, since meat production is the most petroleum-intensive form of nutrition. Meanwhile prime farmland is excluded from agricultural use, thanks to what even Time Magazine calls the "scam" of growing subsidized corn for biofuels.

 

Another spanner in the works is the subversion of democracy. The ignorance of an elite electorate is pandered by perverse profiteers. In Krugman's words, "...people are starving in Africa so that American politicians can court votes in farm states." Meanwhile global warming, also caused by lousy or non-existent planning, is turning large areas from drought conditions to out-and-out deserts, especially in Australia. Here is Krugman's to-do list for addressing the food crisis,

"What should be done? The most immediate need is more aid to people in distress: the U.N.'s World Food Program put out a desperate appeal for more funds. We also need a pushback against biofuels, which turn out to have been a terrible mistake. But it is not clear how much can be done. Cheap food, like cheap oil, may be a thing of the past." (Op-ed, New York Times, April 7, 2008)

 

In other words, let us all just throw up our hands and give up on long term solutions. Heaven forbid that the imminent death of most of the human race should make us change the ground rules in the slightest.

 Here are some ideas: Re-introduce organic farming techniques everywhere. Stand up for eater's rights before those of producers; eat locally and import from other areas at most a quarter of the diet. Stop greenhouse gases by switching over to an all-electric economy based only renewable energy sources. End all subsidies to any activity that harms the environment. Allow advertising only to food products that satisfy the demands of common sense. Keep food out of factories. Tax sugar and other adulterants to the hilt. Plan the infrastructure of every community according to world standards. Reform democracy. Educate the next generation to be world citizens concerned with the needs of the entire human race. End racial, religious and ethnic tensions through education and a world language.

 

Here are some more suggestions, based on predictions for the future made in 1927 by the Baha'i scientist August Forel, as summed up in Vader's biography (For the Good of Mankind, pp. 62-63), along with my comments.

 

Triumph of the supra-confessional Baha'i religion...

Triumph of an improved Esperanto...

General spread of the prohibition of alcohol. (jet: drinking grain products for pleasure, alcoholic or not, sooner or later will be seen to be as irresponsible as gorging oneself on grain-fed beef for culinary delectation. Ditto for cropland being co-opted for other mind-altering drugs, legal or otherwise. Food for the body rather than poison for the mind must come first.)

(spread of) the right to vote of women.

Free trade and monetary stabilization. (jet: both can happen rationally only under the guidance of a world government. Now we should be thinking about a single world currency, rather than mere stabilization)

Educational reform along the lines Glockel's system in Austria (?)

Civil service for both men and women as a substitute for military service. (jet: people starving? Until the problem ends, send every young person for a year to work in areas of need. We fight wars for freedom, how is the war against starvation any different?)

Simplification of life, abolition of the Parisian fashion. (jet: now maybe Forel would say the New York and Hollywood fashions. How about a moratorium on commercial films and television until the starvation is ended? It is immoral to spend on frivolities when people are dying.)

Education of youth for work as a duty-bound responsibility. (jet: end the crass exploitation of their time and minds by video games, screens and other sterile distractions)

Gradual replacement of our technical, feverish lifestyle by quieter living, return to agriculture, development of science, deepening of art, and of our knowledge of human psychology. (jet: this a huge order, but sooner or later it has to be done; I may devote an entire essay to the implication of this.)