DUMP NATO’S LAWLESS WORLD ORDER

Produce Food to Fight Famine,
Not Weapons To Prolong War!

by Marcia Merry Baker

[Print version of this article]

April 30—A major clash is now out in the open, between those nations and leaders backing measures to produce more food, to prevent famine, as opposed to those financial and political interests, centered in the trans-Atlantic, perpetrating their “rules-based,” sanctions-based order, for more hunger, and for more weapons to prevent settling the Ukraine conflict. We face the risk of nuclear war.

Who is for a food mobilization? The informal list ranges from India, to Argentina, to nations in Africa, as well as Russia and China. It includes all the farmers in Europe, the U.S. and India, who have been protesting for years, just for the right to be able to continue to produce food. And it includes the Schiller Institute, which has been leading the fight on precisely this issue.

Those opposed to the economic measures required to produce more food, include the U.S. government, the European Commission, the G7, financial networks in the IMF, World Bank, World Trade Organization (WTO) and others, especially hiding behind “free” trade rules, “green” limits, and non-food “human rights” concerns. Now, 1.7 billion people are headed to famine and wars, says UN Secretary General António Guterres.

India put the question on the world agenda April 22 in Washington, D.C. There, two top Indian representatives, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and the Indian Ambassador to the U.S., Taranjit Singh Sandhu, held a press conference. Speaking at the end of the annual Spring summit of the IMF/World Bank, Sitharaman reported that she told summit officials that “countries like India, which have potential for exporting agricultural production, particularly cereals, have faced difficulties with the WTO.”

The “difficulties” she politely referred to, include the WTO rules-based subversion of the sovereign right of governments to support their farmers, maintain food reserves, export, and even attempt to have food self-sufficiency. Since its founding in 1995, the WTO rationalizes its suppressing the food supply of nations by declaring that food security comes only from “access to world markets,” not from one’s own country developing its domestic agriculture sector. According to WTO rules, therefore, since India supports its farmers at a level more than 10% of their costs, India cannot be allowed to export wheat and rice, or they violate the rights of American, European, and other farmers to sell grains!

Farm Mobilization

Stop this deadly tyranny! Support farmers everywhere in the world, and get the food to everyone in need—from Afghanistan, to Yemen, to Africa, to Haiti.

First, implement emergency measures, coordinated by leaders from the major producing nations, to get inputs of seeds, fertilizer, fuel, chemicals, machinery—now disrupted—to support farmers to the hilt in targeted locations that can produce the most exportable crop in the shortest time, like India. For wheat, for example, this means, maintaining and increasing the 200 million metric tons (mmt) exported annually worldwide. Double it as soon as possible. Make up for the loss of 19 mmt of yearly wheat exports from Ukraine, and rebuild as soon as possible. Provide the same contingencies for rice, oils and all other staples.

Second, build the infrastructure to support modern agriculture everywhere—water, power, transportation, crop science, agro-industrial capacity, and food processing. Yes, this means replacing the monetarist financial system now in breakdown from speculation, financial bail-outs, and its refusal to invest in production.

The goal is to double world food production as soon as possible, raising the world total grain output into the range of over 4 billion mt (all types), from the current 2.7 billion mt. Over 800 million people were food insecure before the pandemic and the hyperinflation, and now a billion people could die of starvation in the coming year, if we do not act.

Allies for Production

India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, told President Joe Biden earlier this month that India has grain to help fill the world wheat gap, worsened by the war in Ukraine and sanctions against Russia and Belarus, if the WTO lifts its restrictions. In Argentina, Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero made clear April 23 that his nation will do everything possible against hunger. There will be no Argentine sanctions against Russia. Argentina sees food security as a key topic at the June Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, California. Meanwhile, Russia is continuing to provide fertilizer to India, Brazil and other nations.

These commitments to fight the food crisis are just part of the worldwide realignment underway, essential to defeat Global NATO’s starvation-and-war onslaught. The West is flowing arms into Ukraine, opposing and obstructing all diplomatic efforts toward a peaceful resolution. The West is demanding we blame hunger on Russia, while preventing any concerted food production drive to stop starvation. This is insane! The April 28 White House announcement of $500 million to induce U.S. farmers to produce more food (through crop insurance and similar mechanisms) is not serious.

The Schiller Institute is conducting public, international policy dialogues online, and private discussions, toward the convoking of an international conference, at the earliest possible time, to start working out a new security and development architecture, in the interests of all nations. Its April 9, 2022 conference brought together over 4,000 attendees from 65 nations.

For a New Economic Architecture

On March 28, the Schiller Institute released a policy proposal titled, “The LaRouche Plan for a New International Economic Architecture,” circulated in tandem with an international petition, for leaders to confer on fundamentals of security for all nations. The 15-page program was prepared by a six-person team from Executive Intelligence Review for the Schiller Institute.

The proposal summarizes the scope of today’s crises—food and industrial underproduction, lack of infrastructure capacity (especially water, electric power, and health care), and the huge overhang of financial speculative debt, now blowing out. This is the backdrop to the shocks of the past two years—the pandemic and the hyperinflation, whose causes long pre-date the impact of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine that began Feb. 24. The sanctions coming on top of all this, are deadly to just about every nation but Russia.

The Schiller program presents six action areas, all from the vantage point of the scientific metric promulgated by statesman and economist Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., that economic activity must contribute to increasing the “potential relative population density” of Mankind as a whole.

In brief, the action areas are titled: (1) Physical economy; (2) Fixed exchange-rate system; (3) Full-set capital and exchange controls, and directed credit; (4) “RIC”—Russia, India, China, as the initiating core; (5) The U.S. and Europe must join the Belt and Road Initiative; and (6) Reconstruct Ukraine through East-West cooperation.

The idea of the “RIC”—Russia, India, China—as the initiating impetus for a new framework of mutually beneficial production, trade, and currency exchange is backed up by a chart of 12 selected parameters of the significance of this Eurasian region already. Food production potential stands out. The RIC countries have a combined population of 2.935 billion people, constituting 38% of the world’s total, and they currently produce 327 mmt of wheat, 42% of world production. The means to increase food production are implied in the RIC parameters of basic industry and infrastructure, e.g., the RIC region produces 1.237 mmt of steel, 66% of world production. It has 189,000 km of electrified rail, accounting for 55% of the world total. And so on.

The document, which includes a map of trans-Eurasian rail and highway corridors, sets out the benefits of the United States joining in the Belt and Road Initiative process, of building mutual-interest projects of nuclear power, high-speed rail, and similar endeavors to increase productivity. Short-term emergency measures are also laid out, in particular to avert the looming world famine.

Excerpts from Lyndon LaRouche’s major contributions to this development perspective are featured in the program, especially from his 2014 “Four Laws” paper, stressing the Alexander Hamilton and Glass-Steagall approach to sound banking and plentiful credit; and also his emphasis on fixing currency exchange rates, and the principle of productivity that must be reinstated for valuing production, currencies, and trade in a new economic architecture.

From India: Global South Food Security Initiative

On April 25, concrete proposals on increasing world food production came from India, from P.S. Shukla, a former Cabinet Minister, whose article, “Peasants Can Unite the Global South to Beat Back Food Shortages,” was published in The Citizen, an independent news daily.

Shukla, a former Commerce Minister and former Ambassador to GATT, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade—now replaced by the WTO—wrote, “What is needed is a bold initiative in the WTO to mobilize support, especially of the countries of the South, for a fresh look at the whole problem of the global agrarian economy at the present critical juncture.” He issued a caveat not to get bogged down in any legalistic attempts to change the WTO regulations, which were rigged from the start, to serve the interests of the wealthy “North,” that is, the United States, and the EU. For example, look at how the North suppressed the production of basic food grains in the tropical South, in favor of “exotic produce and cheap raw materials” for the tastes of the North.

Instead of unwinnable, formal attempts to change the WTO rules, we need the same kind of power shown by the Indian farmers over 18 months, that has forced the government to repeal the three “black laws” proposed for Indian agriculture, which would have served globalist agribusiness and ruined farmers and the food supply.

Shukla wrote that the “guiding principles” for mobilizing for world food security, should be:

(a) Ensuring food sovereignty of all countries.

(b) Ensuring a large degree of policy autonomy to developing countries in the matter of agricultural production, pricing, incomes, and trade—in particular, ensuring food security to all, and remunerative pricing and decent income to the peasantry and to facilitate orderly transfer of surplus agricultural labor force to non-agricultural activities.

(c) Promoting equitable and fair opportunities for international trade in agricultural products.

(d) Promoting direct trade measures such as long-term contracts to facilitate viable trade in foodstuffs, particularly among developing countries, to the mutual advantage of [both] surplus and deficit countries.

(e) Promoting international cooperation to set up regional/country level foodstocks to ensure price stability and as an insurance against shortages due to climatic or speculative reasons.

(f) Promoting agricultural practices that protect and promote the cause of preservation of land, environment and ecology and ensure optimal use and conservation of water.

(g) Promoting cooperative approach at local, regional and international levels, in regard to agricultural production, storage, processing, trade, and research.

Shukla adds to this proposed program, the observation:

Russia and China should not be averse to such a move. Russia has adroitly challenged the global order of U.S. dollar supremacy. China is supporting Russia to the hilt. A call from the South to review and reconsider the present dispensation of AoA [WTO’s Agreement on Agriculture], which is essentially tailored to suit the requirements of U.S.A. and EEC and its agribusiness giants, may, in all likelihood, evoke a positive response from both the powers.

For India and its present rulers, it should be a welcome opportunity to restore India’s traditional role of prominence among the nations of the South. It will be a win-win situation for Russia, China and India.

—marciabaker@larouchepub.com