red meat and food itself is something that must be substituted in sacrifice under so gold rising cost of living crisis. joining me now from eugene, oregon is professor michael factory. the un special rupture on the right to food to discuss the nutritional value of neoliberalism. thank you so much progressive actually for going on for sure. but i suppose i'm going to just start with something very general. given that where i'm talking to you from i'm not far from food banks or something, not seeing here for decades. why is food cancer in 2022 when there's more food supply than ever before. you know, and thank you for having me and you're quite right to start with the question of food banks, especially in the u. k. so 1st it highlights that the issue of hunger and malnutrition is not just a matter of poor countries. rich countries are like, are having a serious issue today, and it is on the rise. and the increased use of food banks indicates it's, it's not an issue,

as you pointed. an issue of there isn't enough food. there's been more than enough food globally speaking on a per capita basis for the last 60 years. the issue always when there's a rise of hunger, malnutrition, and especially famine, is always indicative of a political failure of the failure of institutions not doing what they're supposed to be doing, and politicians not being responsive to people's needs. the concern today, what's happening with cold, that it's covered, is made existing problems. worse, hunger was on the rise even before the pandemic. and there were a lot of endemic problems before the pandemic. and what the pandemic has done is it's complicated supply chain issues. but the term supply chain destruction is to abstract what it means is worker is in aggregate in farms. workers in the supply chain, workers and restaurants are getting sick. they're not being protected properly. so what it's showing is how we treat the people who are essential to keeping us well fed has always been problematic. i'll follow the chain back in a moment,

but i mean, in your country 140000000 at least rely on the snap food stamp program. shortly. the by the administration would say, you know, the political failure. no, this is a political success. the food stamps are feeding people. so in the united states, as your point has also been on the, on the rise, just like in the u. k. and so there's been some adjustments to programs here and there, but just like the use of food banks or whether it's you. so in the united states is the snap program or popularly known as food stamps. these are all the equivalent of saying it's like the cooking of an emergency room. so it's dealing with things in the immediate sense, but the structural issues of how we fundamentally organize our relationship with land, with the ecosystem, with each other has not been adjusted. and in the united states, there's a long standing issue of racism that stems from the u. s. department of agriculture, which the biden ministration has not been able to overcome its been blocked by the courts in many regards. so my so sorry i why racism?

yes, so in the united states, very specifically, black farmers have been dispossessed from their land from the era from the minute they were free from slavery until today. so a common phrase is that the u. s. d a was the last plantation in the united states . so this a long pattern up until today of specifically black farmers being dispossessed from the line, not being granted access to credit the same way. white farmers are given access to credit and financing. and so over the years there's been a decrease in black farmers over the years. and then if you look at other groups, indigenous people and immigrant communities, minorities, by any definition, it's hard to get into farming. but it's hard for anyone to get into farming in the united states, so there's racism. but then this is the corporate domination of the farming sector in the u. s. but also globally, obviously bank said deny that include credit worthiness on,

on the idea raises you painting some sort of apartheid picture. well, banks will hear you. no one will say i am a racist right. normally, that it's structural meaning. it's the pattern of how, how these loans are made and who gets those longs. and then if you added up in the aggregate, you see this very clear patterns of who's winning and who's losing. and it is by farmers. and so it does mimic patterns of apartheid. it mimics patterns of, of discrimination in the past. so it's deeply problematic. the bite administration didn't try to do something recently and provide specific relief for black farmers, but that was blocked at the courts. and so, and so black farmers have heard time and time again, administration of administration, regardless of political party of, of being helped. and no one is really solve the problem. here for the leader, the house of commons here, jacob re smog said that food banks kind of a to be celebrated. they are quotes rather up lifting what a good,

compassionate country we are, every food bank and you see is actually something to be celebrated and politicians are in recent months. love to be instagram beside them, showing how great food banks are. where is your saying appear to be saying? they're kind of indictment well, food banks, this is the language of compassion. i think it catches the limitation of food banks, food banks, most food banks still are working on a charity model, which is, but for the, the power of those with money of donations. do those food banks work? food is an entitlement without it. we can't live and for food banks is to say these are a good thing is like to say, well, our health care system is, is doing great look at everyone can have access to an emergency room, as opposed to say, why are people hungry in the 1st place, why are people using a food bank in the 1st place,

they shouldn't have to get to that point and food banks themselves in the united kingdom say we shouldn't be, shouldn't be relying on us. we're just doing our best at the, at the final point. but at the very beginning, families shouldn't have to seek charity. who is an entitlement. they should be able to feed their families by matter of course. and the right to food is enshrined in the un. well, like any right. it's an issue that people debate. i think the right to food is one of the least controversial rights out there. i have, you know, even countries that may not technically are formally enacted the right to put in their laws. very few will say will argue that there is not a right to food. so the right to food is recognized in international law. it is recognized in human rights. it is recognized in many un institutions at the core of what they do, whether it's the food in agricultural organization or any of the other, you and institutions. and then different national systems incorporate the right to

food in a lot of different ways. what's exciting about the united kingdom is many people at the city level at the municipal level level that local governments are taking up the right to food as something anyone can enact. so you don't have to wait for a parliament to not to write to food. it is your entitlement and any public institution can say we're going to and not the right to food. and we're going to treat food as something as a basic necessity that people are entitled to. and therefore, we have to marshall public resources to make sure everyone has access to good nutritious food that's appropriate for the particular contact. cases of malnutrition have been rising. and you know, some studies show that since the bail out of the city of london under 50000, may have been killed by austerity. whereas which food must be a part of, but we've, we've covered yemen, the other day, britain in the united states, a boarding weaponry to bomb yemen. not sure how that works with this right to food,

because obviously, blockades of ports, united states sanctions on countries. how does that fit in with any kind of internationally recognized idea of a right to food? well, this highlights exactly. it is highlights that the problem is always political with hunger and malnutrition. so you know, i get to how the right works in the 2nd. but 1st to point to the issue. yeah, i mean, there was a report by a group of so call eminent experts from the united nations and september 2020. and they said the issue is absurd. it's a travesty of the situation of famine in yemen and who is heard most by these blockades. often it's, it is children in the situation and it's a choice. so hunger, when you see instances of hunger, malnutrition, and famine, it's always the result of political choices that are made. so by framing the issue as a right it, what it's saying is governments, you are falling short of your obligations and you can change this. you can point to

just natural conditions or sage. it's the pandemic. it puts, it creates a relationship of obligation and accountability. it means people can hold their politicians accountable for these instances of hunger and malnutrition. and it can't be wrapped up in rhetoric of just a scientific solution or technical solution, or just a charity that it has to be. it's an issues at the core of how governance works, how government works for the wants to. so we see the u. s. administration's british administration, i using food as a weapon. i don't know whether you think they are. i mean 25 years since madeline albright, the 1st woman secretary of state. famously, she said, as regards a half a 1000000 reputed children to die and sanctions against iraq was a price with pay is food being used as a weapon today, food is being used as a weapon in yemen. and in many other areas where there's an increase in conflict

and where there are blockades, where there are unilateral actions blocking the importation of necessary products in several countries around the world. you know, and the united states and britain, the biggest donors of h t m. and as well indeed. so isn't that ironic will block the block? you're not sure. this is, you know, this is sort of what's in the message. the thing is we're going to create a blockade unblock your natural commerce. and way of getting acts, the food we're going to make it difficult to grow your own food. and then we're going to subsidize our own farmers and use that to donate food and inevitably who wins. it's not, it's not people in yemen. it's the powers that are donating. so in this model of donation people are the winds of donors as opposed to being self sustaining, as opposed to being able to live the regular lives importing from where they need to import and just have regular commerce. so even a system where donations are coming in the, the, the people receiving the donations always still remain at the mercy of those,

giving them food and a relationship of donations and receiving donations is not a healthy or a relationship with dignity. this is at the core of the issue. well, the un times 377000 people killed since the war began the war field by britain in the united states in terms of weapons sales. obviously, you seem to be suggesting these parallels from the food bank on your street right up to geopolitical aid. i suppose we better get to commercial systems of food. are you allowed to call out individual corporations and companies? because when journalists try and do that, and this seems to some like a monopoly situation, when it comes to global agro chemical corporations, they get sued for defamation. i'm yeah, i so i can be very specific. i've covered these in my reports to the united nations . i've pointed to the so called big for companies. so our global food system is

dominated by a small number of companies, and they are part of the problem. so the other reason, so i pointed to the failure of politicians and of governments. but the other problem in our food system is asking the person who controls the main elements of a good system, access to land, access to seeds, working conditions, and the problem. the biggest problem in our food systems today is the increase of corporate power. the fact that corporations go after people with lawyers, with the pressure farmers, indicates that they are sensitive to these, to these calls, accountability. they're very sensitive to these calls of accountability. but when a small group of and let's not be abstract, it's not just corporations. it's a small group of people whose power is enabled to corporations. when a small group of people and a small number of corporations dominate access to the essentials of the food system,

inevitably, people are going to go hungry. inevitably, the system will fall will strain under its own pressure. no, this is would say, obviously they would say actually for who dominate their interest is selling the most food and seeds and all the rest of it. fertilizer indeed, right, exactly. the fact and the fact that the corporation job is to profit it's job is to make money. it's job is not to make sure everyone has access to nutritious, inappropriate food, and it for thousands of years. and even even got more recently, even more recently in countries that are not dominated by corporate systems. we don't need corporations to feed each other properly. we don't need corporations to produce enough food to feed everyone in the world. corporations are driven by a profit model that process model then determines how land is purchased. it determines what is grown, the conditions of the working conditions. and we know that anti trust regulation

some lived, they sometimes worked. certainly there been certain investigation present, michael fac rail. stop you the more from the un special rupture on the right to food up to this break. ah, there may, may, we should all be, may, it may, we should all be angry because of what's going on. right, i can't understand united states history and the role that slavery play is already very formal institutions, i think became a nation. it actually find the nation, the rise of capitalism clearly on the backs of flight. and it's laid down. if you invest glitching any great extent, you can't believe that really in the country and the country still stands in brick . i'm from the south. everybody know,

know what this thing to some extent. i would argue that we're still fighting this. the whole in the south is winning. mm. welcome back. i'm still here with professor michael frank. really humans special robert on the right to food. the structure. this is supply and demand. it was famous a few decades ago, out of european union, destroyed grain mountains and wine lakes and butter mountains. and they had to do that to keep the prices stable. so you're against them destroying food, to keep prices stable, which is a central tenet of the way food capitalism. as it were, works i, you know, everyone has to figure out how to stabilize prices into this is the eternal problem and no one. and this is it, this is, i mean it's, that's the you're trying to focus on is stabilizing the market stable prices that are high enough. that farmers and fishers and pastoralists and people that make our

food and workers can make a good living and dignified living. and the prices are affordable for people is a different question of we want to stable market. we want to fair market versus people trying to create a market that's profit oriented. now on the destruction has the european common agricultural policy work, we could spend the whole show on that. i think we and i think we are in union here in britain leisure. right. and i understand you case in a moment of trying to figure out its own sort of agricultural policy, but you know, the destruction of food for the purpose of stability. i can't speak to the specifics of that because it just shows i think no one has no system has really worked. in recent, i'm going to show you how you and special are you doing back the destruction of food? i mean, in general, that's what i just wanted to make sure i'm saying. exactly. i mean, there is, of course, another model. i mean china responsible for disproportionate improvement in world

health and nutrition, $800000000.00 out of poverty, of course, since, since gentleman square. and that's a world bank figure in for $820000000.00 currently undernourished, around the world. i mean, should, should the world not just follow the chinese communist model, which got 800000000 out of over the i mean, this is, you know, the fact that we're bringing poverty now to the issues. exactly, right. so there is, unfortunately there's a link between poverty and hunger and, but that's, that doesn't have to be the case. why is it that we've constructed a global economy and national economies? when people's income determines their ability to get access to food, your income, your source of money, your source of livelihood should not determine your access to good food? we can, there are, there are instances where the poor, the middle class and the rich alike eat well in a way that is affordable. that is healthy, that is culturally appropriate. the fact that our food systems are so closely tied

to market trends to economic factors from issues of poverty highlights the problem . now what each individual country can do becomes very specific agrarian reform redistribution of land. that's one way of thinking about it. but there's always a cost and i always worry about, well, we can look at statistics and say, you know, x many, thousands or x. many millions of people have been taken out of poverty. but at what price did people have to pay our human people's human rights violated to pull them out of poverty and it's hunger still an issue. so you can still have, for example, in rich countries where they are rich or you reduce poverty. but hunger still is on the rise. so there isn't always a direct correlation between decrease of poverty and addressing the issue of malnutrition and hunger. yeah, that's go to nutrition. i mean, i actually just had a sandwich here. i got it from a soup market. any evidence you found that there's less nutrition in food

vegetables now than say before, it is more process through the more we process food less do attrition and there is in the more of food produces have to add sort of put nutrition back into the food. so the more you start from just if you start from a raw vegetable chalk full of nutrients and vitamins and the like. and the more you're processing it, the more you're depleting it's nutritional value. and what we're seeing is the rise, the increase of consumption, of processed food and, and, and, and so what companies do though, they have to add things to process more, as opposed to people's access to fruits and vegetables. i mean, as part of a class war, obviously elite are more embracing and they're ever more embracing the more expensive organic foods and so on. you're talking about the rest of us. you do him

at the 99 percent. indeed. exactly, isn't it, isn't it, isn't it ridiculous now that the rich, now we are making what we all sort of for centuries, people is fresh food that hasn't isn't covered and pesticides that's culturally appropriate. and it gets turned into a product. and i think that's the point is when people say all but organic food is just for the elite, and that's, that's, that's not, that's a choice. why is it that i'll give you a very specific example in the united states, most of the subsidies go to things like corn and soybeans. fruits and vegetables are barely subsidized in the united states. that's indicative of many industrialized countries that they're not subsidized in the correct foods. the foods that we know, our nutritionist isn't much, is that because of law being by these big companies, i don't know a special router where you can compete with the, the millions of dollars lobbying dollars of the big food companies. i can't compete, but the people can compete. this is the point,

this is to bring it back to the right to food. this is what the power of the right to food is. it starts with the powers in the hands of people and people organizing themselves around their sense of title. so the reason these subsidies sort of end up subsidizing the wrong in the wrong way, is it 1st the subsidies started out of a previous hunger crisis, which was the thirty's in the united states. and around the world. many industrialized countries experienced hunger before the great depression in the late twenty's. and so to, to, to keep away revolution, they started subsidizing farmers in unprecedented ways, starting in the twenties and thirties. but then what started happening is the people, they were subsidized, more power. and it was hard to change in the hard to adapt to new ideas. so then these companies now have getting power in the fifty's and sixty's. now they log me in a particular way, but it doesn't have to be. so i've seen in multiple places when people organize when they come together, especially around the idea of the right to food, especially around the idea of food as an entitlement. it creates new social reality,

new political power that, that politicians cannot ignore, that companies cannot ignore. so the more people are organizing the more unions or organizing more farmers or organizing or see real changes happen that are undoing existing power structures. well, our lawyers will definitely be glad you didn't mention the names of the actual companies give way. obviously they all, they all that i wrong doing, but when you talk about that mass action, why do you think the international media did not focus? is a, i suppose one of the biggest stories of last year. what did you make of the india from protest? i think the india farm protest and inspired many people around the world. and so what it showed in and what was, it wasn't very little of explain what it was. hello don't. yes. yeah. i guess i'm in my own bubble where everyone around me was reading and talking about it. i mean this for you. so 1st you're exactly right. i think the farmer protest in india is

one of the most important actions we've seen in the last year and will continue to be an issue. what happens is that the indian government decided to change its laws and reduce its support of farmers and make it harder for farmers to have access to a stable pricing system to a market that focuses on price stability and farmers support. and the shift was to make it easier for corporations to engage directly with farmers. the argument that the indian government was, is they wanted to provide farmers more opportunities to sell to anybody. but everyone knew was this would enable corporations to enter the indian market more easily. than protestors, the farmers who are against this idea and who mobilize by this thousands and millions. their argument was we don't want this system which will be dominated by

corporations. we're not here for maximizing profit. what we want is a stable market, so we can maintain our livelihood and live with dignity and maintain a stable good system for all indians. and so they took to the streets and, and forced in effect, basically raise the issue on a global scale. what was unique about this protest, unlike other processes, not just the number of farmers that mobilize and work together is the expressions of solidarity within india is worker unions also came together with farmers in an unprecedented coalition. a new form of solidarity between farmers and workers who don't always get along. and there was a common agreement that what they needed was stable market. and a solidarity and calls for support happen all over the world,

not just from former groups, but from all types of social movements, advocacy groups. so looking to the indian farmers as leading on the example of what it takes to push against the corporatization of our food system. we had agnes calabasas, the green deal for africa. the alliance for green revolution in africa on the, on the show, a lot of these different quangos different groups saying we should work with the court. no, they don't talk of the hundreds of 1000000 so much. they say that we should ally with the corporations that are lobbying up all additions and work with them to insure food and nutrition security. this is a deeply problematic claim, you know, with all due respect to dr calabasas, who is also the un special envoy on the food system summit. so the secretary general asked her last year, it's sort of need this food system summit and very quickly i learned is

a large number of people. and unfortunately, a growing number of people in the united nations are comfortable working with corporations and my, my concern that i raise publicly time and time again. and i've raised it before the human rights council. and before the general assembly is that corporations are part of the problem. so how is it that we would allow the people and the organizations that have created the problems are far food system, also be part of the solution. and my, what i've argued and many of are you, i'm sort of, i'm representing the call that comes out from many communities is to say, you start with holding the people who cause the problem accountable. there needs to be accountability 1st. second, the solutions do not come from the people that caused the problems. the solutions come from the people that make our food in the 1st place, from the farmers, from the workers, from the past or from the fishers, from the, from people's communities themselves. and so to work with a corporation is to say to acquiesce to existing structures and to say,

well at best, what we can do is reform when what is needed is a fundamental transformation of power structures within our food system. so working with working with corporations, i mean to use the old term, i mean, but it's appropriate in the discussion of food. it's letting the fox into the house special. roger, thank you. thank you very much. it's been a pleasure that's over the show. back on wednesday, republic day in india, when the country celebrates sovereignty from british imperialism, the review to the sol, 45 trillion dollars, and killed 35000000 until then keep in touch with social media and let us know whether you think the power of agribusiness will ever allow the right to food to become law. ah

oh, now it shows the wrong when i just don't hold any you have to shape out. this thing becomes the advocate and engagement equals the trail. when so many find themselves worlds apart, we choose to look so common ground. ah, is the earth still large enough to satisfy the ambitions of jeff bezos? you know, it's got its tentacles in so many aspects of the economy. there's nothing that amazon isn't trying to get into to step by step. the amazon empire has extended its grip on the world that walks like a duck and quacks like a dog gets a dog. so amazon looks like monopoly trades like a monopoly makes money like monopoly behaves like monopoly. amazon essentially

controls the market place. it's not really a market as a private arena, a wild, where a single company controls the distribution of all day. the products and the infrastructure of our economy. is this the world according to amazon? 100 mic. no, certainly no borders line nationalities and users as emerge. we don't have a charity. we don't have a vaccine, whole worried leaves to take action to be ready. people are judgment, common crisis with we can do better, we should be better. everyone is contributing each in their own way. but we also know that this crisis will not go on forever. the challenge is great, the response has been massive. so many good people are helping us. it makes us feel

very proud that we're in it together. ah, nato announced, gets bolstering it's present in eastern europe. most goes, they won't hesitate to respond as well. the alliance is build up in ukraine, continues on tension. so for the post thought states at the higher nato talks of booth to where the 4th is in the 8th to more than a 100 russian worship to take the things that the thought of major naval exercises ah, chaos in the hall of europe. a 5th found off unfolds and growth those as.