why do the poor always end up having to pay?*

While middle-class America may suddenly struggle with higher gas prices with their long highway commutes from suburbia to their workplaces, others in the world find themselves struggling to eat.

Food prices have been shooting up around the world, not because of any massive food shortages, but because demand has increased. Rising incomes in China and India have increased their appetites for meat and grain, but more notably, western biofuel** programs have been hoarding the harvest. The results have been devastating (for instance, the resignation of Haiti’s prime minister because of food riots):

We are the canary in the mine,” says Josette Sheeran, the head of the UN's World Food Programme, the largest distributor of food aid. Usually, a food crisis is clear and localised. The harvest fails, often because of war or strife, and the burden in the affected region falls heavily on the poorest. This crisis is different. It is occurring in many countries simultaneously, the first time that has happened since the early 1970s. And it is affecting people not usually hit by famines. “For the middle classes,” says Ms Sheeran, “it means cutting out medical care. For those on $2 a day, it means cutting out meat and taking the children out of school. For those on $1 a day, it means cutting out meat and vegetables and eating only cereals. And for those on 50 cents a day, it means total disaster.” The poorest are selling their animals, tools, the tin roof over their heads—making recovery, when it comes, much harder.

~ from The Economist, The New Face of Hunger

The economist article seems to be a bit more optimistic about recovery—believing that market forces will eventually increase supply, but seems to ignore ecological implications of the limited availability of land (and that growing too much too quickly with too many chemicals can destroy valuable soil). Is it really possible to think that we could plant enough corn to satisfy our only-increasing appetite for biofuel? Are the rich countries going to enjoy their frequent flyer miles, their blueberries and pomegranates shipped from miles and miles away, while the rest of the world experiences a Malthusian catastrophe? And furthermore, even if we do recover from this catastrophe, how many people will starve to death or suffer from malnutrition in the process? Is it worth it? Of course, I guess the life of someone poor in a third world country is worth a lot less than my life.

Yes, alternative fuel options for the sake of environment stewardship and sustainability are probably a good idea. But when it involves disrupting agricultural markets in such a way, that we get our biofuel while the poor starve, then I can’t help but think/cry/wail injustice.

While we try to find some “sustainable” method to continue our SUV gas guzzling habits, we seem to be doing it on the backs of the poor. And that angers and saddens me deeply: how it seems that we are constantly getting more comfortable from the sweat and blood of the poor.

And somehow, I’m also implicated in this system. I feel dirty buying my airline tickets to return home, my Florida-grown oranges and Mexico-grown asparagus, that’s been shipped many petroleum miles to reach me in my supermarket so that I can have my diverse food options. Meanwhile, others starve.

I am trying to understand why I was born into privilege and abundance, and not another life that could be so different. And if it’s only to perpetuate the oppression of the poor, then I feel very very sorry for myself.

* In case you can’t tell, I am/was angry as I write/wrote this. Perhaps, I might have more hopeful/more practical to say later, but this is how I feel right now. I am trying to learn to feel my emotions more, because they give indication into what I care about. And this has been part of a long reflection in the past few months of trying to understand my economic and social privilege…. Trying to learn not to feel guilty about it, but to learn how I can live differently with it, so that it won’t be wasted on myself.
** Please read comments to this post for clarification about biofuel-- there are apparently different types, and not all of them rely on edible food (e.g. some apparently use waste products)

*** In the same vein as this, India has been displacing massive amounts of its indigenous population in the name of environmental conservation: Wildlife conservation in India has generally emulated the early American (Yosemite/Yellowstone) model which regarded forests as pristine wilderness, excluded human beings from national parks and other protected areas, and saw its aboriginal people as “marauders,” “poachers” and “encroachers,” all the while sanctioning the lifeways and hunting practices of elite sportsmen and urban tourists. Throughout rural India, tribal Adivasis, ancient forest dwellers who occupy thousands of villages, are routinely blamed for declines in local biodiversity. (from: Guernica, Eviction Slip)