Millions of Brazilians go hungry as we kill ourselves with their sugar
However, no-one seems to have made the link between all three.
Obesity in the developed world is mainly due to high levels of sugar consumption. This sugar is being produced cheaply in Third World countries such as Brazil.
In April 2003, the WHO and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation released a detailed report on diet, nutrition and the prevention of chronic diseases. Among other things, the report pointed out that chronic diseases were increasing rapidly as a result of sugar consumption.
In 2001, for example, they said that approximately 59% of the 56.5 million deaths reported worldwide were due to poor nutrition.
The report concluded that a diet low in saturated fats, sugars and salt, and high in vegetables and fruits, together with regular physical activity, would have a major impact on combating this high toll of death and disease. But the suggestion of reducing intake angered the sugar industry: a US lobby group, The Sugar Association, threatened to ask Congress to withdraw the $400 million contribution made annually by the US to the WHO.
Brazil produces 20% of the world's sugar, most of which is exported to Europe and North America. However, a quarter of Brazil's 170 million people live below the poverty line. To meet the immediate needs of everyone who goes hungry there, the government would have to provide emergency help to 11 million families, according to official estimates.
Although the country produces enough food for its entire population, 46 million Brazilians aren't getting enough to eat.
It is ironic that while they go hungry we are obese because we consume too much of their sugar.
European sugar beet producers are unable to compete with countries like Brazil.
The reason why they can produce so cheaply is partly due to bonded labour. Brazil abolished slavery in 1888. However, earlier this year, the government acknowledged to the UN that at least 25,000 Brazilians work under "conditions analogous to slavery."
The top anti-slavery official in Brasilia puts the number of modern slaves at 50,000. Aid agencies working in the country reckon it is a multiple of this.
Ireland's 3,500 sugar beet producers are now being put out of business because they are no longer able to compete on the global market with sugar produced in developing countries by labourers who are little more than slaves.
The reason that EU leaders are allowing this to happen is because they know that cheap food is necessary to curb demands for wage increases in Europe.
They are merely concerned with keeping the masses fed as cheaply as possible, even if that involves putting their farmers out of business, and having countries whose people are hungry use their land to produce cheap food for us so cheap, in fact, that we are now beginning to die from diseases related to eating too much.
Beet farmers are not the only ones being sacrificed. The same thing is happening in beef production.
There is no outcry at the despicable working conditions of the poor who produce our food because it is kept well hidden from us, unlike the recent debacle at Irish Ferries.
However, the same principles of greed and profit are in operation and the same scant regard for the welfare of workers. There is a race to the bottom to cut production and operating costs so that a few fat cats can reap a handsome profit and keep equity levels up.
In the wake of the world trade talks in Hong Kong, support for farmers in Europe is being phased out and they are being told they must be able to compete on the global market. People are being given the image of struggling farmers in the developing world being denied access to lucrative first world markets.
This is a lie.
The reality is that land in the developing world which should be used to feed the hungry there comprises vast plantations growing commodity crops such as sugar cane, coffee and chocolate beans for our consumption. These vast estates are owned and operated by a wealthy few. The work is done by landless labourers who earn less than a dollar a day.
Politicians like George Bush and Tony Blair who live in countries unable to produce enough food to meet domestic demand have decided it is cheaper to import food from the developing world than subsidise their farmers to produce it. Who will stop this madness?
How many more must die from hunger-related diseases in countries producing cheap food for us before we realise that this is killing us on the receiving end through obesity?
Our farmers are being put out of business because they cannot compete in the global marketplace with food that is being produced by slave labour on vast plantations with no regard for the environment and without any traceability. It is time to give every worker a fair wage for a day's work whether he be a deckhand aboard an Irish Ferries' vessel or a labourer on a sugar plantation in Brazil.
Anna Kavanagh
Corracorkey
Mostrim
Co Longford
