FOR MANY of us, summer is a great time for eating. Barbecues are hot, garden vegetables are plentiful and there is lots of sweet, delicious fruit to be had.
But these are modest offerings compared to the eating extravaganza enjoyed by the leaders of the world’s richest countries who gathered earlier this month at the G8 meetings in Hokkaido, Japan.
Their hosts spared no expense, opening with a six-course lunch followed by an elaborate eight-course dinner. Some 24 dishes, including caviar, smoked salmon and other delicacies, were served on the first day of the meeting.
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Contrary to appearances, the G8 leaders, including Canada’s Stephen Harper, were not just meeting to feast. They were meeting to discuss the global food crisis.
It’s probably hard to imagine the pangs of hunger when you’re burping champagne and digesting the 18th dish of the banquet. The G8 leaders needed some reality checks to get a grip on the real problems facing millions of desperate families who are hungry and dying due to unaffordable food.
But the G8 leaders refused input from those not seated at their table. They rejected analysis that did not support their favourite solutions – more trade and more intensive food production requiring more chemicals, fertilizers and genetically modified seeds. They even tried to sidestep data that might challenge their menu.
For example, despite growing evidence that diverting food to fuel tanks is leaving more plates empty, some G8 leaders continue their wholesale support for agrofuel.
A World Bank report estimates that as much as 75 percent of the food price increase is due to agrofuel production. The Bush administration had conveniently estimated that it accounted for only three percent of the price increase.
Instead of hearing from people who had come to speak of their suffering and offer advice on how to solve the food crisis, the G8 leaders remained deliberately isolated.
Japanese authorities took harsh measures to keep all ordinary people far away from the G8 elite. They imprisoned a group of Korean peasant representatives to prevent them from joining the Via Campesina delegation at the food crisis forum.
When did protesting against hunger, rather than creating hunger, become the crime? A clear and disturbing pattern is emerging.
As the menus of the well-fed become more elaborate, the ranks of the hungry increase. The gap between rich and poor is growing. The chasm between the powerful and the vulnerable is deepening.
When the distance between the decision makers and the people affected is deliberately increased, those at the table know and care less about the excluded.
The resulting decisions become more unjust, unreasonable and merciless.
Nettie Wiebe is a farmer in the Delisle, Sask., region and a professor of Church and Society at St. Andrews College in Saskatoon. She is also the NDP nominee in the federal riding of Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar.
