Expo 2015 opens its doors in Milan on May 1st . The Universal Exposition, an international showcase that has always influenced society in many aspects, this year is dedicated to nutrition and food. Behind its slogan, " Feeding the Planet ," however, lie many contradictions. The title, "Feeding the Planet. Energy for Life," is a theme that evokes farmers, fertile soil, genuine products, and health through healthy and sustainable food. But the title and reality appear starkly at odds. In fact, in the expanse of concrete that is expected to generate hundreds of millions of euros to cover construction and management costs, farmers, sustainable agriculture, and genuine, locally sourced foods will be relegated to extras, given the weight and presence of multinationals with entirely different interests and goals.
More than seventy multinationals notorious for operating unethically will be participating in the Expo, from Monsanto , the multinational seed company most contested by small farmers around the world, to McDonald's . There's also room for lesser-known names like Mekorot , the Israeli water company that, by illegally extracting water from Palestinian aquifers, has committed serious violations of international law and human rights. Food can also be profited through speculation, which involves profiting from price fluctuations. A typical speculative move is to buy a house for 100 and resell it some time later for 110. Coffee, cocoa, wheat, and cotton are also bought and sold solely to profit from price fluctuations, which explains why the international stock exchanges, where agricultural products are traded, are more crowded with banks and financial funds than with companies in the food supply chain. In 2008, speculation on grains caused the price of bread to rise, increasing the number of hungry people from 900 million to over a billion. Unfortunately, everything is being turned into a commodity.
Global agricultural trade is managed by various multinationals, some specializing in single products, others in more than one. Among the latter, four— Archer Daniels Midland , Bunge , Cargill , and Dreyfus —share almost all of the world's grains, soybeans, and seed oils. Because of their initials, they are also collectively referred to as ABCD . Aside from small farmers, who produce for themselves or the local market, only a few million agricultural enterprises remain in the world. Despite their large size, they are heavily dependent on chemical companies, which impose high prices on their products. During the Green Revolution of the 60s, multinationals justified the introduction of the massive use of chemical inputs with the promise of eliminating world hunger. At that time, there were 60 million hungry people; after fifty years of this predatory model, today, according to the FAO , we are close to one billion people suffering from hunger every day.
On May 1st, stop work! This year especially...
Anna DB
