Causes of World Hunger
* While I don’t doubt George McGovern’s sincerity in trying to eliminate world hunger (“Too Many in the World Are Left Out,” Commentary, Nov. 23), he seems to have a lot to learn about its causes.
The most obvious and easily remedied causes of widespread hunger are intentional corporate and government policies that McGovern’s long piece largely ignores. Consolidation of land ownership by local elites and transnational corporations, destruction of arable land, diversion of existing farmland from subsistence to export crops and free-market policies that drive local food producers out of business are all consequences of U.S. government, World Bank, IMF and U.S. agribusiness programs.
Their results: Farmers throughout the world who are willing and able to produce food for their communities are forced instead into unemployment and starvation.
By intimating as he does that world hunger is an effect without causes, McGovern helps to conceal the cruel work of those whose greed for profits exceeds their compassion for their fellow human beings.
RANDALL SMITH
Del Mar
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