Former US president Bill Clinton admits that the US ‘free trade’ policy has forced millions of people in third world countries into poverty and starvation.
“Today’s global food crisis shows we all blew it, including me when I was president, by treating food crops as commodities instead of as a vital right of the world’s poor, Bill Clinton has told a UN gathering.
Clinton took aim at decades of international policymaking by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and others, encouraged by the US, that pressured Africans in particular into dropping government subsidies for fertiliser, improved seed and other farm inputs, in economic “structural adjustments” required to win northern aid. Africa’s food self-sufficiency subsequently declined and food imports rose.
“Food is not a commodity like others,” Clinton said. “We should go back to a policy of maximum food self-sufficiency. It is crazy for us to think we can develop countries around the world without increasing their ability to feed themselves.”
World-renowned environmental leader, food-sovereignty activist and author Dr Vandana Shiva agrees with Clinton and in this video takes aim at the IMF and World bank over the same issues.
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Tags: Bill Clinton, food security, Free Trade, IMF, Vandana Shiva, World Bank
