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Food—of The People, By The People, And For The People

In 2000, the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) left some 190 governments struggling to maintain their global competitiveness, but while still adhering to its principles of alleviating poverty and stimulating development in poor countries. In particular, The World Bank (WB) is dedicated to promoting agriculture for development—a roundabout technique that avoids considering the complexities of the food system nor the individual within the poverty alleviation process. The Goals’ places weight on industrialized nations and their capitalist markets, to facilitate agrarian reform and rural development. Meanwhile, underdeveloped and developing nations including but not limited to the 92 Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) members and 450 NGO delegates in attendance during the International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD) in 2006 view land food sovereignty as the mechanism to eradicate poverty and hunger, especially in rural areas. Naturally, the goal uniting the WB and ICARRD groups’ is that in order to achieve higher opportunities for the poor in the 21st century relative to the 20th, actions must be taken now. Equally supporting the platform of agrarian reform and rural development, the two groups’ deviate on what channels can best achieve this goal effectively and efficiently.

The conventional market-driven reform—the WB platform, emphasizes investment in agriculture as the most effective channel to ensure positive growth for poor regions; thereby, halving poverty levels as planned in MDG. According to the report, agriculture is of immediate concern over future demand for crops and a sustainable environment on a global scale. Agriculture can bolster poorer national economies by engaging the state, the private sector, and civil society to take on collaborative roles on behalf of the rural poor. The state—must work to do the following: combat unfair globalization-driven competition such as dumping, increase...

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