The following is an excerpt from John Robbins, The Food Revolution (Berkeley, Calif.: Conari Press, 2001), pp. 287-288. All endnote references are included below.
. . . Remarkably, the world's nations depend massively on one nation for grain. The United States is responsible for half of the world's grain exports, shipping grain to more than 100 countries. . . .
Since 1960, the number of landless in Central America has multiplied fourfold. International lending agencies such as the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank have responded with billions of dollars in loans. But these loans have not challenged the tightly concentrated distribution of economic power, nor the use of resources to benefit the wealthy at the expense of the poor. Often, the money has been lent to support livestock operations.
The hope has been that the resulting heightened beef production would be of use to the impoverished masses of these poor countries. But over half of Latin America's beef production is exported to the world's wealthier countries, and what remains is too expensive for any but the wealthy to purchase.20 From 1960 to 1980, beef exports from El Salvador increased more than sixfold.21 During that same time, increasing numbers of small farmers lost their livelihood and were pushed off their land. Today, 72 percent of all Salvadoran infants are underfed.22
Where does the income from the sale of beef go? Not to the poor, but to the very few who own the land. A handful of wealthy families own more than half the agricultural land in Costa Rica, grazing 2 million cattle.23 In Guatemala, as is typical for Latin American countries, 3 percent of the population owns 70 percent of the agricultural land. Most of Mexico's wealth is in the hands of about 30 families, while half of the people live on less than $1 a day.24
Only 35 years ago, sorghum was almost unknown in Mexico. But now it literally covers twice the acreage of wheat. What caused sorghum's incredible takeover of Mexican agricultural land? Sorghum is fed to livestock. Twenty-five years ago, livestock consumed only 6 percent of Mexico's grain. Today, the figure is over 50 percent.25
In Guatemala, much of the land and other resources for food production are given over to meat, while 75 percent of the children under five years of age are undernourished. The meat produced goes to those who can afford it. Guatemala is a nation where babies have only a 50-50 chance of reaching the age of four because of widespread malnutrition. Meanwhile, every year Guatemala exports 40 million pounds of meat to the United States.26 . . .
In Costa Rica, beef production quadrupled between 1960 and 1980. Today, even with much of its original tropical rainforest land sacrified to beef production, the average family in Costa Rica eats less meat than the average American house cat. Most Costa Rican beef is exported to the United States. As more and more Costa Rican land is being turned over to meat production, the population has less and less to eat.
With the help of the World Bank and other international lending institutions, Brazil has mounted an enormous effort to increase agricultural production, but this has been primarily meat-oriented and for export. Twenty-five years ago, there were virtually no soybeans planted in Brazil. Today, this crop is the nation's number one export, with almost all of it going to feed Japanese and European livestock. Twenty-five years ago, one-third of the Brazilian population suffered from malnutrition. Today, the number has risen to two-thirds. Now, half of the basic grains produced in Brazil are used for livestock feed. The country has the largest commercial cattle herd in the world, while the majority of the rural poor suffer from malnutrition.28 . . .
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20DeWalt, B., "The Cattle Are Eating the Forest," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist 39:1 (January 1983):22; and Shane, D., Hoofprints on the Forest: Cattle Ranching and the Destruction of Latin America's Tropical Forests (Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1986), p. 78.
21DeWalt, B., "The Cattle Are Eating the Forest."
22Policy Alternatives for the Caribbean and Central America, Changing Course: Blueprint for Peace in Central America and the Caribbean (Washington, D.C.: Institute for Policy Studies, 1984).
23Caulfield, Catherine, "A Reporter at Large: The Rain Forests," New Yorker, January 14, 1985. See also Myers, Norman, The Primary Source (New York: W. W. Norton, 1983), p. 133.
24Gray, Mike, Drug Crazy (New York: Random House, 1998), p. 134.
25DeWalt, B., "Mexico's Second Green Revolution," Mexican Studies 1:1 (Winter 1985):30; Barkin, D., and DeWalt, B., "Sorghum, the Internationalization of Capital, and the Mexican Food Crisis," Paper presented at the American Anthropological Association Meeting, Denver, CO, November 16, 1984, p. 16. See also Halweil, Brian, "United States Leads World Meat Stampede," Worldwatch Issues Paper, July 2, 1998.
26Myers, The Primary Source, p. 133.
28Size of Brazil's commercial cattle herd from "Virus-Free Brazil Beef Headed for US in 2000," Meat Industry Insights, November 3, 1999.