Food for Profit
Bodemheimer, Tom
Malnutrition is the most serious health problem in the underdeveloped world. Of all people dying in the poor nations, more than 40 percent are children under five years of age. And most of these...
...voluntary agency which receives foods from the U.S...
...Consequently, there has been insufficient promotion of the new product and its distribution is limited...
...With moderate rather than tiny holdings they could feed both themselves and the cities of their countries...
...THE FOUR NUTRITION POSTULATES 1. The food-population collision...
...Infant Nutrition in the Subtropics and Tropics (Geneva: World Health Organization, 1955...
...Exactly the opposite is true...
...Land reform, not education, can solve the feeding problem in Latin America...
...This dependency serves the U.S...
...It is universally agreed that underdeveloped countries -- individually or in regional groups -should attempt to become self-sufficient in feeding themselves...
...In order to feed poor people, Incaparina must be sold more cheaply...
...Yet the belief is largely fallacious...
...Thus Costa Rica's milk production is dropping, and the future of the industry is in doubt...
...7 2. The United States is helping, at least in the short run, to solve the feeding problems of poor countries...
...Milk is Costa Rica's fourth largest agricultural industry, following the export commodities of coffee, bananas, and beef cattle...
...First, the countries underproduce food because of the nature of the land tenure and food export systems...
...Costa Rica and Guatemala have a relatively high coverage of preschoolers -- from 10-20 percent...
...272: 137-144, 193-8, 1965...
...As we return now to the four postulates listed at the beginning of the paper, we will broaden the discussion and look at Latin America in general, referring back to the case studies where appropriate...
...Kotz, N. Let Them Eat Promises (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1969...
...2 7 In the case of Incaparina, the price is fixed by INCAP, and the company producing the food in Guatemala has been losing money...
...One egg, on the other hand, costs five cents and fails to satisfy one person for one meal...
...Thus a taste, and a dependency, is created for American rather than local products...
...policy to import beef from Central America, Costa Rican milk farmers are leaving the dairy industry in order to raise more profitable beef cattle...
...Yet 75 percent of CARE products go to school children, who are past the nutrition crisis of the first five years...
...2 6 So PL 480 has little immediate effect, and in the long run, it aggravates rather than solves the nutrition problem of underdeveloped countries...
...Science 153: 271-5, 1966...
...Tecnica Agropecuaria S.R.L...
...pressure to continue the CARE program has stopped the government from doing so...
...Cook, R. Population and Food Supply, in Mudd, S. (ed...
...6 The chief nutritional deficiency is protein, particularly high-quality protein with an adequate content of essential amino acids...
...8. U.S...
...yet that solution has been prevented by U.S...
...The reason: dairymen are switching from milk to beef cattle to take advantage of the lucrative beef export trade to the United States...
...Yet milk is not the only product adversely affected by the CARE program...
...4 According to surveys taken by the Institute of Nutrition of Central America and Panama (INCAP), 48 percent of Costa Rican children under five are malnourished, as measured by retardation in weight gain...
...Whereas over 20 million pounds per year would be required to feed all children under five, Incaparina sales in Guatemala are under three million pounds per year...
...9. Williams, S. Private Investment in World Agriculture...
...Thus agriculture in Central America, and to some extent in South America, develops in response to the desires of the United States, and not to the needs of its own people...
...Thus massive stretches of arable land are not cultivated at all, are underutilized, or are planted with export crops...
...The average five-year-old weighs the equivalent of a normal child of two years...
...Interviews with Carlos Matheu and Eduardo Castillo...
...The availability of cheap CARE milk has taken the pressure off the government to produce its own milk and develop a national industry...
...Social Implications of Nutrition and Disease...
...This means reliance on wealthy individuals, companies and banks to invest in profitmaking ventures...
...4. Poor people need nutrition education...
...Environ...
...Now, however, the European colonists own most of the land, having forced the Indians into smaller and smaller areas and eliminated many of their old food sources...
...Schultz, T.W...
...the case of milk in Costa Rica is an example...
...Ibid...
...Since the United States can pay higher prices for these products than Latin Americans can pay for basic foods, landowners choose the export crops over grains for domestic consumption...
...Given that choice, who would not eat corn...
...2 1 The InterAmerican Development Bank lists this land tenure system as the number one obstacle to agricultural development in Latin America...
...Production Yearbook 1968 (Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization, 1969...
...The World Food Problem (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1967...
...Looking at the total agricultural sector, Latin America is actually aiding the United States...
...Secondly, the most fertile areas of arable land are not used to feed the Latin American population, but are planted in crops for export to the developed world, especially the United States...
...Interview with Dr...
...Interview with Warren Bonilla...
...government under Public Law 480, and arranges the transport and distribution of these foods in recipient nations...
...Clearly the solution to the nutrition problem of these two million Indians, and tens of millions of peasants throughout Latin America, is to give them back their land...
...4. Las Condiciones de Salud en las Americas 19611964 (Washington: Organizacion Panamericana de la Salud, 1966...
...But U.S...
...food policy...
...Thus the government plant has been a failure, producing very little milk...
...1 8 Of the continent's 500 million hectares of arable land, only 30 percent are presently being cultivated...
...2 8 Incaparina provides a prime example of how a good, inexpensive protein source is caught between the selfishness of U.S...
...First, large areas of land are underutilized because the absentee owners of the large plantations have no incentive for high productivity...
...Similar and more extreme patterns are found in many Latin American countries...
...Arch...
...87575 ($2.50) FOOTNOTES 1. Brown, R.E...
...10And many of the one billion hectares of forests could be converted into farmland...
...In the first place, the CARE program does cost money to the recipient governments -- several hundred thousand dollars in both Costa Rica and Guatemala...
...We have tried to give a brief picture of the forces which affect one sector of the economy of two small countries...
...Amaro, N. (ed...
...And most of these childhood deaths are caused by the interaction of malnutrition and infection.l The malnutrition-infection complex begins with the weaning of the child from the breast...
...pressure to use American milk and CSM...
...The nutrition problem cannot be solved by U.S...
...Many dollars for nutrition education are spent on the basis of this view...
...Worldwide figures in underdeveloped countries have received PL 480 commodities...
...CARE, on the other hand, has a large program, costing the Guatemalan government over $300,000...
...Fourth, CARE competes with local experiments in high-protein food production...
...See footnote 25...
...the national industry felt that CARE's competition was harmful...
...The Guatemalan government buys almost no local milk for nutrition programs...
...Costa Rica and Guatemala are not exceptional cases: on a worldwide basis, per capita milk production is currently declining...
...already the population of dairy cattle in Costa Rica has decreased by an astonishing 65 percent...
...In 1948, many milk producers joined together in the Dos Pinos cooperative, which built a modern procesing plant, and now supplies pasteurized milk to the entire country...
...Two large dairy farmers separately stated "If I could find someone to buy my milk cattle, I would go out of milk production tomorrow...
...For Latin America as a whole, the amount of land used for export crops is enormous By converting plantations of coffee, cotton, sugar and bananas, Latin America could raise corn production by 50 percent, double its wheat production,-11or increase rice by two and a half times...
...Education inputs (new seeds, fertilizer, pesticides) may be more expensive than the increased yields are worth...
...SUMMARY The major health problem in Latin America stems from a deficiency of high quality protein in early childhood, resulting in many deaths from the malnutrition-infection interaction...
...However, from the experience of-12DICIEEMBRE ENERO the milk industry and Incaparina in Costa Rica and Guatemala, such faith in private investment must be questioned...
...1 4 There is no leader in the dairy business comparable to Dos Pinos...
...The milk industry is small, and declining because export crops are more profitable...
...Economic Crises in World Agriculture (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1966...
...Dos Pinos also produces nonfat dry milk, which is sold to the Costa Rican government for distribution to children in schools and nutrition centers...
...At that time, the child often fails to receive sufficient quantities of the high quality proteins which were available to him in breast milk...
...8 3. For a permanent solution to the food shortage, large amounts of private capital must be invested in the production of food within poor countries...
...Estudios de Mercados en Centroamerica y Factibilidad de Production en Costa Rica (San Jose, Costa Rica, 1970...
...To remove this obstacle would require a complete reform of the land tenure system, taking away the huge holdings from their owners...
...But PL 480-CARE programs have the overall effect of slowing the development of domestic agricultural production, and thus are harmful rather than helpful to the recipients...
...Developed by INCAP, Incaparina is made from corn and cottonseed flour which are easily prepared within Central America...
...2 3 Yet many Latin nations are now importing basic food items such as wheat, corn and beans...
...that which best satisfies hunger at lowest cost...
...as well as several interviews...
...Other nutritional problems in these two countries include caloric deficiency, vitamin A lack and anemia due to insufficient iron and folate...
...rather, the industry has always been poorly developed...
...2 9 In the words of one publication, "Lack of knowledge of the simplest facts of nutrition is at the root of a high proportion of the cases of malnutrition today...
...Harvard Business Review Nov./Dec...
...Health 18: 21634, 1969...
...Under strong pressure from the milk industry, the government raised milk prices by 10 percent...
...Government-fixed milk prices have not changed for 18 years, despite rising costs of milk's raw materials, especially cattle feed...
...2 5 Thus PL 480-CARE programs have adverse effects on the development of food industries in underdeveloped countries...
...Whereas the most severely malnourished group is under five years of age, most CARE food goes to school children...
...food aid programs or local private investment...
...CARE milk reaches very few pre-school children, yet CARE's program prevents the distribution of.the cheaper, locally produced Incaparina...
...The solution lies in land reform, redistribution of wealth, and high-priority governmental action to develop low-cost, high-protein food industries for domestic consumption.Calendar: published by La Clinica del Pueblo Rio Arriba, Tierra Amarilla, N.M...
...Rather, malnutrition in Latin America is rooted in two politico-economic facts...
...If CARE had not been barred from Costa Rica in the mid-fifties, Dos Pinos would not have gotten off the ground...
...The principal problem of the underdeveloped world, then, can be solved in only one way: the production and distribution of adequate amounts of high-quality protein food...
...CARE was then asked to bring in non-fat dry milk, which it has done up to the present...
...Profits on such exports are much higher than returns from producing milk...
...2 2 In Guatemala, the entire luxurious Pacific coast lands are taken up in export commodities (cotton, coffee and beef cattle), and the country must import corn and beans to feed its people...
...3 The infection, in turn, increases the child's protein and calorie requirements and produces a deterioration of the nutritional state...
...six to eight companies serve only Guatemala City (with just 15 percent of the country's people...
...Incaparina Highlights, December, 1968...
...Incaparina is an excellent case...
...The indigenous people have nowhere to migrate, and their soil is depleted by constant corn harvests...
...In the first place, much land in Latin America is used to export food to the United States, thus enabling the United States to procure food (as coffee and bananas) not grown in temperate zones...
...After acquiring millions of acres of land in Latin America for its own use, the United States then turns around and offers food to Latin American countries under PL 480...
...3 0 The Guatemalan Indians, descendent from the great Mayan culture, were not always malnourished...
...6. Evaluacion Nutricional de la Poblacion de Centro America y Panama: Guatemala (Instituto de Nutricion de Centro America y Panama, 1969...
...At the age of two years the average child in these countries has reached the weight of a normal one-year-old North American...
...1 3 To summarize, then, Costa Rica developed a strong dairy industry partly due to the denial of cheap competitive milk imports by CARE...
...In Guatemala, then, the malnutrition problem is enormous, and no solutions can be seen on the horizon...
...It is this pattern of land use, rather than a population-food collision, which is the cause of inadequate food production in Latin America...
...Medical Problems of the Developing Countries...
...In Guatemala 2.1 percent of the farms contain 62 percent of the arable land...
...7. Paddock, William and Paul...
...Secondly, CARE products compete with local industries...
...There is no demographic-geographic reason why people must be hungry or malnourished in Costa Rica, Guatemala, or in Latin America as a whole_ Latin America, with 16 percent of the world's habitable land, has only six percent of the population...
...Agricultural Development in Latin America: The Next Decade (Washington: Inter-American Development Bank, 1967...
...132. Jelliffe, D.B...
...But many doubt that this measure will induce farmers to remain in the dairy field...
...And its cost per glass is onesixth the cost of whole milk...
...The United States is widely believed to aid Latin America by sending food supplies under Public Law 480 (Food for Peace...
...2 4 Thirdly, in its school feeding programs, CARE accustoms children to foods -- e.g., milk and CSM -- which may never be produced in sufficient quantity in Central America...
...Incaparina, a high quality protein mixture based completely on vegetable sources, is appearing as a milk substitute...
...And because they now need money to survive, they sell rather than eat the small amounts of meat, eggs and milk produced by their few animals...
...Data from Costa Rican Government Dirreccion General de Estadistica y Censos...
...3 1 Before the Spanish conquest they had plenty of land, and ate fruits, small forest animals, and fish...
...CARE in Costa Rica is thus switching from milk to CSM, a high protein mixture of corn, soya and milk...
...In both countries, milk producers are squeezed between rising costs of raw materials and stable milk prices...
...Latin America is certainly no exception to this health problem...
...2 0 These large holdings produce only one-quarter the yield per hectare of a small Guatemalan farm...
...With resultant declining profits, milk production in Guatemala -- as in Costa Rica -- has started to go down.l5 Other enterprises, such as exportation of beef, are more lucrative...
...de Castro, J. Hambre y Desarrollo Economico en America Latina...
...This problem is not caused by an overabundance of people relative to the potential food supply, nor is it related to the poor dietary education of malnourished families...
...farmer who wishes to increase exports, but it hurts the economy of the recipient nation...
...food policy and the inability of the profit motive to solve the nutrition crisis...
...Interview with Paolo Vestini...
...Milk bought by the Costa Rican government from Dos Pinos and CARE reaches 90 percent of Shool children and 20 percent of pre-schoolers...
...See footnote 11...
...It is a stop-gap measure which could be supported as a response to temporary disaster conditions such as floods, earthquakes or droughts...
...Famine -- 1975 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1967...
...Yet many governmental and public health people in the United States and the poor nations have an entirely faulty conception of the food problem...
...By mixing the essential amino acids of various plants, Incaparina has attained a biological value equal to that of milk, glass for glass...
...The government set up a non-fat dry milk plant in the country, but CARE milk was never shut off -- as in Costa Rica -- in order to allow this plant to grow...
...In doing so, we will examine a single commodity -- milk -- in two countries, Costa Rica and Guatemala...
...One pound of corn costs FEBRERo four cents, and can fill up two people for a day...
...2 This nutritional deficiency makes the child more susceptible to severe infections, particularly of the gastro-intestinal tract...
...The population density is a sparse eight people per square kilometer...
...3. Private investment in local food industries...
...J. Med...
...4. What poor people of underdeveloped countries most need is education so they will learn which types of food are healthy.10 In this article we will seriously question these four beliefs, at least for the case of Latin America...
...Now, the United States needs beef and both Costa Rica and Guatemala are turning their lands toward this end...
...Consumption of milk is half of Costa Rica's average...
...The State of Food and Agriculture 1967 (Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization, 1967...
...The main opposition to CARE has been from the Costa Rican milk industry, especially Dos Pinos...
...Department of Agriculture...
...CARE is a U.S...
...President's Science Advisory Committee, footnote 7. 27...
...The method of agricultural growth recommended by the United States is development by private investment...
...1 7 In contrast to Asia, Latin America is underpopulated in relation to the land available...
...Milk production is dropping and farmers are leaving the dairy business...
...Yet if prices are artificially low, production of meat, eggs and milk will not be profitable, and private investors will stay away...
...Only by keeping down the prices of these protein sources will malnourished families be able to buy them...
...In Guatemala, where it is produced by a local company, Incaparina is a going concern, but a small one...
...When the United States cut off the Cuban sugar quota, Costa Rica started to produce and export sugar...
...See footnote 23...
...Forty percent of deaths are in pre-school children, largely caused by the nutrition-infection complex...
...1965...
...Scrimshaw, N.S...
...No wonder that an Indian, finding that his hen has laid an egg, sells rather than eats the egg...
...Carlos Diaz Amador...
...Secondly, the shipment of food under PL 480 primarily benefits American farmers, who need an outlet for overproduced commodities such as wheat, corn and milk...
...I'~6.OCTUBRE NOVIEMbRE IHowever, in its ten years of existence Incaparina has had a negligible impact on the Central American nutrition problem...
...President's Science Advisory Committee...
...in Peru, for example, one percent of the farms cover 80 percent of the arable land, and in Chile, large farms produce only five percent as much per hectare as small holdings...
...This money could be placed into longrange development programs for producing food...
...And in addition, the programs fail to make even a temporary impact on the nutrition problem...
...This downward spiral of malnutrition and infection all too often ends in death...
...yet to generate profits, Incaparina must be sold less cheaply...
...El Reto de Desarrollo en Guatemala (Guatemala: Editorial Financiera Guatemalteca, 1970...
...also President's Science Advisory Committee, footnote 7. 10...
...only 10 percent of pre-school children receive CARE milk...
...Peasants in Central America generally choose their foods in the most intelligent manner possible...
...and Behar, M. Malnutrition in Underdeveloped Countries...
...5 In Guatemala this figure climbs to 75 percent...
...5. Evaluacion Nutricional de la Poblacion de Centro America y Panama: Costa Rica (Instituto de Nutricion de Centro America y Panama, 1969...
...Many nutritionists, doctors, government officials and food producers in the developed and underdeveloped worlds believe that poor people are malnourished because they do not know what foods to eat...
...In several countries, attempts to market Incaparina have failed completely...
...The dairymen are responding by leaving their industry and investing in beef cattle or other commodities...
...Behar, M. Food and Nutrition of the Maya before the Conquest and at the Present Time...
...Costa Rica and Guatemala are excellent examples of this international food system which is so beneficial to the United States...
...as well as several interviews...
...New Eng...
...this new food has not been distributed by the Guatemalan or other Latin American governments because of the availability of CARE products...
...The PL 480-CARE program, however, is no solution whatsoever to the feeding problem of Latin America...
...1 6 The company is pushing the Guatemalan government to buy the product and distribute it to children in nutrition centers and schools...
...Some prevailing beliefs about this problem are summarized in the following four postulates: 1. There is an imminent, inevitable collision between the world's capacity to produce food and the growing population...
...The diet of the Guatemalan Indian is an example -- corn tortillas and black beans...
...Economia, July-December, 1962...
...And the greatest use of the product is among middle class families rather than the poor...
...12 Years of Achievement under Public Law 480 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1968...
...In two Central-American countries, Costa Rica and Guatemala, children under five make up 50 percent of all deaths...
...3. Gordon, J.E...
...This sector -- the production of milk and a milk substitute (Incaparina) -- is critical for solving the nutrition problem of these countries...
...When too many bananas were being produced, plantations were switched to new export needs such as cotton and cocoa...
...And fifth, P1 480-CARE imports have brought down the prices for local wheat and rice in some countries such that local farmers have no incentive to increase their production...
...However, in the past year the Costa Rican milk industry has undergone a crisis...
...All milk in the countryside is raw, and is usually distributed directly from the owner of the cows to local consumers...
...Only a highpriority public decision to place money into the production and distribution of high protein foods for domestic consumption will allow these countries to nourish their own people...
...The richest land is developed by a few large landowners to produce commodities needed by the United States...
...The Population Crisis and the Use of World Resources (The Hague: World Academy of Art and Science, 1964...
...However, in 1963 a volcanic eruption temporarily destroyed part of the milkproducing area of the country, causing an acute milk shortage...
...In Costa Rica, more land is used to grow the three main crop exports (coffee, bananas, and cocoa) than to produce the three main foods for internal consumption (corn, rice and beans...
...After presenting the facts of this limited case study, we will discuss the four postulates in light of these facts, making generalizations about Latin America as a whole.-9MILK IN COSTA RICA Costa Rica has a relatively well-developed milk industry with alyer capita consumption of 0.85 pounds per day...
...The only answer is government subsidy of Incaparina for the poor...
...2. U.S...
...In 1968, when milk was in excess in Costa Rica, the milk producers again forced CARE to stop its milk shipments...
...MILK AND INCAPARINA IN GUATEMALA In Guatemala we do not find a strong national milk industry going sour...
...Nutrition programs teaching him to do otherwise will not (and should not) succeed...
...But because of the recent U.S...
...And secondly, the masses of malnourished people can not afford to buy sufficient protein because they have no land and no money...
...While Dos Pinos was developing its powdered milk processing plant, it pressured the Costa Rican government into stopping the donation of powdered milk from the United States through the organization CARE...
...But in both countries, it is failing because of considerations unrelated to feeding people...
...1 9 Yet even the proper use of land now under cultivation would vastly increase food for internal consumption...
...Education and Training in Nutrition (Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization, 1962...
...In general, high-quality protein foods are expensive relative to the staple corn, beans and rice...
...It seems clear that reliance on the profit motive will not feed the underdeveloped world...
Vol. 5 • May 1971 • No. 3
