A K LEO T H E
WEDNESDAY, OCT. 5 to THURSDAY, OCT. 6, 2011 VOLUME 106 ISSUE 31
Serving the students of the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.
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UH professor, UH alumna discuss food security and APEC
NEWS
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APEC GEAR
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Honolulu Police Department equips itself for protests
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Nandita Sharma (left) and Shelley Muneoka (right) spoke to 50 people before a backdrop of an APEC protest mural that previously hung over the art building. K ELSEY A MOS News Editor
Revolution Books hosted a talk on food security as part of an ongoing series of talks on APECrelated issues last Sunday. Nandita Sharma, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa associate professor of ethnic studies and sociology and Shelley Muneoka of K AHEA: The Hawaiian-Environmental Alliance, a UH grad, spoke to an audience of about 50 people on the dangers they perceive in proposed APEC policies. For example, opponents believe the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, which would reduce trade tariffs, could lead to a food-production system dominated by large corporations. Sharma traced these issues back to the birth of capitalism in the English countryside 500 years ago, when English peasants
were increasingly shut out of the land they depended on for survival, forcing them to buy food they would have otherwise produced themselves. Sharma argued that this situation is not unlike our own. “Control food means control people,” said Sharma. “Once our ability to eat is in the marketplace, the more likely it is that capitalism will go unchallenged.” Sharma claimed that independent farmers around the world are protesting APEC policies that they fear will ruin their livelihood. “47 farmers a day are committing suicide in India for fear of losing land and livelihood because of APEC policies,” said Sharma. “Large agribusinesses are going to have, increasingly, a monopoly on the world food supply,” she said. This is because “Those who use the most short-term methods for increasing productiv-
ity ... only those kinds of agricultural producers will survive in an APEC free-trade zone.” She said that having large, profit- and productivity-driven agribusinesses in charge will lead to unhealthy food, environmental degradation and a loss of biodiversity. Muneoka brought the discussion back to Hawai‘i, speaking about the plantation-system sugar and pineapple industries, which have given way to other forms of agriculture. Hawai‘i’s top three agricultural industries today are genetically modified organisms, nurseries of nonedible plants and pineapple (primarily for export), none of which produce food for the local population to eat. According to Muneoka, it’s “a story of externalizing costs,” in which outside businesses grow their crops in Hawai‘i, but Hawai‘i carries the
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environmental costs. “The descendants of those systems [sugar and pineapple] became and are still becoming subdivisions, which no longer produce food,” said Muneoka. She pointed out that even as those lands become unproductive in terms of food production, they house people who still need to be fed. Shipping in food allows for an infl ation of the number of people who can live in the islands. “We’re absolutely dependent; if anything happened to the import, we’d be in a seriously messed up situation,” said Muneoka. Muneoka was also concerned about the turn to industrial fi sh farming, a practice in which cages of money-making carnivorous fi sh like ‘ahi are kept in the ocean and fed on soy pellets. According See Speakers, page 4
Report
Alumna starting a new local business
OPINIONS
WORLD TRADE WOES WTO policies take issue with U.S. law
SPORTS
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LOCAL MATCH-UPS First Wahine tennis tournament begins Thursday
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