Institutionalized poverty led to an outbreak of pellagra that Americans would rather forget. But grain farmers remember; they know that hunger is good business.
Thanks to the failings of basic democratic institutions in the US, Midwestern grain estates have incredibly disproportionate influence in US politics. This has consequences for our foreign policy that can be seen in “food aid” programmes that mostly serve as crop dumping that serves three purposes. It alleviates food gluts at home, propping up crop prices in the United States. Crop dumping also undercuts farmers elsewhere in the world. This can start a vicious cycle of dependency on imports: the American grain farmer’s ultimate gold mine. And finally, it makes America’s farmers look important. It makes their wealth and political prestige look like it is earned through the hard work of farming, instead of what it is: thieved away from other farmers all around the world through back-room geopolitical dealings.
Cash crops and technology aren’t bad in and of themselves. In democratic environments, they can build wealth and well-being in farming areas. But in economies dominated by warlords and other malignant hustlers, everything is turned to the detriment of ordinary people. Cash crops, technology, even access to food and water become struggles used to keep people bound to power players. The United States is no exception. Our history of mass hunger at home, forgotten though it may be, is witness to that.
