the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Dec 6, 2021
Translated from Lutte Ouvrière (Workers’ Struggle), the newspaper of the revolutionary workers’ group active in France.
The food price index compiled by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), rose by more than 30% in one year.
This particularly concerns wheat, meat, sugar, dairy products, and many other foods essential to people’s dietary needs.
These increases are said to be indirect consequences of Covid, or bad weather, or complications of the economic recovery. But it is not the virus that prevents small farmers from escaping poverty. Farmers are working hard to produce coffee, cocoa, peanuts, cotton, latex, and other cash crops. Those responsible for rising prices are the agro-industrial trusts, which impose their stranglehold on production chains and on processing and marketing networks.
In addition, foodstuffs—like other commodities—are subject to speculation, which pushes prices up. For financial vultures, food represents just another opportunity to make quick and easy profits. But for millions of people around the world, this means worsening poverty and the threat of famine.