The control of global agriculture has long been a tentacle of US state-corporate geopolitical strategy. The Green Revolution was exported courtesy of oil-rich interests, and poorer nations adopted Western agri-capital’s chemical- and oil-dependent model of agriculture that required loans for inputs and related infrastructure development. It resulted in trapping nations into a globalised system of debt bondage, rigged trade relations and a system vulnerable to oil price shocks and manipulation.
In his book The Unsettling of America (1977), Wendell Berry criticises the US Department of Agriculture for adopting a doctrine that treats food as an instrument of foreign political and economic speculation. Berry argues that treating food as a weapon ultimately serves the interests of large agribusiness corporations rather than farmers or consumers.
In effect, the weaponisation of food is part of a larger problem where agriculture is divorced from its cultural and ecological roots, leading to numerous negative consequences. Berry’s book discusses how modern agriculture has fostered a disconnect between people and the land. He laments that farming has been reduced to a mere business venture rather than a way of life that nurtures community and culture.
A business venture and a geopolitical weapon.
Something not lost on environmentalist Vandana Shiva who does not hesitate to label agrochemical companies as a poison cartel. She emphasises that this designation stems not only from the harmful effects of its chemicals on the food system but also from the historical connections of corporations like Bayer and BASF to warfare and chemical weapons. These companies have roots in producing toxic substances used during conflicts, including World War I and II, where they manufactured chemical agents such as chlorine gas and Zyklon B, the latter infamously used in Nazi gas chambers.
These practices reflect a broader underlining (historical) pattern of exploitation and violence in the food system that undermines both human health and ecological integrity. Major agribusiness companies are deeply embedded in supranational policymaking machinery that allows them to draw up policies to serve their own interests. For instance, Monsanto played a key part in drafting the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights to create seed monopolies.
The powerful agribusiness lobby has secured privileged access to policy makers to ensure its model of agriculture prevails. And those same companies also profit from destruction and war and sovereign debt traps to gain access to markets (see, for instance, Sowing the Seeds ofFamine in Ethiopia by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky).
Food cultivation — an endeavour that at its core seeks to nourish and sustain life — has been hijacked and weaponised to coerce, control and suck away life from nature and people.
And the top man of Bayer in India recently spoke about ‘backwardness’ ‘development’ and Indian agriculture, as if any of the above is progressive. But few illusions are as pervasive and pernicious as the ideology of ‘progress’ and ‘development’ that hides behind corporate lobbyist soundbites about agribusiness and its money-spinning inputs being needed to prevent mass starvation.
This ideology, propped up by the twin pillars of techno-solutionism and technocracy, has become the unquestioned truth of the age, a secular religion that promises salvation through the relentless march of technology and the wisdom of experts.
Writer Paul Cudenec says that ‘development’:
… is the destruction of nature, now seen as a mere resource to be used for development or as an empty undeveloped space in which development could, should and, ultimately, must take place. It is the destruction of natural human communities, whose self-sufficiency gets in the way of the advance of development, and of authentic human culture and traditional values, which are incompatible with the dogma and domination of development.
Cudenec argues that those behind ‘development’ have been destroying everything of real value in our natural world and our human societies in the pursuit of personal wealth and power. Moreover, they have concealed this crime behind all the positive-sounding rhetoric associated with development on every level.
Indeed, the notion that human society is on an inevitable trajectory of improvement, driven by technological innovation and profit, is perhaps the most insidious myth of our time. This narrative of perpetual progress is a convenient smokescreen, obscuring the stark realities of environmental degradation, social inequality, spiralling rates of food-related illness and spiritual impoverishment that characterise so-called advanced civilisation.
At the heart of this ideology lies the naive belief in techno-solutionism — the misguided faith that every problem, no matter how complex or deeply rooted in social and political structures, can be solved with the right technological fix. This reductionist worldview reduces the human experience to a series of technical challenges, eagerly awaiting the next groundbreaking innovation to set things right.
This simplistic approach not only fails to address the root causes of our predicaments but actively distracts us from the necessary work of systemic change and collective action.
Hand in hand with techno-solutionism marches technocracy — the idea that society would be best governed by the rich, technical experts and engineers rather than elected representatives or, just imagine, ordinary people! This elitist vision of governance places undue faith in the objectivity and benevolence of a technocratic, ‘stakeholder-capitalist’ class.
The technocratic mindset reduces the vibrant reality of human society to a series of data points and algorithms, treating citizens as variables in a grand social engineering experiment. A worldview that values efficiency over empathy, optimisation over justice and control over freedom. In this brave new world, the nuances of culture, the wisdom of tradition and the unpredictability of human nature are seen as inconvenient obstacles to be overcome rather than essential aspects of the human experience.
Proponents of this ideology of progress would have us believe that we’re living in the best of all possible worlds — or at least on the path to it with the proliferation of gadgets as irrefutable evidence of our ascent. But this narrative of continuous improvement conveniently ignores the widening wealth gap, corporate corruption, the epidemic of mental health issues, the erosion of community ties and a globalised food system that results in all manner of illness and environmental degradation.
The obsession with technological progress and economic growth has come at a tremendous cost. Elite interests have sacrificed the health of the planet, the well-being of countless species and our own connection to the natural world on the altar of ‘development’. They traded meaningful work and genuine human connections for the hollow notion of convenience and efficiency and power and profit.
The ideology of progress serves as a powerful tool for maintaining the status quo. By perpetuating the myth that our current corrupt system is the pinnacle of human achievement, or at least the best we can hope for (there is no alternative!) stifles imagination and is meant to induce apathy and demotivate the masses in striving to bring about meaningful change. And those who dare to propose alternative models of social organisation are censored or dismissed as naive idealists or dangerous radicals.
The tech giants and corporations that benefit most from this ideology have become the new high priests of our age, peddling their digital opiates and shiny gadgets as the path to a better future. They promise connection but deliver isolation, offer information but breed confusion and pledge empowerment while tightening the public noose of surveillance.
The Green Revolution, once hailed as the saviour of the ‘developing world’, has instead trapped millions of farmers in cycles of debt and dependency, while reducing the nutritional value of food and decimating biodiversity.
Now, we are told that the solution to current problems lies in even more technology — gene editing, precision agriculture and artificial intelligence. But this is merely doubling down on a failed paradigm. These ‘solutions’ are not designed to address the root causes of our food crisis but rather to further consolidate control over the food system in the hands of a few powerful corporations.
Consider the push for genetically modified organisms and the new wave of gene-edited crops. Proponents claim these technologies will increase yields and reduce pesticide use. Yet, decades of cultivation of genetically modified organisms have shown us that these promises are hollow. Instead, we have seen the rise of superweeds, increased pesticide use and the erosion of seed sovereignty as farmers become beholden to patent-holding corporations.
Similarly, the drive towards ‘smart’ farming and precision agriculture is often presented as a path to sustainability. In reality, it’s a trojan horse for increased corporate control and farmer disempowerment. As farms become more reliant on proprietary software, expensive machinery and data-driven decision making, traditional farming knowledge is devalued, and farmers are reduced to mere operators in a system they no longer fully understand or control.
The solution lies in a return to human-scale agriculture, rooted in agroecological principles. This is not a romanticised view of the past but a forward-thinking approach that recognises the wisdom embedded in traditional farming practices while selectively incorporating appropriate, open-access technologies.
Moreover, the push for lab-grown meat and ultra-processed, plant-based alternatives is not about sustainability or animal welfare but about wresting control of protein production from farmers and placing it in the hands of tech companies and their investors. These products, often marketed as eco-friendly solutions, are in reality energy-intensive, highly processed foods that further disconnect us from the natural world and our food sources.
In the face of this techno-industrial onslaught, we must advocate for food sovereignty — the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. This means resisting the corporatisation of our food supply, supporting local food systems and preserving the diversity of crops and culinary traditions that have nourished humanity for millennia.
This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Colin Todhunter.
Colin Todhunter | Radio Free (2024-11-26T15:27:40+00:00) Techno-Feudalism or Food Sovereignty?. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2024/11/26/techno-feudalism-or-food-sovereignty/
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