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Hi everybody. Welcome to a very short daily source code for Thursday, December 2, 2004. I'm

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a little bit pissed off. We did all day for my DSL line to be switched on, made all kinds

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of other decisions and choices which did not involve going to Starbucks, thinking I have

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plenty of time to do all my prepping and get all my stuff ready and have everything all

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set to go for a source code. So I didn't work out and so I just decided to be almost

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not online today and went analog, went out and bought some newspapers and I got the

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Guardian, which I've known and I read online, I've been subscribed to their RSS feeds

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for a long time. The Guardian.co.uk and picked up the paper version today and in the

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G2 section, it's like a page and a half spread with a great graphic titled personal

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soundtracks. Audio programming has become cheap and easy to make and has led to the rapid

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spread of the podcasting phenomenon, then hammerously reports. There is an online version

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and tomorrow I'll link to that. But I think it's very cool and it's just awesome to be cited

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as, here it comes, Adam Curry, a London-based weblogger. Okay, almost got it right. So instead

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of doing a regular source code, I want to read this one column to you from another part

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of the Guardian. Actually it's a comment and analysis. So let me see, yeah, Felicity

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Lauren, she's the Guardian Consumer Affairs correspondent. I did this column just really struck

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me. I don't know if there is even an online version of it or not, but I enjoyed reading

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this and it gave me a lot to think about and maybe it will do the same for you. So on

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today's source code, I yield the floor for the distinguished gentleman, Felicity Lawrence.

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This food racket just can't go on. A full-scale consumer rebellion is needed to change the

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way we eat. That comes at point in most discussions about how to help people eat better

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when everybody gets stuck on cheese. If you would have traffic lights on food, read for

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bad, dream for good, orange for in between, what on earth would you do with cheese? This is

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the point at which the absurdity of the food debate overwhelms me. It's not that I'm against

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traffic lights. Actually, I think they might help a bit. It's just that when the car's

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been hijacked and you're herdling in the wrong direction, I'm not sure they are up to

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the job on on their own. Our food is being produced in a way that has devastating consequences

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for the environment, for social justice, and for our individual health. In less than a

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generation, it has been industrialized and globalized. Processed food is routinely adulterated

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with artery clogging fats, a besegenic sugars and constipating starches, which are then disguised

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by chemical colorings and flavorings without which they would be unpalatable. We have come

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to depend on this junk food, and it is making us sick. On nutritionally depleted diet

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is now kneeling on par with tobacco as the cause of ill health and premature death. Manufacturers

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use these raw materials instead of good quality fresh food, because enormous subsidies

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mostly paid by Western taxpayers have made them cheap. About 70% of the value of the US

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soy of being comes from the US government, no wonder soy of derivatives are found in

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two-thirds of all processed foods. Subsidized US corn is turned into ubiquitous corn

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sweeteners and modified starches for the same reason. The money made from food is shifted

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from those at the bottom of the chain, the farmers and producers. To those at the top, the

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tiny number of big transnational food processors, manufacturers and retailers who control

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our food as never before. Protectionist subsidies have done little to save farmers who are going

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out of business everywhere. The value of agricultural commodities on which so much of the

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developing world depends for its livelihood has slumped. As other barriers to trade have

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been removed, inequalities in wealth have grown. Half the world now stars for lack of food

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while the other half suffers from diseases of excess. The money made from these commodities

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is concentrated in the hands of the cartels that control trade in them. Just five giant

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coffee manufacturers control over half the world's coffee beans. Ten years ago coffee producing

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countries kept 30% of the retail value of the coffee we buy. Today they keep just 10%.

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When we buy a jar of instant coffee, we pay 7,000% more than the farmer got for it.

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These concentrations of power are repeated across the food chain. Some 45% of grain trade is

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controlled by one US company, Cargill. The power of transnational manufacturers is mirrored by

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the emergence of dominant food rate retailers. In the near future, just four of five retailers

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will have one global domination with a handful of others dominating regionally. Three quarters of

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grocery sales in the United Kingdom are in the hands of four supermarket groups. They have a

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stranglehold on how our food is made and distributed. They've created a system that is in its use

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of new information technology and logistics, both miraculous and impossibly destructive.

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Thanks to the barcode, food is flown around the world to meet the supermarkets requirements for

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just in time ordering. Their demand for cosmetic perfection and a perpetual global summer

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can be met by producers only if they use agrochemicals intensively and allow for a

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big fucking word, degree of waste. A third of canyon green beans are thrown away because they are the

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wrong size or shape. This new business model has made the supermarkets highly profitable,

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but it depends on the extraving it use of that most politically charged and polluting of substances

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crude oil for the food miles, for the pesticides, for the packaging that makes up 40% of our domestic

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waste. It depends on an endless supply of cheap outsourced labor that can be turned on and off like

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a tap. Hundreds of thousands of migrant workers now live in Britain in conditions that would make

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Dickens blush. The way we eat is not just ecologically unsustainable, but also morally

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and even biologically unsustainable. Making it better requires radical structural change.

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It needs tighter competition policies, it needs reform of subsidies and trade rules,

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it needs regulation of business none of which government is inclined to do. So making our food

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better will also require a massive consumer rebellion. In my experience when people are well-informed

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about how this globalized food is made, they no longer want to eat it, but they have no problem

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with well-made cheese. And I'm going to leave it at that for the source code for today.

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Tomorrow I surely do hope we have broadband. Bye.