Myth 10: Free Trade is the Answer

Reality: Free trade has failed to alleviate hunger. In most Developing World countries exports have boomed while hunger has continued or actually worsened.

While soybean exports boomed in Brazil to feed Japanese and European livestock, hunger spread from one-third to two-thirds of the population. Where the majority of people have been made too poor to buy the food grown on their own country's soil, the food will be exported. Export crop production squeezes out basic food production.

Free Trade treaties pit working people in different countries against each other in a ‘race to the bottom,' where the basis of competition is who will work for less, without adequate health coverage or minimum environmental standards.

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Additional Resources

What We Do - Gorta

Hunger Task Force - Irish Aid

World Hunger - WFP

Special programme for food security - FAO

World Hunger Facts 2009 - Hunger Notes

World Hunger and Poverty - Global Issues

Hunger Fact File - DevelopmentEducation.ie

Food Crisis - World Bank

Millennium Development Goals - United Nations