Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Dear Editor,
The development of Toledo is a social paradigm found at the fringe of every globalization sprawl.
Stemming from destruction of habitats and diminished resources, an overlooked, understudied effect of globalization is the forced change in diet. Native cultures have adapted to their traditional foods over thousands of years, and a sudden change in diet wreaks havoc on the body, especially when it is a shift to a nutritionally inferior diet.
Native Americans have experienced the greatest diet change for any ethnic group in the US, leading to increases in non-communicable diseases, directly causing the deaths of 4 out of 10 Native Americans.
The degree to which a culture adheres to traditional foods is reciprocated in community well-being. In the ever industrializing world, we must find creative ways to keep the Mayan diet or be faced with increasing health problems.
Prior to the arrival of Columbus, various sources estimate native population in North and South America at 90 to 100 million. In the 1500’s, the North American Indian population was approximately 12 million. When the US government could not round up Native Americans to be put on reservations, it went after its food source: the bison. At the behest of development, particularly the railroad companies and wealthy ranchers, the US ordered the massacre of the bison to near extinction.
The bison provided food, clothing, shelter, utensils and medicine. The tribes moved with the herd and butchering all the bison took away the foundation of a people. By the early 1900’s, the population had been reduced by more than 96% to roughly 474,000, and the Native American culture fell to its knees.
Whether it is accomplished at the point of a gun or the tip of a pen, restriction of cultures from their native diets will have the same effect. Over the centuries, native rights have been an ongoing struggle and politicians worldwide have used the struggle to garner votes. After election, the realities of trade policies, international treaties and corporate agreements wield a mightier sword and complicate the struggle for land rights.
Multinational agreements such as the Plan Puebla Panama (PPP) choose a “mini-China” approach in maximizing the working potential of the masses by building infrastructure to allow huge multinational corporations access to resources and a “new army of cheap labour.”
The Mesoamerican Transport Integration Initiative, or International Network of Mesoamerican Highways (RICAM) is an ongoing project of PPP. Under the latter, a major highway is proposed from Puebla, Mexico to Panama, hence Plan Puebla Panama (PPP).
The Atlantic corridor of this major highway is planned to go through Toledo into Guatemala. The impact of this development will determine the future of Toledo.
In order for governments to attract foreign investment, infrastructure and legal safeguards must be in place. An example of such safeguards is the repatriation of profits, which means that corporations will be taking away all the profits, while the Belizean taxpayers foot the infrastructure bill.
Other requirements are trained employees, relaxed labor laws and most importantly, the persuasion of people to give up ancestral lands. All of these are accomplished under the PPP. Is it possible that the Mayan land rights contradict the objective of the PPP?
Native peoples’ rights do not fit into the corporate picture. At the end of the day, the bottom line is about the most revenue at the least cost. Often, the expendable costs are human lives and their environment. Cultural change leading to mal-adaptation is an inherent risk that comes with globalization. Where resources are inaccessible to farm or gather traditional foods, a change in diet occurs.
As a result, there is an increase in the use of processed food high in starch, fat, and sugar, leading to diabetes, hypertension, cardiac and respiratory problems. Nutritional transitioning is as bad as the health effects of processed foods, and thus a change to a diet consisting primarily of processed food multiplies the effect.
Traditional foods do not contain food coloring, preservatives or chemical additives to keep it fresh or make it edible. One can hardly read the ingredients listed on most canned foods.
As it is, exorbitant rates of adult onset diabetes and an epidemic of pediatric and adult obesity leading to further health problems, are as a result of the very diet that native peoples are forced to adopt.
The best food is not canned food, bleached flour or any food engineered in a lab. The best foods are the wild grown organic beans, corn, rice, chikay, kalalu, yampa, tzin, kala, tzuk, and all the other delicacies of the forest.
Government revenue is dependent on the success of corporations, and corporations are dependent on the legal safeguards and access to resources. When concessions are granted, economic values are placed on resources, but no value is placed on lives, environment and health.
If health were given an economic value, then processed foods, degradation of the environment and decimation of a people would truly make the PPP an economic loss.
Studies have shown that with urbanization comes a decrease in grain consumption and an increase in fat intake; less dietary diversity and more junk food. Urbanization means an increase in food demand and less arable land.
As land is being grabbed up for development, more and more unaffordable imported food becomes the norm. Japanese mothers recognized this trend in the 1960’s and initiated the Teikei as a means to healthy, affordable traditional diets in an industrializing world.
The Teikei is a community-supported agriculture system. It is a socio-economic agricultural model whereby food is delivered on a weekly basis to the community that pre-paid for shares. Pre-paying at the beginning of a season essentially fronts the budget for the upcoming crop. In doing so, the community and the farmer provide mutual support and share the risk.
Being that the community is involved in sharing the risk, prices are openly discussed and democratically agreed upon by the farmer and the community. All paying individuals get a share of the crop. So, every week a food box is delivered to community members, fresh and usually much more affordable. It is a flexible system where work can be traded as payment or bartered.
It is a system based on transparency and community. Similar systems can be found all over the world, all with the intention of providing sustainable, nutritious foods.
Without access to resources to self-sustain, Toledo will rely more on the availability of imported foods, depend on the government to provide more jobs to pay for these imported foods, lessen the health and vitality of the people, increase dependency on an unreliable health care system and ultimately, poverty will expand to include the lack of proper nutrition and healthcare.
The Mayan diet MUST be kept, not just because it is cultural, but because it is healthier, and economically and environmentally sustainable. If one’s intention in life is truly the pursuit of happiness, then the pursuit of health and a healthy environment are crucial means to that end.
It is most understandable that our country needs to make money for the benefit of its citizens. However, development leading to a decline in the well-being of a community is counterproductive. With the tumult of factors to be considered in making the difficult compromise of human rights versus revenue, we cannot afford human emotions and division amongst ourselves to further complicate an already sensitive issue.
Bright Blessings,
Margarito Cal