1AC

Inherency
Hunger and food security in the modern world arent questions
of production but distribution. The 1AC papers over the
multiple structural flaws with food security measurestrade
disparity makes famine and structural violence over food
inevitable
Shepherd 12
(Benjamin Shepherd is a PhD candidate within the Food Security in Asia research
programme funded by the MacArthur Foundation at the Centre for International
Security Studies, University of Sydney. He is also participating in the Food Security
and Food Sovereignty in the Middle East research programme at the Center for
International and Regional Studies, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service
in Qatar., 2012 43: 195 Security Dialogue, Thinking critically about food security,
June 8th, 2012)
[http://sdi.sagepub.com/content/43/3/195]

Hunger in the modern world is neither a natural phenomenon nor the product of
an unbalanced Malthusian equation. It is a structural problem. The issue lies
with the institutional arrangements that dictate who gets what.
Simplistically, food is a commodity that is produced and sold for profit.
Notwithstanding smallholder farmers, the vast majority of global food trade is
controlled by corporations whose primary objective is the generation of
profit for shareholders. These tend to prefer to sell relatively expensive and
profitable foods to wealthy consumers rather than comparatively cheap,
low-profit produce to poorer ones. Of course, there is great complexity in global
food-supply chains, and markets and corporations are not the only institutions at
work. There are also governments subsidizing agriculture, trade rules and
agreements, intellectual-property regimes and commodity speculators, not
to mention structures such as wage/income differentials and technical capacity gaps
(e.g. lack of transportation and storage that minimize spoilage). These
institutional arrangements all play a role in determin ing the production,
price, quantity, quality, distribution and availability of as well as,
ultimately, who gets to consume which portions of global food production.
Following the work of Sen (1981), who demonstrated that major 20th-century
famines were far more the product of social, political and economic
relations than they were of exogenous trigger events such as drought, Uvin
(1994: 5968, 1026) examines this paradigm of states, corporations and
multilateral institutions that embody an international food-trading regime he
describes as the international organisation of hunger (Uvin, 1994: 57),
systematically reproducing abundance for the wealthy and dearth for the poor.
Shaws (2007) critique similarly indicts the major food-security institutions as a
considerable part of the continuing problem of hunger. The point is that it is not
productive capacity per se but human-constructed economic and political
structures that control how food is allocated and result in many go ing

hungry. It is the institutional arrangements that are the source of the

problem. A practitioner from Nairobi described some of these institutional
arrangements as yet another form of colonialism,1 preventing poor
agrarian Africans from developing their economic potential and resulting
in their continuing vulnerability to hunger. Notwithstanding its pathologies,
the international food regime ostensibly seeks the elimination of hunger
through the pursuit of sufficient food for all people at all times (FAO,
2010). Although there are a plethora of definitions of food security and its meaning
has evolved over time (see Shaw, 2007; Spring, 2009), today, the major foodsecurity institutions including governments, multilateral organizations and
transnational food corporations nearly all follow the definition used by the
Food and Agriculture Organization, which does not mention hunger at all.
According to the current version of this definition, Food security exists when all
people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe
and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an
active and healthy life. (FAO, 2010: 8)
The United States embargo uses food as a weapon against Cuba while
constructing a narrative of Cuban moral inferiority and American
dominance
Fazzino, 10 - Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Alaska Fairbanks. M.S., Sustainable Systems,
Slippery Rock University, December 1999; J.D., University of Florida Levin College of Law, 2007; and Ph.D., Anthropology, University
of Florida, 2008 (David V., WHOSE FOOD SECURITY? CONFRONTING EXPANDING COMMODITY PRODUCTION AND THE OBESITY AND
DIABETES EPIDEMICS, Drake Journal of Agricultural Law, 15 Drake J. Agric. L. 393, LexisNexis)//HAL
It's important for our nation to build--to grow foodstuffs, to feed our people. Can you imagine a country that was unable to grow
enough food to feed the people? It would be a nation that would be subject to international pressure. It would be a nation at risk.

when we're talking about American agriculture, we're really talking about a
national security issue. This concern over the relationship between food security and national security by the former
President is obvious, considering that the United States has utilized food as a weapon; perhaps the
most notable example is the embargo on Cuba. n24 The Cuban embargo has forced
individual families and the Cuban government to make due with fewer ties to global
circuits of food production and distribution. n25 The embargo led to an increase in the
number of policies, programs, and measures to enhance food security by relying on
local and national food production programs. n26 Similarly, the United States has been responsible for the
And so

imposition of Coalition Provisional Authority Order 81 in Iraq, which imposes World Trade Organization-friendly intellectual property
rights, including limitations on the rights of farmers to use seeds from the previous season's [*400] harvest. n27 Coalition
Provisional Authority Order 81 could undermine food security for farmers unable to afford required seed purchases if patented

When the operational

definitions of food security are limited to measuring how much food is created and
distributed, then the United States emerges as a superior nation in terms of its
overall food security and food surpluses. n29 At the same time, the relative inability of socalled less developed countries to meet the caloric needs of their populace--due to
chronic or acute instability in environmental, economic or political sectors--is
described as vulnerability and reflective of their inferiority. n30 Those in international development
material is found among seeds which have been saved from the previous season.

circles would also point to the poor transportation infrastructure in these less developed countries, which limits the distribution of

In the United States, the temporal

unfolding of science and technology is perceived as leading directly to the continual
emergence of progress. n32 Notions of this superiority are reflected in the literature
concerning food production and security where the locus of food insecurity is
consistently placed in the so-called less developed world, while the United States
occupies the role of provider and breadbasket of the world. n33 The stated
superiority of the U.S. international agro-industrial complex is intimately connected
with economics and politics; it is a historically produced discourse. n34
food to areas that may be in the greatest need of food assistance. n31

Despite the food exemption, the US still violates international law by

prosecuting companies for selling food to Cuba
LAMRANI 5-16-2013 (Salim, academic, journalist and specialist in Cuba-US relations, Obama's endless siege,
Morning Star, Lexis)

Obama declared his willingness to seek a "new

beginning with Cuba." "I think we can take the relationship between the US and Cuba in a new direction and
During his election campaign in 2007 Barack

launch a new chapter of engagement that will continue during my tenure," he said. Obama denounced his predecessor's policy
towards Cuba, which severely restricted opportunities for the Cuban community in the United States to visit the country. "This is
both a strategic and humanitarian issue," he said.
"This decision ... has had a profoundly negative impact on the welfare of the Cuban people. I will grant Cuban-Americans
unrestricted rights to visit family and send remittances to the island." Obama did keep his word on that. In April 2009 he announced
the lifting of some restrictions affecting Cubans living in the US with relatives on the island. Cuban-Americans can now travel to their
homeland without any hindrance, instead of for just 14 days every three years, and send unlimited remittances to their families

But despite the relaxation of travel restrictions

Washington has continued to enforce economic sanctions on Cuba - with an
increasing emphasis on "extraterritorial imposition," that is, seeking to enforce its sanctions policy in
all countries of the world. US extraterritorial blockade legislation is in violation of
international law. In June 2012 Dutch bank ING received the largest penalty ever for violating economic sanctions,
instead of just $100 (66) a month.

which have been in place since the US began the siege of the island in 1960. The Office of Foreign Assets Control (Ofac) fined the
bank $619 million (407m) for processing dollar transactions involving Cuba. The Treasury Department also forced the bank to sever
commercial relations with Cuba. It announced that "ING assured the Office of Foreign Assets Control that it had put an end to
practices that led to today's settlement." Washington had banned a European bank from doing business with Cuba. The Cuban
government denounced this extraterritorial application of economic sanctions, which is a relatively new development. This, besides
preventing all trade with the US (except limited raw food products) constitutes the main obstacle to developing trade relations
between Cuba and the rest of the world. Ofac director Szunin Adam used the occasion to warn foreign firms against trade with Cuba.
The ING fine "should serve as a clear warning to anyone considering taking advantage of evading US sanctions," he said. Other
foreign firms have also been sanctioned for trade relations with Cuba. The Swedish telecommunications multinational Ericsson
received a fine of $1.75m (1.15m) for repairing (through a subsidiary based in Panama) Cuban equipment worth 210,000. Three

In July 2012 the Treasury Department imposed

a fine of $1.35m (885,000) on US firm Great Western Malting Co for selling barley
to Cuba between August 2006 and March 2009. This fine was in clear violation of international
law, which prohibits any embargo on food commodities or drugs even in
wartime. And officially in any case Cuba and the US have never been in
conflict. In France two directors of the US travel agency Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT), Mano Giardini and Valerie Adilly, were
employees involved in the case were dismissed.

fired for selling tour packages to Cuba. The company runs the risk of receiving a fine of $38,000 (25,000) per trip sold - angering
some employees who could not understand the situation. "Why did Carlson not withdraw the Cuba tours from our reservation
system if we had no right to sell them?" asked one. CWT directors said: "Under these conditions we must apply the US rule that
prohibits journeys to Cuba, even for subsidiaries." A US subsidiary based in France is required to abide by US law on economic
sanctions against Cuba, ridiculing national legislation. More unusual economic sanctions prohibit Cubans from using some functions
of the Google search engine, such as Google Analytics, which calculates the number of visits to a website and their origin, Google
Earth, Google Desktop Search, Google Toolbar, Google Code Search, Google AdSense and Google AdWords. This deprives Cuba of
access to these new technologies and many downloadable products. Google spokeswoman Christine Chen explains: "We had it
written in our terms and conditions. Google Analytics cannot be used in countries subject to embargoes." At the same time that
Washington imposes restrictions on the use of Google's digital services in Cuba and prohibits Havana from connecting to its fibreoptic internet cable, the US State Department announced that it would spend $20m (13m) on "human rights activists, independent

So far
from adopting a "new beginning with Cuba," the Obama administration
continues to impose economic sanctions which affect the most vulnerable
sections of Cuban society, including women, children and the elderly. It
does not hesitate to violate international law by applying extraterritorial
measures to punish foreign companies. It refuses to listen to the
unanimous demand of the international community, which this year
condemned for the 21st consecutive year the imposition of an
anachronistic and cruel blockade which remains the main obstacle to
Cuba's development.
journalists and independent libraries on the island" for the purpose of disseminating "digital democracy," via USAid.

Plan Text
Plan: the United States Federal Government should normalize its food
trade with Cuba.

Morality
US agricultural trade restrictions have a direct effect on food
availability for the Cuban people. Added costs make food more
expensive to import. This contributes to the Cuban food crisis.
Hidalgo and Martinez 2k (Vilma Hidalgo and Milagros Martinez; Vilma Hidalgo, Ph.D., is
professor of macroeconomics at the University of Havana and has published various articles on the Cuban
economy; Milagros Martinez is a Research Fellow at the University of Havana, working with the Centro de Estudios
sobre Estados Unidos (CESEU); published in Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture and published online
at http://muse.jhu.edu.ezproxy.lib.ou.edu/journals/logos/v003/3.4hidalgo.html) //ks

Cuban agriculture was not exempt from the crisis. In the face of

shortages of fuel and farming supplies, the level of activity in this sector fell
significantly, heightening the dependence on imported foods acquired at unfavorable

the effects on consumption by the

general population were in evidence: daily caloric consumption , for
example, dropped 34 percent, and protein intake plummeted 40 percent
between 1989 and the worst year of the crisis, 1993. Despite a slight recent improvement, there is a long
row to hoe before previous levels are reached: in 1989 the availability of food per
market conditions. As a result, in a few years

capita was 3,108 caloric units and 73 grams of protein, while in 1997 these figures were 2,480 and 51.7,

This drastic change in consumption levels affected the health of the

population, as both men and women experienced weight loss, epidemics of some
diseases previously unknown in the country broke out, and the birth weight of
babies declined. In these difficult times, every additional dollar paid to import foodstuffs
affected Cuban families, taking its toll in human terms. When the Torricelli Act took
effect, contracts valued at over $100 million with Argentine subsidiaries of
Continental Grain, in New York, and Cargill, in Minnesota, for products such as
wheat, soy, beans, peas and lentils had to be canceled . The U.S. market is
respectively.

obviously one of the most competitive in terms of production of [End Page 107] various
types of foods. According to several studies, the average cost of importing grains
coming from U.S. suppliers, including transportation charges, is
$130 (US) per metric ton, substantially cheaper than importing the
grain from Europe, which would cost around $270. 6 This means, for example,
that in 1997 the added cost for Cuba of importing beans was $24
million (US) dollars, and for importing wheat flour it is $7.8 million
each year.

Access to food is a moral responsibilitywe are obligated to

put it as our number one priority.
WATSON 1977

(Richard, Professor of Philosophy at Washington University, World Hunger and Moral Obligation, p. 118119)
These arguments are morally spurious. That food sufficient for well-nourished survival is the equal right of every human individual
or nation is a specification of the higher principle that everyone has equal right to the necessities of life. The moral stress of the
principle of equity is primarily on equal sharing, and only secondarily on what is being shared. The higher moral principle is of

the moral action is to distribute all food equally, whatever

the consequences. This is the hard line apparently drawn by such moralists as Immanuel Kant and Noam
Chomskybut then, morality is hard. The conclusion may be unreasonable (impractical and
irrational in conventional terms), but it is obviously moral. Nor should anyone purport surprise; it has always
human equity per se. Consequently,

claims of moralityif taken seriouslysupersede those of conflicting

reason. One may even have to sacrifice ones life or ones nation to be moral in
situations where practical behavior would preserve it . For example, if a prisoner of war undergoing
been understood that the

torture is to be a (perhaps dead) patriot even when reason tells him that collaboration will hurt no one, he remains silent. Similarly,
if one is to be moral,

one distributes available food in equal shares (even if everyone then

dies).

That an action is necessary to save ones life is no excuse for behaving unpatriotically or immorally if one wishes to be a
patriot or moral. No principle of morality absolves one of behaving immorally simply to save ones life or nation. There is a strict
analogy here between adhering to moral principles for the sake of being moral, and adhering to Christian principles for the sake of

The moral world contains pits and lions, but one looks always to the highest light. The
ultimate test always harks to the highest principlerecant or dieand it is pathetic
to profess morality if one quits when the going gets rough . I have put aside many
questions of detailsuch as the mechanical problems of distributing foodbecause
detail does not alter the stark conclusion. If every human life is equal in value, then
the equal distribution of the necessities of life is an extremely high, if not the highest, moral
duty. It is at least high enough to override the excuse that by doing it one would lose ones life. But many people
cannot accept the view that one must distribute equally even in f the nation collapses or all people die. If
everyone dies, then there will be no realm of morality . Practically speaking, sheer survival comes
first. One can adhere to the principle of equity only if one exists. So it is rational to suppose that the
principle of survival is morally higher than the principle of equity . And though one might not be
being Christian.

able to argue for unequal distribution of food to save a nationfor nations can come and goone might well argue that unequal
distribution is necessary for the survival of the human species. That is, some large groupsay one-third of present world population

However, from an individual standpoint, the

human specieslike the nationis of no moral relevance. From a naturalistic standpoint, survival does come
first; from a moralistic standpointas indicated abovesurvival may have to be sacrificed. In
the milieu of morality, it is immaterial whether or not the human species survives as a
should be at least well-nourished for human survival.

result of individual behavior.

Structural violence from food-disparity comes firstit controls

the direction of their impacts and comparatively outweighs
Shepherd 12
(Benjamin Shepherd is a PhD candidate within the Food Security in Asia research
programme funded by the MacArthur Foundation at the Centre for International
Security Studies, University of Sydney. He is also participating in the Food Security
and Food Sovereignty in the Middle East research programme at the Center for
International and Regional Studies, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service
in Qatar., 2012 43: 195 Security Dialogue, Thinking critically about food security,
June 8th, 2012)
[http://sdi.sagepub.com/content/43/3/195]
Given the scale of hunger in the world, there are at least five reasons why hunger
warrants greater attention from security scholars, notwithstanding the divergent
views of what constitutes a security problem. First, as the deprivation of food,
hunger is far more of a threat to life and a far greater source of physical
harm on a massive scale than deprivation of land, income, capital, political
voice or basic dignities. About one billion people regularly go hungry (FAO,
2009b,c, 2010). Many hundreds of millions more live in poverty and have
little capacity to avoid the risk of future hunger in the face of exogenous
shock, such as even a small rise in the price of staple foods. For many of these
people, hunger is an existential threat. They risk early death from lack of
nutrition or from lack of resilience to injury, infection or disease, and hunger
dramatically curtails the physical and cognitive development of their children. For

the remainder, hunger and malnourishment erode their livelihoods and limit
their capacity as human beings. To paraphrase Booth (1997: 111), regardless of
whether or not this is labelled a security issue for and by the elites who
define security agendas, it is an existential threat for those one billion
people. Second, by allowing this physical harm to continue, elites are
failing in their self-assigned role as protectors and guarantors of security. In
theory at least, this can be seen as a significant undermining of political
legitimacy and the legitimization of security practices. Third, and more
practically, vulnerability to hunger is a possible antecedent to conflict.
Risks of deprivation conflicts and associated political violence could
conceivably be mitigated if the underlying pressures were addressed .
Fourth, pervasive hunger is demonstrative of a substantial lack of capacity not only
for the individuals but also for the communities and states that carry its burden.
Finally, as this article intends to demonstrate, despite some limitations in existing
security frameworks, there is significant value, both practical and
conceptual, to be gained from approaching the problem of hunger with the
tools of security scholarship.

Even if Cuba can get food elsewhere this does not resolve our
responsibility to act
AITKEN 1977 (William, teaches philosophy at Chatham College, World Hunger and Moral Obligation, p 93-94)
Some have maintained that there is a fourth minimal condition which a potential helper of a person in need must

satisfy in order to be obligated to actthe condition of being the last resort. Richard Brandt suggests such a condition in his book,

it is only in cases where we are the only one in a position to

help that we have a moral obligation to assist a person in dire need and that the person in need has a
right to our assistance. There is a danger in adopting this last resort condition since it poses
an additional epistemological difficulty, that is, the determination of whether or not I
am the last resort. Beyond this, it is an undesirable condition because it will justify
inaction where more than one person could act but where no one is acting. In most
emergency situations there is more than one potential assistor. For instance, five
persons may simultaneously come across a drowning child . Each would be obligated to act if he
were the last resort, but since no single one is the last resort, then all five may refuse to act,
claiming that it is not their duty to act any more than it is the duty of the other four
and so each one would be justified in not acting. If this condition is placed on the
right to be saved, the child could drown and none of the five spectators could be
held morally accountable. But surely the presence of another person at an accident
site does not automatically relieve me of a moral duty to assist the victim in need ,
Ethical Theory. He specifies that

any more than the presence of one police officer called to the scene of a bank robbery relieves other officers in the area from

The condition of last resort is too strong; it is not a

minimal condition for obligation.
attempting to apprehend the suspects.