The Multinational Monitor

NOVEMBER 1982 - VOLUME 3 - NUMBER 11


R E V I E W

Food First

Food First Comics, script and drawings by Leonard Rifas,
based on Food First: Beyond the Myth of Scarcity,
by Frances Moore Lappe and Joe Collins. 1982, 24 pages, $1.00
Available from Educomics, Box 40246, San Francisco, CA 94140
or the Institute for Food and Development Policy,
1885 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94103.

"Exploding the myth of scarcity!" the cover proclaims - and that's just what this innovative teaching tool does, with an appealing adventure tale, sprinkled with understandable facts, figures and charts from its parent book.

The comic strip stars Sheri, a teenage Californian, who sets out to learn about the causes of hunger in the world. "Is hunger really because there's not enough or because of UNFAIRNESS?" Sheri asks.

To find out, Sheri has to move beyond the pat answers the TV gives her, and challenge the apathy of parents and friends. She even confronts an executive at "AGBIZCO," a fictitious giant multinational food company.

Hunger, Sheri discovers, isn't due to a lack of food, but a warped and unjust system: big business and Third World oligarchies control production and distribution for their own interests, and "they only produce for those who can pay."

People created hunger, the comic strip concludes, and people can end it: through education and alternative food systems such as co-ops. As a Filipino friend tells Sheri, "we CAN decide what to put in our mouths ... and each decision is a vote for the kind of food system we want."

This comic is a model for those who wish to popularize progressive issues. Cheap, easy to read, and geared towards spreading the word, Food First Comics tackles one of the world's most vital issues, and does so in a way that we, our friends and our children all can understand.


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