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HOW THE GLOBAL FOOD ECONOMY IS KILLING CHILDREN  
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Vijay Prashad
July 9, 2026
Tricontinental
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_ Every year unsafe food causes 866 million illnesses and 1.5 million
deaths, with young children suffering nearly a third of all cases of
foodborne disease-the predictable outcome of a food economy organised
around profit rather than the right to food _

Tropical, 1917., Anita Malfatti (Brazil)

 

Dear friends,

Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental: Institute for Social
Research [[link removed]].

On 4 June 2026, the World Health Organisation (WHO) released a
devastating assessment
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of the state of the world’s food systems. According to the new
estimates, which draw on data up to 2021, unsafe food causes
approximately 866 million illnesses and 1.5 million deaths every year.
Nearly one in nine people globally falls ill from contaminated food,
with the African and Southeast Asian regions together accounting for
nearly three-quarters of all foodborne illnesses and 60% of global
deaths. The burden falls most heavily on those who have contributed
least to the crisis: children.

Young children face almost three times the risk of illness from unsafe
food compared to older children and adults. Despite making up only 9%
of the global population, children under the age of five suffer nearly
one-third of all cases of foodborne diseases; in 2021, unsafe food
killed 143,000 of them. These are not mere statistics. They represent
lives cut short by preventable diseases, families pushed into grief,
and societies deprived of the future embodied in their youngest
members.

K. K. Hebbar (India), _Hungry Soul_, 1952.

The conventional response to such findings is technical. We are told
that food safety is a matter of better inspection, stronger
regulation, improved hygiene, and effective monitoring. These measures
are important and necessary. Yet they do not explain why hundreds of
millions of people continue to consume unsafe food despite decades of
accumulated knowledge about how to prevent contamination. To
understand the persistence of foodborne disease, we must move beyond
technical explanations and examine the structure of the global food
system itself.

The dominant food system is organised around the pursuit of profit,
not the right to food [[link removed]]. Across
much of the world, food production has been transformed into a highly
concentrated industry dominated by large agribusiness corporations,
supermarket chains, food processors, logistics companies, and
financial institutions. This system, which primarily seeks to maximise
returns on investment, generates contradictions that directly affect
food safety in at least three key ways.

First, the pressure to reduce costs encourages shortcuts throughout
the supply chain. Workers are frequently employed under precarious
conditions (more than 80% of agricultural jobs in Latin America lack
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formal protection and social security), inspection systems are
underfunded, and producers face intense pressure to increase output
while reducing expenditure. Food travels ever-greater distances
through increasingly complex global supply chains, creating more
opportunities for contamination and obscuring the conditions under
which it was produced.

Second, capitalist food systems tend to externalise
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Environmental degradation, water contamination, unsafe working
conditions, and public health consequences are often treated as
someone else’s problem rather than the responsibility of private
firms. The social costs are borne by workers, consumers, and public
health systems, while profits remain private.

Third, global inequalities shape patterns of food safety. It is no
surprise that the highest burdens of foodborne disease are
concentrated in Africa and Southeast Asia since these regions continue
to experience the long-term effects of colonial underdevelopment, debt
dependency, inadequate public infrastructure, and unequal integration
into the global economy. Unsafe food is therefore not merely a health
issue: it is a manifestation of uneven development.

Gobardhan Ash (India), _Bengal Famine_, 1943.

The deaths of tens of thousands of children every year reveal the
moral bankruptcy of this arrangement. A society that allows children
to die from preventable foodborne diseases has failed in one of its
most fundamental obligations. These deaths are especially tragic
because the solutions are largely known. The WHO identifies access to
clean water, sanitation, food safety practices, healthcare, and
effective public regulation as critical tools for reducing mortality.
These interventions require public investment and political commitment
and cannot be left solely to market forces. Yet institutions such as
the Food and Agriculture Organisation continue to promote
public-private partnership models that have failed to confront the
structural roots of hunger and unsafe food.

The issue is not only contamination by bacteria and viruses.
Contemporary food systems expose populations to a wider range of
hazards, including toxic chemicals, heavy metals, and industrial
pollutants. New WHO estimates
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increasingly recognise the long-term burden of chronic diseases linked
to harmful substances in food supplies. The consequences extend beyond
immediate illness to lifelong disabilities, developmental impairments,
and reduced quality of life.

Cheong-Soo-Pieng-Singapore-Satay-Sellers-1958

Moreover, food safety cannot be separated from the broader crisis of
food systems. Around the world, millions suffer from hunger while
others face obesity and diet-related diseases. Farmers are driven into
debt while food corporations accumulate unprecedented market power.
Agricultural production contributes to ecological destruction even as
climate change threatens harvests. The same system that generates food
insecurity also generates unsafe food. The contradiction is striking.
Humanity possesses the scientific knowledge, productive capacity, and
technological means to ensure safe food for all. Yet under prevailing
economic arrangements, these capacities are subordinated to
profitability rather than human need.

The WHO’s findings should be read not only as a warning about
contamination but as an indictment of a global food order that
continues to expose millions to preventable illness and death. When a
child dies because food is unsafe, the cause is never simply a
contaminated meal. Behind that meal lies a chain of political and
economic decisions about investment, regulation, infrastructure,
ownership, and social priorities. Foodborne disease is biological in
its immediate manifestation but social in its origins. The challenge
before humanity is not merely to make food safer. It is to build food
systems organised around care rather than profit, public health rather
than private accumulation, and human dignity rather than market
efficiency. Only then can the promise of safe food for all become a
reality rather than a slogan.

Uche-Okeke-Nigeria-Ana-Mmuo-Land-of-the-Dead-1961

Here are five simple reforms of the current system to create a safe
and just food system:

* UNIVERSAL PUBLIC INVESTMENT IN WATER, SANITATION, AND HEALTHCARE:
Guarantee access to clean water, sanitation infrastructure, and
primary healthcare, especially in rural and low-income communities
where foodborne disease burdens are highest.
* STRENGTHEN PUBLIC FOOD SAFETY INSTITUTIONS: Expand food inspection
systems, laboratory capacity, disease surveillance networks, and
regulatory agencies while protecting them from budget cuts and
corporate influence.
* SUPPORT TERRITORIAL AND SMALL-SCALE FOOD SYSTEMS: Invest in local
farmers, cooperatives, public procurement programmes, and shorter
supply chains that increase transparency, resilience, and
accountability.
* DEMOCRATISE FOOD SYSTEM GOVERNANCE: Reduce corporate concentration
in agribusiness and food retail, strengthen worker and farmer
participation, and ensure public oversight of food production and
distribution.
* RECOGNISE SAFE FOOD AS A HUMAN RIGHT: Establish binding national
and international commitments that treat access to safe, nutritious
food as a fundamental social right rather than a market commodity.

Taken together, these reforms are rooted in a simple principle: food
is a social good, not merely a commodity. They recognise that the
right to safe food is inseparable from the right to life.

It is easy to dismiss this approach as naïve. But is it mere idealism
to insist that no child should die from preventable foodborne disease?

Malangatana Valente Ngwenya (Mozambique), _Última Ceia_ (Last
Supper), 1964.

The World Health Organisation report deepened my bitterness towards
the callousness of the capitalist system. I was reminded of
‘Civilisation’, a short poem by the great Mozambican journalist
and poet José Craveirinha (1922–2003):

Antigamente(antes de Jesus Cristo)os homens erguiam estádios e
templose morriam na arena como cães.Agora…também já constroem
Cadillacs.In ancient times(before the time of Jesus)men built temples
and stadiumsand died in the arena like dogs.Now…they build Cadillacs
too.

Warmly,

Vijay

_VIJAY PRASHAD (born 1967) is an Indian __Marxist_
[[link removed]]_ historian, journalist,
political commentator, and editor. He is the executive director of the
Tricontinental Institute for Social Research, editor of LeftWord
Books, writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter, and a
senior non-resident fellow at the Institute for Financial Studies.
Renmin University of China's Chongyang._

_Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research is an international
institute guided by popular movements and organisations. We seek to
build a bridge between academic production and political and social
movements in order to promote critical thinking and stimulate debates
and research with an emancipatory perspective that serves the
people’s aspirations._

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* children
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* food
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* unsafe food
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* illness
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* death
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* preventable disease
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* profits
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* Human Rights
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* colonialism
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* underdevelopment
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* environment
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* public health
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