The Politics of Food Security

The Politics of Food Security
Author: Sara Bazoobandi
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2014
Genre: Food security
ISBN: 9783940924308

The international food system is increasingly at risk. Increasing demand, limited and diminishing resources and rising volatility are putting new pressures on the agriculture sector globally. One of the growing critical threats to global stability and security is the inadequacy of food resources. This threat, exacerbated by global population growth, is illustrated by shifts in consumption patterns toward protein-rich diets and the growth of multinational food retail, which bring about a greater reliance on food imports. This book compares the food security policies of selected countries in Asia and the Middle East, and reviews the outcomes of policy applications in a broader context. Themes discussed include: -Shifts in regional and international foreign policy, such as new alliances between countries with rich agricultural resources and wealthier importing states -Creation of food security policy competition across regions -Foreign investments and investment risks for farmland investments -Social implications, such as potential unrest -Environmental sustainability of food security programs, such as the depletion of water resources -Impact of food security programs on trade policies and fiscal policies, such as import taxes and subsidies

The Politics of Food

The Politics of Food
Author: William D. Schanbacher
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 235
Release: 2010-02-26
Genre: Political Science
ISBN:

A description of the current global food system, this book challenges our ethical responsibility to the global poor and implicates us all for failing to curb global hunger and malnutrition. The Politics of Food: The Global Conflict between Food Security and Food Sovereignty argues that our current global food system constitutes a massive violation of human rights. In this impassioned, well-researched book, William Schanbacher makes the case that the food security model for combating global hunger—driven by the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and other organizations—is a failure, too dependent on trade and too reliant on international agribusiness. Instead, the emerging model of food sovereignty—helping local farmers and businesses produce better quality food—is the more effective and responsible approach. Through numerous case studies, the book examines critical issues of global trade and corporate monopolization of the food industry, while examining the emerging social justice movements that seek to make food sovereignty the model for battling hunger.

Food Politics

Food Politics
Author: Marion Nestle
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 537
Release: 2013-05-14
Genre: Cooking
ISBN: 0520955064

We all witness, in advertising and on supermarket shelves, the fierce competition for our food dollars. In this engrossing exposé, Marion Nestle goes behind the scenes to reveal how the competition really works and how it affects our health. The abundance of food in the United States--enough calories to meet the needs of every man, woman, and child twice over--has a downside. Our over-efficient food industry must do everything possible to persuade people to eat more--more food, more often, and in larger portions--no matter what it does to waistlines or well-being. Like manufacturing cigarettes or building weapons, making food is big business. Food companies in 2000 generated nearly $900 billion in sales. They have stakeholders to please, shareholders to satisfy, and government regulations to deal with. It is nevertheless shocking to learn precisely how food companies lobby officials, co-opt experts, and expand sales by marketing to children, members of minority groups, and people in developing countries. We learn that the food industry plays politics as well as or better than other industries, not least because so much of its activity takes place outside the public view. Editor of the 1988 Surgeon General's Report on Nutrition and Health, Nestle is uniquely qualified to lead us through the maze of food industry interests and influences. She vividly illustrates food politics in action: watered-down government dietary advice, schools pushing soft drinks, diet supplements promoted as if they were First Amendment rights. When it comes to the mass production and consumption of food, strategic decisions are driven by economics--not science, not common sense, and certainly not health. No wonder most of us are thoroughly confused about what to eat to stay healthy. An accessible and balanced account, Food Politics will forever change the way we respond to food industry marketing practices. By explaining how much the food industry influences government nutrition policies and how cleverly it links its interests to those of nutrition experts, this path-breaking book helps us understand more clearly than ever before what we eat and why.

Food Politics

Food Politics
Author: Robert Paarlberg
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2010-04-07
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0199746052

The politics of food is changing fast. In rich countries, obesity is now a more serious problem than hunger. Consumers once satisfied with cheap and convenient food now want food that is also safe, nutritious, fresh, and grown by local farmers using fewer chemicals. Heavily subsidized and underregulated commercial farmers are facing stronger push back from environmentalists and consumer activists, and food companies are under the microscope. Meanwhile, agricultural success in Asia has spurred income growth and dietary enrichment, but agricultural failure in Africa has left one-third of all citizens undernourished - and the international markets that link these diverse regions together are subject to sudden disruption. Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know? carefully examines and explains the most important issues on today's global food landscape, including international food prices, famines, chronic hunger, the Malthusian race between food production and population growth, international food aid, "green revolution" farming, obesity, farm subsidies and trade, agriculture and the environment, agribusiness, supermarkets, food safety, fast food, slow food, organic food, local food, and genetically engineered food. Politics in each of these areas has become polarized over the past decade by conflicting claims and accusations from advocates on all sides. Paarlberg's book maps this contested terrain, challenging myths and critiquing more than a few of today's fashionable beliefs about farming and food. For those ready to have their thinking about food politics informed and also challenged, this is the book to read. What Everyone Needs to Know? is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press.

Feeding Frenzy

Feeding Frenzy
Author: Paul
Publisher: Greystone Books
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2014-06-07
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1771640146

Feeding Frenzy traces the history of the global food system and reveals the underlying causes of recent turmoil in food markets. Supplies are running short, prices keep spiking, and the media is full of talk of a world food crisis. The turmoil has unleashed some dangerous forces. Food-producing countries are banning exports even if this means starving their neighbors. Governments and corporations are scrambling to secure control of food supply chains. Powerful groups from the Middle East and Asia are acquiring farmland in poor countries to grow food for export — what some call land grabs. This raises some big questions. Can we continue to feed a burgeoning population? Are we running out of land and water? Can we rely on free markets to provide? This book reveals trends that could lead to more hunger and conflict. But Paul McMahon also outlines actions that can be taken to shape a sustainable and just food system.

The Oxford Handbook of Food, Politics, and Society

The Oxford Handbook of Food, Politics, and Society
Author: Ronald J. Herring
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 905
Release: 2015
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0195397770

How is food political? : market, state, and knowledge / Ronald J. Herring -- Science, politics, and the framing of modern agricultural technologies / John Harriss, Drew Stewart -- Genetically improved crops / Martina Newell-McGloughlin -- Agroecological intensification of smallholder farming / Rebecca Nelson, Robert Coe -- The hardest case : what blocks improvements in agriculture in Africa? / Robert L. Paarlberg -- The poor, malnutrition, biofortification, and biotechnology / Alexander J. Stein -- Biofuels : competition for land, resources, and political subsidies / David Pimentel, Michael Burgess -- Alternative paths to food security / Norman Uphoff -- Ethics of food production and consumption / Michiel Korthals -- Food, justice, and land / Saturnino M. Borras Jr., Jennifer C. Franco -- Food security, productivity, and gender inequality / Bina Agarwal -- Delivering food subsidy : the state and the market / Ashok Kotwal, Bharat Ramaswami -- Diets, nutrition, and poverty : lessons from India / Raghav Gaiha, Raghbendra Jha, Vani S. Kulkarni, Nidhi Kaicker -- Food price and trade policy biases : inefficient, inequitable, yet not inevitable / Kym Andersen -- Intellectual property rights and the politics of food / Krishna Ravi Srinivas -- Is food the answer to malnutrition / David E. Sahn -- Fighting mother nature with biotechnology / Alan McHughen -- Climate change and agriculture : countering doomsday scenarios / Derrill D. Watson II -- Wild foods / Jules Pretty, Zareen Bharucha -- Livestock in the food debate / Purvi Mehta-Bhatt, Paulo Ficarelli -- The social vision of the alternative food movement / Siddhartha Shome -- Food values beyond nutrition / Ann Grodzins Gold -- Cultural politics of food safety : genetically modified food in japan, France, and the United States / Kyoko Sato -- Food safety / Bruce M. Chassy -- The politics of food labeling and certification / Emily Clough -- The politics of grocery shopping: eating, voting, and (possibly) transforming the food system / Josée Johnston, Norah MacKendrick -- The political economy of regulation of biotechnology in agriculture / Gregory D. Graff, Gal Hochman, David Zilberman -- Coexistence in the fields? : GM, organic, and conventional food crops / Janice Thies -- Global movements for food justice / M. Jahi Chappell -- The rise of the organic foods movement as a transnational phenomenon / Tomas Larsson -- The dialectic of pro-poor papaya / Sarah Davidson Evanega, Mark Lynas -- Thinking the African food crisis : the Sahel forty years on / Michael J. Watts -- Transformation of the agrifood industry in developing countries / Thomas Reardon, C. Peter Timmer -- The twenty-first century agricultural land rush / Gregory Thaler -- Agricultural futures : the politics of knowledge / Ian Scoones

The Politics of Food

The Politics of Food
Author: William D. Schanbacher
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 168
Release: 2010-02-26
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0313363293

A description of the current global food system, this book challenges our ethical responsibility to the global poor and implicates us all for failing to curb global hunger and malnutrition. The Politics of Food: The Global Conflict between Food Security and Food Sovereignty argues that our current global food system constitutes a massive violation of human rights. In this impassioned, well-researched book, William Schanbacher makes the case that the food security model for combating global hunger—driven by the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and other organizations—is a failure, too dependent on trade and too reliant on international agribusiness. Instead, the emerging model of food sovereignty—helping local farmers and businesses produce better quality food—is the more effective and responsible approach. Through numerous case studies, the book examines critical issues of global trade and corporate monopolization of the food industry, while examining the emerging social justice movements that seek to make food sovereignty the model for battling hunger.

Food Security and International Relations

Food Security and International Relations
Author: Thiago Costantino, Agostina Lima
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
Total Pages: 236
Release: 2021-04-13
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 3838214811

People are often surprised to learn that although the current global levels of food production are sufficient to feed all of humanity, the problems of undernourishment increase year by year in many countries. Economic growth, while important, is not a guarantee for reducing hunger. The intensification of income concentration worldwide, in the face of the persistence of millions of hungry families, demonstrates that economic interest is not guided by the needs of humanity. Moreover, the problem of food no longer refers to the lack of food alone. Many people are still unaware that our diets are not simply choices of taste and tradition but the result of international dynamics driven by geopolitical factors, the trajectory of capitalism, and other ulterior forces. The authors deepen the link between international relations and food security by exploring the humanitarian and ethical importance of a solution to the problem of hunger; the role of the state as a strategically relevant actor in achieving food security; and the nature of the problem of food security in a world in which the rationale guiding food production and distribution is a capitalist one.

Food Security and Sociopolitical Stability

Food Security and Sociopolitical Stability
Author: Christopher B. Barrett
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 510
Release: 2013-09-26
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0191668702

Global food price spikes in 2008 and again in 2011 coincided with a surge of political unrest in low- and middle-income countries. Angry consumers took to the streets in scores of nations. In some places, food riots turned violent, pressuring governments and in a few cases contributed to their overthrow. Foreign investors sparked a new global land rush, adding a different set of pressures. With scientists cautioning that the world has entered a new era of steadily rising food prices, perhaps aggravated by climate change, the specter of widespread food insecurity and sociopolitical instability weighs on policymakers worldwide. In the past few years, governments and philanthropic foundations began redoubling efforts to resuscitate agricultural research and technology transfer, as well as to accelerate the modernization of food value chains to deliver high quality food inexpensively, faster, and in greater volumes to urban consumers. But will these efforts suffice? This volume explores the complex relationship between food security and sociopolitical stability up to roughly 2025. Organized around a series of original essays by leading global technical experts, a key message of this volume is that actions taken in an effort to address food security stressors may have consequences for food security, stability, or both that ultimately matter far more than the direct impacts of biophysical drivers such as climate or land or water scarcity. The means by which governments, firms, and private philanthropies tackle the food security challenge of the coming decade will fundamentally shape the relationship between food security and sociopolitical stability.

World on the Edge

World on the Edge
Author: Lester Brown
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2012-06-25
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 113654075X

In this urgent time, World on the Edge calls out the pivotal environmental issues and how to solve them now. We are in a race between political and natural tipping points. Can we close coal-fired power plants fast enough to save the Greenland ice sheet and avoid catastrophic sea level rise? Can we raise water productivity fast enough to halt the depletion of aquifers and avoid water-driven food shortages? Can we cope with peak water and peak oil at the same time? These are some of the issues Lester R. Brown skilfully distils in World on the Edge. Bringing decades of research and analysis into play, he provides the responses needed to reclaim our future.