Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System
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It's A Perverse Fact: There are more people starving in the world than ever before (800 million) while there are also more people overweight (1 billion).To find out how we got to this point and what we can do about it, Raj Patel launched a comprehensive investigation into the global food network. It took him from the colossal supermarkets of California to India's wrecked paddy-fields and Africa's bankrupt coffee farms, while along the way he ate genetically engineered soybeans and dodged flying objects on the protestor-packed streets of South Korea.What he found was shocking: from the false choices given us by supermarkets to a global epidemic of farmer suicides and the real reasons for famine in Asia and Africa.Yet he also found great cause for hope- in international social movements working to create a more democratic, sustainable, and joyful food system. Going beyond ethical consumerism, Patel explains, from seed to store to plate, the steps to regain control of the global food economy, stop the exploitation of both farmers and consumers, and rebalance global sustenance.About the Author:Raj Patel, former policy analyst for Food First, is currently a visiting scholar at the UC Berkeley Center for African Studies Publishers Weekly Journalist and scholar Patel (Promised Land: Competing Visions of Agrarian Reform) focuses attention on the unfortunate irony of the current world food situation, in which the imbalance of world resources has created an epidemic of obesity in some parts of the world while millions in the "Global South" endure starvation. To make sense of the situation, Patel addresses the entire system of global food production, distribution and sale, concluding that "unless you're a corporate food executive, the food system isn't working for you." "Record levels of diet-related disease" plague consumers, cruel market realities (and unsympathetic officials) doom farmers, and communities are beset by a supermarket system that provides "cheap calories" while "bleeding local economies." Patel analyzes what can be done, presenting logical recommendations and strategies for individuals-eat locally, seasonally, and ecologically; support local business, workers' rights, and living wages; create a sustainable food system-though several primary components of his big vision (including ending agribusiness subsidies and corporate farming, and levying a tax on processed foods) are clearly a long way off. Those concerned about global health, social justice and the environment will be aware of many of the issues presented here, but should still find much to learn.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Introduction 1Our Big Fat Contradiction 1Arcadia Lost 6About Joe 8An Hourglass Figure 11Ways of Being Free 15The Menu of Chapters 18A Rural Autopsy 21And on That Farm He Had a Wife 21Crooked Fictions 27Debtward Ho 30After Despair 33Did the WTO Kill Lee Kyung Hae? 36Some Farmers Are Pushed 41But Where Does It Stop? 43You Have Become Mexican 47NAFTA and After 48Corn for the Rich Men Only 54Once Were Farmers 58Beyond a Border 62The Wrong Explanation 65Bringing Agriculture to the City of Angels 71Lee Again 73'Just a Cry for Bread' 75A Secret History of Refreshment 76Rhodes' Conundrum 84The Cold War for Food 88After Food Aid 91The World Trade Organization 96The Customer is Our Enemy: A Brief Introduction to Food System Business 99Permanent Banana Republic: The United Fruit Company 99Varieties of Consolidation 102The Market for Political Favour 108Dwayne Andreas and the Currying of National Interest 111Better Living through Chemistry 119The Knowledge and the Initiative 120Who Knows What 131Corporations Address the Needs of the Poor 136I'd Like to Thank the Academy 141For Africa! 146Making up Makhathini 153Better Through Living Chemistry 158Glycine Rex 165Secret Ingredient 165A Whole Hill of Beans 169Learning the Soy Samba 173The Perfect Storm 180Blairo Maggi - Poster Soy 187The View from Afar 194The Perils of National Development 201The World's Most Important Social Movement 204Bringing It Home 212Checking out of Supermarkets 215The Self-Serving Store 216Almost Orwell 224666 and All That 226Discipline in the Aisles 230Wal-Mart 231Supply Chain-gangs 236The Contradictions of Convenience 237Every Cloud Has a Redlining 242Shelves of Love 244In the Garden of the Black Panthers 247Chosen by Bunnies 253On Places and Taste and Food 253Food Is from Mars 255Wheat is Murder 259Hooked on TV Dinners 262The Now of Chow 267War on the Obese 273Feeling the Burn 277Your Pace or Mine? 281Anti-Malbouffe 286Conclusion 293Inside the Hourglass 293It's Just We, Ourselves and Us 301Follow the Leader 316Notes 321References 349Acknowledgements 383Permissions 389Index 391
