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This detailed analysis of the global food system looks at the way food is produced, distributed, and consumed in an effort to create a more equitable and healthful system worldwide.
With large-scale famine afflicting regions around the globe and overconsumption and unhealthy eating habits destroying others, many are beginning to wonder if access to food is less of a class-based social problem and more of an ethical issue affecting the lives-and livelihoods-of people all over the world. This thoughtful text provides a thorough examination of the factors contributing to this global concern, exploring the complexities of international food supply and demand as well as the efforts to bring about a more just global food system.
Through this groundbreaking volume, author and educator Will Schanbacher sheds light on flaws in the current structure and suggests ways to achieve a more balanced approach. He considers the economics, politics, and activism behind and involved in the production, distribution, and consumption of the global food system. In an effort to illuminate many problems associated with hunger, inequality, and injustice in the food system, the book also offers many potential strategies and solutions for making a more healthy, sustainable, and equitable world. Chapters contain both theoretical models and concrete practices for food security and offer strategies for creating an equitable system.
List of contents
AcknowledgmentsIntroduction
1 Food Sovereignty: Some Initial Thoughts and Questions for Research
Annette Aurélie Desmarais2 Justifying the Human Right to Food in the Food Sovereignty Framework
William D. Schanbacher3 Agribusiness Concentration: Globalization, Market Power, and Resistance
Douglas H. Constance, Mary Hendrickson, and Philip H. Howard4 Racism, Gender Discrimination, and Food Chain Workers in the United States
Joann Lo5 Lessons from the Food System: Borkian Paradoxes, Plutocracy, and the Rise of Walmart's Buyer Power
R. Dennis Olson6 The Pursuit of Happiness: At the Intersection of Food, Performance, and Consumer Identity
Sara B. Dykins Callahan7 Battles for the Soul of Organic: The Grassroots versus the Suits
Grace Gershuny8 Where's the Beef ? Looking for Food in Religion and Ecology
Dell deChant9 The GMO Threat to Food Sovereignty: Science, Resistance, and Transformation
Brian Tokar10 Agroecology and Social Movements
Peter M. Rosset and María Elena Martínez-Torres11 Contested Land Politics and Trajectories of Agrarian Change within an Emergent World Agro-commodity Regime: Insights from the BRICS and the Periphery
Ben McKay, Alberto Alonso-Fradejas, Chunyu Wang, and Saturnino M. Borras Jr.12 The Importance of Process in Achieving Food Sovereignty: Participatory Action Research (PAR) in Coffeelands of Nicaragua
Heather R. Putnam and J. Christopher BrownIndexAbout the Contributors
About the author
William D. Schanbacher is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of South Florida, in Tampa, USA. He is author of The Politics of Food: The Global Conflict between Food Security and Food Sovereignty (2010).
