Add BookmarkStuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System
“One of the most dazzling books I have read in a very long time. The product of a brilliant mind and a gift to a world hungering for justice.”—Naomi Klein, author of No Logo and The Shock Doctrine
Half the world is malnourished, the other half obese—both symptoms of the corporate food monopoly. To show how a few powerful distributors control the health of the entire world, Raj Patel conducts a global investigation, traveling from the “green deserts” of Brazil and ... (show more)
“One of the most dazzling books I have read in a very long time. The product of a brilliant mind and a gift to a world hungering for justice.”—Naomi Klein, author of No Logo and The Shock Doctrine
Half the world is malnourished, the other half obese—both symptoms of the corporate food monopoly. To show how a few powerful distributors control the health of the entire world, Raj Patel conducts a global investigation, traveling from the “green deserts” of Brazil and protester-packed streets of South Korea to bankrupt Ugandan coffee farms and barren fields of India. What he uncovers is shocking—the real reasons for famine in Asia and Africa, an epidemic of farmer suicides, and the false choices and conveniences in supermarkets. Yet he also finds hope—in international resistance movements working to create a more democratic, sustainable, and joyful food system.
From seed to store to plate, Stuffed and Starved explains the steps to regain control of the global food economy, stop the exploitation of farmers and consumers, and rebalance global sustenance.
RAJ PATEL, policy analyst for Food First, a leading food think tank, is a visiting scholar at the UC Berkeley Center for African Studies. He has written for the Los Angeles Times and the Guardian, and though he has worked for the World Bank, WTO, and the UN, he’s also been tear-gassed on four continents protesting them.
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Remember how you were reading The Grapes of Wrath and suddenly realized that the antagonist wasn't a person, but rather an economic system predicated on screwing the little guy?
Raj Patel would like you to meet Steinbeck's antagonist. He's all growed up, and he's ugly as can be. He is the corporate structure of the global agricultural economy.
Patel takes the reader on a tour of the agricultural system, particulary how it affects former colonies in the Global South, to explain how cheap f... (show more)
Remember how you were reading The Grapes of Wrath and suddenly realized that the antagonist wasn't a person, but rather an economic system predicated on screwing the little guy?
Raj Patel would like you to meet Steinbeck's antagonist. He's all growed up, and he's ugly as can be. He is the corporate structure of the global agricultural economy.
Patel takes the reader on a tour of the agricultural system, particulary how it affects former colonies in the Global South, to explain how cheap food for the consumer translates into less-than-living wages for the farmer, and how the few corporations (such as Monsanto, Cargill, and others) that act as middleman between producer and consumer act as bottlenecks in the global food system, skimming off the profit. He also talks about networks of local farmworkers and consumers, increasingly networked across the planet, who are resisting the industrialization of or food supply.
This book is for those who would like to take Michael Pollan one step further. (show less)
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http://stuffedandstarved.org/drupal/frontpage Here is the author's webpage where he mentioned writing another book called "The Value of Nothing", which I will read if I can handle it. This is one of those books that makes me wish for my ignorance back, and I say that in a light-hearted way, I suppose. I will never view shopping the same again. The dull drone of "this is wrong" will forever be pounding in my head, along with numerous other thoughts like, why does soy rea... (show more)
http://stuffedandstarved.org/drupal/frontpage Here is the author's webpage where he mentioned writing another book called "The Value of Nothing", which I will read if I can handle it. This is one of those books that makes me wish for my ignorance back, and I say that in a light-hearted way, I suppose. I will never view shopping the same again. The dull drone of "this is wrong" will forever be pounding in my head, along with numerous other thoughts like, why does soy really have to be in everything? Why does slave labor still exist to maintain the demands of the Western diet? Why do they put HFCS in -everything-? Why do they industrialize animal agriculture, even at the risk stated briefly below:
Because H9N1, the Bird flu influenza that was started at a turkey farm, I thought I would google ‘H1N1 pig farms’, just to find out a little more about the “swine flu” which actually does originate from factory farming. See here: http://www.takepart.com/blog/2009/05/19/lawsuit-holds-smithfield-pig-farm-responsible-for-h1n1-virus/
If there was ever another good reason and good time to start eating local, grass fed, ‘free range’ meats, the time would be now.
And the politics of eating and culture and health are all abundantly at risk. If you say something like "what about my child's future?" Then I think it should go deeper than recycling and learning not to jump on stage and steal a mic away. It should be that local food should be a local RIGHT, not a commodity. Food should not be genetically modified, weighted down with deadly pesticides, or shipped using a TON of bio-fules. It should not contain soy, and soy bi-products. It should not contain high fructose corn syrup. And other un-known and un-pronounceable fillers and preservatives.
Do -some- of things and the alleged health care problem that we face might dissipate some. Do some of these things and local economies might again thrive, bringing people up, and making communities a cultural phenomena to be cherished, not sold at the wide-range of costs to us from corporate greed.
As I write this, this past week the father of the "Green Revolution" Norman Borlaug died. I have to say, I'm shocked that he won a Nobel Peace Prize. He might have supposedly saved lives, but he will, in my mind, be the father of continued inequality and genetically modified (potentially unsafe) foods. (show less)
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