Description
This book provides a critical assessment of the contemporary global food system in light of the heightening food crisis, as evidence of its failure to achieve food security for the world's population. A key aspect of this failure is identified in the neoliberal strategies which emphasize industrial efficiencies, commodity production and free trade-ideologies that underlie agricultural and food policies in what are frequently referred to as 'developed countries'.
The book examines both the contradictions in the global food system as well as the implications of existing ideologies of production associated with commodity industrial agriculture using evidence from relevant international case studies. The book's first section presents the context of the food crisis with contributions from leading international academics and food policy activists, including climate scientists, ecologists and social scientists. These contributions identify current contradictions in policy and practice that impede solutions to the food crisis. Set within this context, the second section assesses current conditions in the global food system, including economic viability, sustainability and productivity. Case study analyses of regions exposed to neoliberal policy at the production end of the system provide insights into both current challenges to feeding the world, as well as alternative strategies for creating a more just and moral food system.
Table of Contents
Prologue: Food Security – Now is the Future
Robert Watson
1. Introduction: Shocking the Global Food System
Christopher Rosin, Paul Stock and Hugh Campbell
2. Agriculture and Food Systems: Our Current Challenge
Jules Pretty
3. Let Us Eat Cake? Historically Reframing the Problem of World Hunger and its Purported Solutions
Hugh Campbell
4. Trading into Hunger? Trading out of Hunger? International Food Trade and the Debate on Food Security
Bill Pritchard
5. Biofuels and the Financialisation of the Global Food System
Philip McMichael
6. The Right to Food: A Right for Everyone
Claire Mahon
7. Plentiful Food? Nutritious Food?
Colin Butler and Jane Dixon
8. A Utopian Perspective on Global Food Security
Paul Stock and Michael Carolan
9. Climate Change and the Resilience of Commodity Food Production in Australia
Geoffrey Lawrence, Carol Richards, Ian Gray and Naomi Hansar
10. Food Security and the De-Agrarianisation of the Indonesian Economy
Jeff Neilson and Bustanul Arifin
11. ‘Soyisation’ and Food Security in South America
Navé Wald, Christopher Rosin and Doug Hill
12. Negotiating Organic, Fair and Ethical Trade: Lessons from Smallholders in Uganda and Kenya
Kristen Lyons and Kiah Smith
13. Food for Thought? Linking Up Urban Agriculture and Local Food Production for Food Security and Development in the South Pacific
Alec Thornton
14. Conclusions: Towards a More Just and Flexible Global Food System
Christopher Rosin, Paul Stock and Hugh Campbell
