The Politics of Food & Global Hunger

Question 1

Food as more than a commodity

Answer 1

• Food is not only a commodity to be bought and sold, but also has nutritional, cultural, environmental and political importance and ramifications.

Question 2

US Farm Policy—what does it encompass?

Answer 2

• For the past 75 years, since the New Deal programs of the Roosevelt administration, federal policy makers have taken an active role in agriculture. Every 5-7 years, agricultural policies are evaluated and reauthorized through the federal Farm Bill. The last bill was passed in 2007.
• Does not only affect farmers here and around the world, but rural communities, the environment, health, hunger and even immigration.

• Farming and agricultural policy today necessitates moving away from a production-centered approach (production volumes, profitability and producer income) and subsidies that favor large-scale monoculture industrial farming.

Question 3

Food security

Answer 3

• Food security – Rome 1996 Declaration – U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization or FAO
• “food security at the individual, household, national, regional and global levels…exists when all people at all times have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life…”

Question 4

Global hunger

Answer 4

• Disjunction between modern technology, politics and capitalist expansion including poverty and unequal distribution of wealth.
• Enduring class, gender, ethnic and racial inequalities that cause poverty as primary factors in global hunger.
• Some useful distinctions: hunger, malnutrition (under-nutrition and over-nutrition)

Question 5

Myths about global hunger

Answer 5

 There’s simply not enough food.
 Nature is to blame.
 Overpopulation causes world hunger.
 The free market can end hunger.
 Technological innovations such as Green Revolution is the answer.
 More U.S. aid will help the hungry
 Justice vs. Production – project about fairness and justice impede production.

Question 6

Realities about global hunger

Answer 6

 ending global hunger is attainable
 creating ecologically sustainable agricultural methods
 Need for fairness and social justice – giving voice to those who labor the most – need for democratization of social life.
 Accountability of those who own more resources - The shift of idea of welfare from neoliberal to a critical progressive focus. From “individual responsibility” to public/collective care-taking.

Question 7

What can we do about global hunger?

Answer 7

• Educating oneself and disabusing oneself of myths – e.g. America has the best possible system
• Travel to other parts of the world
• Creating opportunities for social justice – involvement in community planning.
• Responsible investment

Question 8

Food deserts

Answer 8

• Limited or no access to a grocery store (more than a mile)
• Misconception: only in urban areas, but they are in rural areas too—rural areas surrounded by inedible foods
• Alternative definition: Low-income area with limited access to nutritional food
• 23.5 million Americans live in food deserts
• Why? Grocery stores risk making no profit, Whole Foods—high income
• Supervalue—low-income way less profit than whole foods
• Let’s move campaign—bring walmarts to low-income areas, giant corportation=lower paying jobs, poor treatment of employees
• Solution: education : being aware of negative implications of junk food
• Urban Farming projects: teach urban children how to grow food—implement in their own house
• Freshmove bus in Chicago—sells fresh food for cheap
• Rural: Provide people who want to start farms with loans/grants