Food Rebellions!

Crisis and the Hunger for Justice

Eric Holt-Giménez, Raj Patel

Erosion of local and national control: takes a deep look at the world food crisis and its impact on the global South and under-served communities in the industrial North. While most governments and multilateral organisations offer short-term solutions based on proximate causes, authors Eric Holt-Giménez and Raj Patel unpack the planet’s environmentally and economically vulnerable food systems to reveal the root causes of the crisis. By tracking the political and economic evolution of the industrial agri-foods complex, Food Rebellions! shows us how the steady erosion of local and national control over their food systems has made African nations dependent on a volatile global market and subject to the short-term interests of a handful of transnational agri-food monopolies.

A powerful handbook for those seeking to understand the causes and potential solutions to the current food crisis now affecting nearly half of the world’s people. Why are food riots occurring around the world in a time of record harvests? What are the real impacts of agrofuels and genetically engineered crops? Whose interests are being advanced by Africa’s ‘new’ Green Revolution? And why are the thousands of farmer-led ‘islands of sustainability’ flowering across the landscapes of the global South being ignored by policy-makers? What are hundreds of peasant farm organisations, civil society organisations, and concerned researchers doing about the crisis? Finally, what can you do?

Democratising food systems: suggests that to solve the food crisis, we must change the global food system — from the bottom up and from the top down. On one hand, farmers utilising sustainable approaches to production need to be supported, and farmer-to-farmer agroecological knowledge must be spread. At the same time, food and farm advocates need to work in local, national and international policy arenas to open dialogue, demand transparency and change the ‘rules’ currently holding back agroecological alternatives. The book frames the current food crisis as a unique opportunity to develop productive local food systems as engines for sustainable economic development. Hunger and poverty, the authors insist, can be eliminated by democratising food systems and respecting people’s right to safe, nutritious and culturally appropriate food and to food-producing resources — in short, by advancing food sovereignty.
 

Contents

• Foreword by Walden Bello
1. Introduction to the Global Food Crisis
• Part One – The Real Story Behind The World Food Crisis
2. Hunger, Harvests and Profits: The Tragic Records of the Global Food Crisis
3. Root Causes: How the Industrial Agrifoods Complex Ate the Global South
4. The Overproduction of Hunger: Uncle Sam’s Farm and Food Bill
5. Agrofuels: A Bad Idea at the Worst Possible Time
6. Summing Up the Crisis
• Part Two – What We Can Do About It
7. Overcoming the Crisis: Transforming the Food System
8. Africa and the End of Hunger
9. The Challenge of Food Sovereignty in Northern Countries
10. Epilogue
• Appendix 1: Civil Society Statement on the World Food Emergency
• Appendix 2: Land, Territory and Dignity Forum, Porto Alegre, March 6–9, 2006
• Appendix 3: ROPPA—Pan-African Farmers’ Platform
• Appendix 4: Declarations of the African Organizations— Planet Diversity, May 12-16, 2008
• Appendix 5: Africa: 25th FAO Africa Conference— African Women’s Statement
• Appendix 6: High-Level Meeting on Food Security, Madrid, January 26–27, 2009
• Appendix 7: US Call to Action
• Appendix 8: Declaration for Healthy Food and Agriculture
 

About the Authors

Eric Holt-Giménez is the executive director of Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy in Oakland. He has also worked as a lecturer in international development and agroecology at the University of California and Boston University.

Raj Patel is an award-winning writer, activist and academic. He’s currently a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley’s Center for African Studies, an Honorary Research Fellow at the School of Development Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and a fellow at The Institute for Food and Development Policy, also known as Food First.