Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know [Paperback]

Robert Paarlberg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 7, 2010 | Series: What Everyone Needs to Know

The politics of food is changing fast. In rich countries, obesity is now a more serious problem than hunger. Consumers once satisfied with cheap and convenient food now want food that is also safe, nutritious, fresh, and grown by local farmers using fewer chemicals. Heavily subsidized and underregulated commercial farmers are facing stronger push back from environmentalists and consumer activists, and food companies are under the microscope. Meanwhile, agricultural success in Asia has spurred income growth and dietary enrichment, but agricultural failure in Africa has left one-third of all citizens undernourished - and the international markets that link these diverse regions together are subject to sudden disruption.

Food Politics carefully examines and explains the most important issues on today's global food landscape, including international food prices, famines, chronic hunger, the Malthusian race between food production and population growth, international food aid, "green revolution" farming, obesity, farm subsidies and trade, agriculture and the environment, agribusiness, supermarkets, food safety, fast food, slow food, organic food, local food, and genetically engineered food.

Politics in each of these areas has become polarized over the past decade by conflicting claims and accusations from advocates on all sides. Paarlberg's book maps this contested terrain, challenging myths and critiquing more than a few of today's fashionable beliefs about farming and food. For those ready to have their thinking about food politics informed and also challenged, this is the book to read.

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What's inside:

An incisive approach to a complex and timely issue, laid out in a straight-forward, question-and-answer format.

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From Booklist

Political scientist Paarlberg calls on years of food-policy work and casts his net far and wide in highly opinionated discussions of food shortages and safety, organics, and obesity. He believes that the unsuccessful farm bill labors under the weight of Congressional and lobbyist interests who care only about profits, not good policy, while critics of the “green revolution” are more focused on idealism than science. Factory farming is essential, Paarlberg argues, and, by the way, international food aid is manipulated by everyone from the Department of Defense to the shipping lobby. The facts and figures he provides are dizzying, and the quick shifts in subject matter will likely leave readers wishing Paarlberg had chosen to focus his attention on a facet or two of this enormous subject. Ultimately Food Politics is best used as source book for those uncertain where to begin but desiring something more substantial than bland green guides. Consider it a cram course in how the world eats, and then use this knowledge to support further inquiry. —Colleen Mondor

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (April 7, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 019538959X
• ISBN-13: 978-0195389593
• Product Dimensions: 5.6 x 0.6 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #263,685 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #57 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > International & World Politics > Trades & Tariffs

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 28 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Warning: Paarlberg is NOT liberal! May 15, 2011

By Drew

Format:Paperback

I'm one of those liberals who does not identify as liberal because "I don't like to be put in a box." But for all intents and purposes, one would classify me as a liberal (in the modern liberal = Prius driving, organic eating, gay-friendly and pro-choice consumer). And I think it's no accident that the cover and title of this book appeals to a liberal audience. This book will certainly challenge any liberal assumptions you may have about the modern food system.

I, who have no background in food politics or international relations, was looking for a good, informative overview of both topics and was expecting a progressive assessment of the modern food system (along the line's of Michael Pollan's work--which, it should be noted, Paarlberg takes issue with on multiple occasions). After a more 'progressive' criticism of modern farm subsidies, Paarlberg reveals himself to be an unapologetic globalist and capitalist in his stance on GMOs, organic food, local food, and green technology. He takes a pragmatic tone as most of his criticisms center around how effectively each system or technology can be monetized and capitalized. He pays short shrift to the cultural implications of each system and almost completely dismisses the importance of more abstract concepts like national and local sovereignty.

But to Paarlberg's credit, he does enumerate different points of views on the issues and explains (with a transparent bias) the rationale behind them before launching into his own opinion. And that is where this book succeeds: it provides a good overview of all the major debates within food politics--which, I suppose, is what I was looking for. This book is worth picking up simply because it's easy to read and covers a wide array of issues.... It will not satisfy all your curiosities nor settle any issues for you. If anything, it will challenge your assumptions and prompt you to dive deeper into these issues. Read more ›

20 of 25 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Leaves Much to be Desired November 29, 2011

By TheDevelopmentRoast(dot)org

Format:Paperback

In this 2010 book "Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know", Oxford University Press, Robert Paarlberg takes a Q & A approach to a broad set of food and agriculture topics, covering aid and trade, obesity and famine, organic farming and genetically engineered (GE) organisms, and the food system's effects on health and environment, among others. The work is a self-proclaimed attempt at "rebalancing some debates around food and farming" for "an aware audience of non-specialists". And on the whole, its strength lies in its accessible style and the common myths it dispels: how buying local produce, for example, is not necessarily more environmentally friendly or the fact that global market food prices do not automatically increase local consumer costs.

For all its breadth, however, the book is beset by problems. The simplicity with which the debates are framed and the generalisations employed oversimplify several issues; a number of inherent contradictions undermine some arguments' validity; a purely macro and economic appraisal of debates leads to conclusions that would have been challenged had the social and cultural politics of food been considered; it takes a US-centric approach despite promising a global overview; and the vexing lack of referencing throughout weakens the book overall since the aware reader is prevented from effective fact checking.

Food Politics' major failings, however, lie in its uneven, at times uncritical discussion of politics and presentation of broad-based counter-arguments with inadequate use of evidence to be undoubtedly convincing. He defends the GE agriculture industry safety, for example, by comparing it to GE medicine.... Yet fails to tell the reader, among many other things, that through effective lobbying GE food and agriculture are not subject to the same rigorous testing and product development procedures the medical industry is.

Meanwhile, through a lack of political discussion, some of the author's positions appear one-sided. For instance, in discussing related topics there is no information on the positions of food industry personnel in US government, the politics behind lack of GE labelling laws or ability of monopolistic agricultural technology companies, through lack of regulation, to tie developing country farmers to one company's credit, input and farm-gate purchasing systems.

Furthermore, throughout, Paalberg fails to situate the discussion in wider historical political processes that have direct links to the issues under consideration. A brief note on the politics of neoliberal economic policies from the 1970s onwards, for example, would have afforded important context for the reader, since these helped to fundamentally change the face and the politics of food production and distribution through widespread trade liberalisation, privatisation and by dismantling many developing country governments' agricultural policy tools.

As a result of all these oversights, Paarlberg too easily dismisses certain critiques. Like the arguments that trade policy negatively affects Mexican farmers, that agrifood giants and supermarkets exert control over farmers and consumers, respectively, or that switching to GE seeds has anything to do with farmer suicides in India, to name but a few. Yet other arguments still are dismissed on what can only be described as 'head-scratching' grounds. According to Paarlberg, it would be problematic should the world decide to go vegetarian overnight, for example, because "farm animals would hardly thrive... they would have to be kept in zoos or perform in circuses to avoid extinction" (p.123) - as if this type of existence would somehow be worse than what factory-bred animals experience now, or as if this is in any way a consideration in food politics at all.

It is a formidable undertaking to try and discuss Food Politics in a single book. The area is so rich with debate, controversy and, of course, politics that the usual route is to focus on a handful of issues in a prolonged narrative. [Readers may be interested in Marion Nestle's 2002 ground-breaking Food Politics, which confines itself to an expose of "How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health", Peter Rosset's 2006 concise account of why 'Food is Different' when it comes to global trade, or Raj Patel's impassioned 2007 `Stuffed and Starved' that takes almost four hundred pages to deliver it's story of `Markets, Power and the Hidden Battle for the World's Food System']. Robert Paarlberg's attempt at enlightening his audience to the entirety of `What Everyone Needs to Know' about food politics in 189 pages leaves much to be desired. Readers would do well to be cognizant of its shortcomings and avoid accepting it as any kind of a definitive authority on the subject. Read more ›

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Beware: Industrial Ag Perspectives, Presented as Neutral Observations January 17, 2012

By chris fisher

Format:Paperback

If you were discussing whether tobacco causes cancer would you consult a Phillip Morris scientist? If you wanted accurate information about the links between burning fossil fuels and climate change would you seek out a scientist funded by Exxon Mobil?

Fortunately I did not pay for this book, but was loaned a copy, because what I had been interested in - a critical perspective and investigation into the climate surrounding food politics - was noticeably absent.

I believe this book to be Oxford University Press's attempt to divert a significant number of "reasonable" and "pragmatic" folks out there from further investigation into the field of food politics, lest their eyes be further opened to the real world. In the real world we live with a food and agricultural system which has been established primarily for the purpose of increasing profits for corporate shareholders, with all other considerations of importance only when media headlines of famine, illness outbreaks, or deficit-growing subsidies for monocrops focus the public's attention, however briefly.

So Paarlberg has given us a book that purports to be a neutral observation, above the fray of what his publisher calls the "polarized" climate of the food politics debate. But without addressing any particular problems with the book's content, which has been done quite well by numerous other reviewers here, his qualifications as an independent observer and expert capable of taking a critical perspective come into question.

Paarlberg has been a paid advisor to Monsanto and received funding from the Gates Foundation, a major Monsanto shareholder, as well.... This conflict of interest goes completely unmentioned, and the cursory examination of all the issues surrounding GE/GMO biotechnology contained herein are telling. That OUP would publish this small volume without this significant missing disclosure speaks volumes itself. Add the lack of citations where he does present evidence, his impugning of other scholars' work without the provision of evidence, the extreme selectivity of the evidence presented, and the use of prejudicial descriptors for his opponents and what we've got is a work of propaganda for industrial ag and a continuation of the status quo (with minor alterations). This is not objective, neutral, fair or by any means a legitimate overview of the state of food politics.

Do yourself a favor - borrow this from your library if you must. Then move on to more legitimate examinations of the world of food & ag: The End of Food by Paul Roberts, Stuffed and Starved by Raj Patel, The Vegetarian Myth by Leirre Keith, Recipe for America by Jill Richardson, Depletion and Abundance by Sharon Astyk, Appetite for Profit by Michelle Simon and on and on. There is no shortage of information out there. This volume presents one perspective, bought and paid for, as neutral overview. Rule of thumb: pay close attention to anyone claiming to be a neutral observer who is above the fray - they're generally paid to say such things. Read more ›