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Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know

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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.

I read this book and I was pleasantly surprised. I am on the board of an NGO [...] that works in East Africa with subsistence farmers. I also worked for a hunger advocacy group [...]. I know about hunger issues and have studied the topic extensively. Robert Paarlberg gives voice to many of the unspoken truths about the politics of hunger. He also introduces new information that is not generally made available. I can understand why this book would be controversial - it is an even-handed approach to an ages old problem that needs solving. Yet special interest groups don't want to hear about the other side of the story. The book is well written, well researched and an easy read. Paarlberg writes like a good conversation about something important. Read this book and I can assure you, there will be good material for you to discuss the next time you're at your dinner table.

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.

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.

I have worked in the field of agricultural and environmental policy for over a decade and found Paarlberg's book to be one of the best overviews of food and ag politics out there! The author does a terrific job of explaining the political issues surrounding food and agricultural policy and is able to present the perspective of environmentalists and the ag industry alike. I know just how hard it is to try to bridge these two worlds. With books like this one, the job gets easier!

Overall, I found Food Politics to be disappointing. Though it may serve as a reasonably informative introduction to both environmental and political science under-graduates alike, I found it to be somewhat deficient in significant areas and lacking factual parity in light of its implicit US-centric perspective and tone.

In terms of scope, the book is far too parochial with Paarlberg making no reference to fish, either in terms of global dietary significance, declining global fish stocks or the rise in fish farms and other nascent aquaculture food systems.

In addition, Paarlberg also neglects to include any notable information on water, either in terms agricultural usage or how water scarcity is becoming a significant regional/national/geopolitical issue and how water resources impact upon on food production. Food and water are clearly not mutually exclusive, and as such, research into one must surely acknowledge the significance of the other.

On Genetically Modified Organisms, Paarlberg asserts that European opposition to GMO technology is `disliked' on account that `most were developed by a U.S. multinational' (p168). The view that European opposition to GMOs is grounded in nothing more than corporate nationalism is at best contentious and at worst, erroneous.

Crops targeted by GM corporations for transgenic modification are the foods by which a significant portion of the global population lives by (rice, wheat, barley etc). These food crops are known as monocotyledons and are organisms which rely on the wind for pollination. As pollen dispersion from GM monocot crops cannot be controlled or anticipated, inasmuch that the pollen can be carried far and wide on prevailing winds, there is a danger that GM monocot crops will cross-pollinate with other non-GM monocot crops. For many, this represents a significant risk and one which could potentially carry irreversibly biological consequences.

Paarlberg also notes that Bt cotton technology is `in fact highly popular' in India to the extent that it has been performing `extremely well'. What he and other Green Revolution advocates neglect to mention is that Indians don't eat cotton. Indian agricultural land used for growing Bt cotton (a cash crop for export) is done so at the expense of food crops, food crops that could be used to feed India's poor. Furthermore, GM monoculture crops such as Bt cotton require massive inputs such as water, which results in developing countries not only losing valuable land to non-edible cash crops, but also the indirect export of that same countries water resources.

By all means purchase Food Politics. Paarlberg does, after all, hit all the relevant bases. However, for those interested in a more rigorous critical assessment of the real Politics of Food, and one written from the perspective of the impoverished south rather than the gluttonous north, then I would strongly urge you to purchase Vandana Shiva's powerful Soil Not Oil [[ASIN:1848133154]]

This book is disappointing at three levels:

1) The publisher has been completely dishonest in failing to illuminate the fact that this is a book Of, By, and For Monsanto, the greatest force of evil to ever hit farming.

2) The author (naturally) does not address the total corruption of the US Government and most other governments with respect to all issues, not just food. Corn as fuel, corn as fake sugar, corn as inedible cattle feed that puts cattle feces into spinach, the poisoning of our children and our environment by pesticides and other toxins that substitute poison for intelligence, are not covered.

3) Finally, the author is completely lacking in a systemic approach to all of these matters. Here are the twelve core policies that must be harmonized if they are to be effective: Agriculture, Diplomacy, Economy, Education, Energy, Family, Health, Immigration, Justice, Security, Society, Water. This book is abysmally oblivious--no doubt for the convenience of Monsanto--to the fact that agriculture that is based on fossil fuel consumption, inter-continental transport, poisoning for both growth and packaging; that destroys small farmers and community-related farming; that destroys the health of entire nations; that destroys the chain of life in seed that gives birth to new seed (instead substituting suicidal seeds); and finally, the cost-benefit ratio of water use in relation to all that is grown or raised--none of this is to be found in this book, ergo this is a dishonest, incomplete, rather ignorant book.

From where I sit, the publisher, the publisher has disgraced their brand. Here are ten links to books I recommend instead of this book.

Food Inc.: A Participant Guide: How Industrial Food is Making Us Sicker, Fatter, and Poorer-And What You Can Do About It
How Everyday Products Make People Sick: Toxins at Home and in the Workplace, Updated and Expanded
Child of Mine: Feeding with Love and Good Sense
Diet for a Small Planet
Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum: How Humans Took Control of Climate (New in Paper) (Princeton Science Library)
Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the New Global Economy
The Republican War on Science
Science, Money, and Politics: Political Triumph and Ethical Erosion
Pandora's Poison: Chlorine, Health, and a New Environmental Strategy
Debt and Death in Rural India: The Punjab Story

I was disappointed in this book. There are many examples. Here are only two.

On page 132: "It is a stretch to imagine that international corporations control the lives of poor farmers in the developing world."

It's not a stretch for this reader.

Continuing on page 132: "Most poor farmers in Africa do not make any purchases of seeds at all (they save seeds) from the previous season's crop), and they make minimum purchases of fertilizers and pesticides. When they do market a portion of their crop, it is usually to local buyers or to government-regulated marketing boards rather than to vertically integrated agribusiness firms. In Africa, fewer than 2 percent of all investments in agricultural research are made by private firms. The greater danger is not that international agribusiness will control these poor farmers but instead they will continue to ignore them. Private international companies are not significantly interested in African farmers because they lack the purchasing power to be good customers."

I do not agree. On the contrary, transnational agri-food conglomerates are very interested in African farmers, not as competitors, but as cheap wage laborers, which they cannot all hire, who then illegally emigrate to the U.S. in search of cheap wage labor. Robert Paarlberg omits all of this.

Regarding NAFTA and Mexico's importing of U.S. white corn on page 109:

"Poor growers of white corn are leaving the land in Mexico, but they are noncompetitive because of their own deficits in technology and infrastructure caused by decades of neglect from their own government more than because of diminished trade protection at the border. Mexico's overall agricultural trade balance has improved under NAFTA as agricultural exports (high-value fruits and vegetables) grew by 9.4 percent between 1994 and 2001, while agricultural imports increased by only 6.9 percent. The price of corn did fall inside Mexico under NAFTA, but this lower price provided significant gains for the urban poor who rely on a corn-based diet, a fact dramatized when a temporary increase in corn prices in 2007 prompted poor consumers in Mexico City to sate a mass protests. The welfare of food producers and food consumers usually depends more on what governments do inside the border than on what they do with their trade policy at the border. Arguments between open trade advocates and trade protectionists too often miss this point."

I do not think NAFTA and the interests of large agri-businesses are exempt and I find fault in blaming the Mexican infrastructure and the poor grower's lack of technology as the reason for emigration. Try arguing this point to the under paid, over-worked, corporate farm laborers or those forced into Maquiladora export factories in the free trade zone. Mexico has lost approximately 30% of its farm jobs since NAFTA went into effect, translating into 2.8 million farmers and millions more of their dependents fleeing their fields. Some have taken subsistence jobs in Mexico's cities, but many have relocated to the U.S.

NAFTA requires the deregulations of utilities and essential services through privatizations and profits for foreign investors, limited food inspections, high cost pharmaceutical patents over generics, toxic waste deregulations, loss of local farming tax protections that open the border to large foreign investors, putting small farmers out of business. NAFTA creates the relocation of foreign owned factories and jobs for cheap labor with less environmental regulations and its associated costs.


References:

Economist's View: NAFTA and Illegal Immigration. (n.d.). Economist's View. Retrieved May 28, 2010, from [...]

North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) . (n.d.). Public Citizen Home Page . Retrieved May 28, 2010, from [...]

Who Is Threatening Our Dinner Table?: The Power of Transnational Agribusiness - STWR - Share The World's Resources. (n.d.). Share The World's Resources - STWR. Retrieved May 28, 2010, from [...]

Robert Paarlberg draws from his long and notable career studying international food policy to address in a calm and rational way a wide range of food issues. Why does chronic malnutrition still plague some regions while it has been solved in others? What are the real economic consequences of farm subsidies and food trade restrictions? What really caused the 2008 "food crisis?" Is "Organic" actually better for us or for the environment? Are GMO's safe? Some of the answers will be surprising to readers because they challenge widely accepted myths. Paarlberg's independence (no corporate or food industry funding for his research) is particularly valuable for these controversial topics. Considering the breadth of topics covered, it is an amazingly brief and readable book. If you care about food, sustainability and global hunger, this is a must-read book!

I found reading this book to be interesting. I was unaware the politics tied to the food were extensive. This book opened my eyes to food. I was especially captivated by chronic hunger. The information relating the numbers of "undernourished" individuals are astonishing. It is particularly sad to see most of the undernutrition is suffered by children under 3. Much of this was information a professor of mine has talked about, but seeing it from another resource hits home.