Bringing the Food Economy Home: Local Alternatives to Global Agribusiness: Norberg-Hodge, Helena, Merrifield, Todd, Gorelick, Steven: 9781565491465: Amazon.com: Books

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Helena Norberg-Hodge

Bringing the Food Economy Home: Local Alternatives to Global Agribusiness Paperback – June 1, 2002

by Helena Norberg-Hodge (Author), Todd Merrifield (Author), Steven Gorelick (Author)

4.6 5 ratings

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* Reveals how bringing food production to a local level revitalizes rural economies in both the industrialized and developing world
* Published in association with the International Society for Ecology and Culture
* For readers concerned with agriculture, community development, environmental sustainability, and ecological economics

If the many social, environmental, and economic crises facing the planet are to be reversed, local food economies must be rebuilt. Given the constant demand for food, even miniscule changes in its production and marketing can offer immense benefits for farmers, consumers, the economy and the environment.

Bringing the Food Economy Home reveals how a shift towards the local would protect and rebuild agricultural diversity by giving farmers a larger share of the money spent on food, and providing consumers with healthier, fresher food at more affordable prices.

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Print length

160 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Kumarian Press
Publication date

June 1, 2002
Dimensions

5.75 x 0.5 x 8.75 inches
ISBN-10

1565491467
ISBN-13

978-1565491465
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Reviewed in the United States on September 23, 2012

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I was assigned this book in a Sustainable Food and Farms class at my university. Great book. Would read it if it wasn't assigned.

Friederike Knabe

From local to global to local

Reviewed in the United States on August 26, 2004

Calculating the true cost of getting your family's typical dinner on the table would reveal a shocking price! In addition to produce cost itself, you would have to include the delivery charges for each meal component: from the producer via long distance shipping, packaging, storage, and distribution to you via your local supermarket. The authors suggest that product travel distance in reaching our table should be calculated in 'food miles'. The further the distance - the higher the price . At least that's what it should logically be.

However, as consumers, most of us rarely pay the full cost of any food item. If we did, we would appreciate more readily how the global food system has turned food production on its head. Thus claim the authors of this concise and illuminating analysis of globalization of the agribusiness and its impacts on our well-being. While this slim volume might appear otherwise, the study is packed with useful information and concrete data. It explains why we are facing major problems in the food economy around the world. In developing and industrialized countries farmers are abandoning their land to large-scale cash-crop agribusiness or big corporations. The push for crop monocultures is contributing to land degradation and is skewing food supplies. The authors demystify the notion that a globalized food system is more efficient and economic and question the logic of its processes. For example, in recent years the UK has been importing about as much milk as it has exported! The only beneficiaries of this artificial trade balance, they argue, are the transport businesses and the financial speculators. As tax payers we subsidize the transportation business by allowing governments to subsidize the development of big agriculture to the detriment of local farmers everywhere. The authors encourage the reader to examine these issues and outline what we can do as consumers and citizens, to reverse current trends. Examples and case studies are interleafed with tables and statistics illustrating the underlying argument of the authors: to restore local food production and closely link it to the consumer.

In this well-structured and easily followed study, the authors examine global food issues from all possible angles: food and health, food and economy, food and community; food and marketing ecologies and (local) food security. In addition, the authors expose the serious environmental impacts of large-scale monoculture farming and the unnecessary transport of food shipped across the globe or from one end of the country to the other (in the US). For example, US cookies are exported to Denmark while Danish cookies are exported to the US! Why not, the authors argue, just swap recipes at minimal cost?

In each chapter the implications of globalizing the food sector are summarized, critiqued and contrasted with working alternatives. For example. initiatives of community-based agriculture or consumer-coops are introduced that are springing up in many countries. While food production and trade in the developing world are not addressed as the primary focus of the analysis, the consistent negative impacts of a globalized food system on the populations in the South have provided the authors with strong arguments for local diversity in food security systems. Norberg-Hodge, in particular, has a long track record of researching the impact of international development policies on traditional functioning rural communities in the South.

The intended audiences of this book are clearly the consumers and citizens in the industrialized countries. The examples given are highlighting the situation in the US and UK. Yet, they also present interesting insights into other countries' situations. The authors' conclusion is that the food economy needs to be shifted from its current global level to the local wherever possible. This does not mean, they contend, that all food trade should stop or the consumer should no longer be able to buy exotic foods from far away. Instead, they argue, the priority has to be that people produce staple food locally wherever possible. Food should be imported only where the local resources cannot fulfill the demand of the population. Local produce is usually healthier, fresher and can be more appropriate for the local diet and culture. It is also much cheaper if transport, packaging and storage costs for long distance travel are to be included in the true price of food.

This a book to absorb and not just to read once. It calls for action by everyone and is a toolkit for all those seriously engaged in educating people of all ages in health, environment and all food issues. A resource guide is added for further study and action. [Friederike Knabe, Ottawa Canada]

21 people found this helpful

Dr. H. A. Jones

Towards local sourcing of food

Reviewed in the United States on July 1, 2012

Bringing the Food Economy Home: Local alternatives to global agribusiness, by Helena Norberg-Hodge, Todd Merrifield and Steven Gorelick, Kumarian Press, Bloomfield, CT; Zed Books, London; Fernwood Publishing, Halifax, NS, Canada, 160 ff.

The content of this book is summarized quite succinctly by the title: it is an exhortation to deal direct with local suppliers of food wherever possible rather than shopping at supermarkets and other mass retailers. The book also warns of the dangers to food supplies in particular, and to the environment generally, if we continue on the path of globalization. The authors are all environmentalists of varying backgrounds: Norberg-Hodge for example is also a linguist who studied under Noam Chomsky at MIT. Data in the book relate mainly to the UK though figures from the USA and Europe are also included.

We have many problems facing us today in saving our planet but the authors have focused on continuing and adequate food production as one of the key issues; and this has other implications. For example, they say that `losing food self-sufficiency can quickly lead to a loss of political independence.' As an example they cite the pressure from the USA to persuade farmers in other parts of the world to accept GM foods and beef treated with growth hormones: `Corporate agribusinesses have thus taken control of the entire food system' and `the Northern economic model . . . has been systematically imposed throughout the Third World.' On the same political note the authors point out that the `unelected bureaucrats that run the World Trade Organization have the power to overturn democratically enacted national and local laws . . . this is not free trade it is forced trade'.

There are many issues at stake here. Farmers are getting insufficient return on their produce. There is enormous cost and waste involved in transporting foodstuffs back and forth and the process increases environmental pressures. The food is not as fresh or nutritious when there are long intervals between harvesting and consumption. In order to increase yields, farmers are forced to use more chemicals in producing crops, which reduces natural flora and fauna, and runoff from these chemicals is adding to environmental pollution. Intensive farming methods are reducing biodiversity and are in fact making crops more susceptible to pests.

However, all is not lost! The authors also tell us that there are successful local cooperatives functioning in various parts of the world and there are suggestions for how we can all contribute to a more sustainable food economy. The facts of the present situation make for depressing reading, but it is up to us to change the direction of governments and the agribusinesses that support them to secure the future for our children.

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Jose

Visión bien documentada de las ventajas de la Economía Cercana de los Alimentos

Reviewed in Spain on March 27, 2016

Verified Purchase

Presenta de una forma bien estructurada hechos y datos de la produccion de alimentos. Facilita las claves para entender el diseño del negocio de los alimentos a escala global con sus ventajas e inconvenientes. Trae ideas que funcionan cuando se quiere volver a la agricultura y ganadería de proximidad. Me parece un libro bien escrito y muy sugerente.

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