The Food Economy

The Global Food Economy examines the human and ecological cost of what we eat. The current food economy is characterized by immense contradictions. Surplus 'food mountains', bountiful supermarkets, and rising levels of obesity stand in stark contrast to widespread hunger and malnutrition. Transnational companies dominate the market in food and benefit from subsidies, whilst farmers in developing countries remain impoverished. Food miles, mounting toxicity and the 'ecological hoofprint' of livestock mean that the global food economy rests on increasingly shaky environmental foundations. This book looks at how such a system came about, and how it is being enforced by the WTO. Ultimately, Weis considers how we can find a way of building socially just, ecologically rational and humane food economies.

The Economics of Sustainable Food details the true cost of food for people and the planet. It illustrates how to transform our broken system, alleviating its severe financial and human burden. The key is smart macroeconomic policy that moves us toward methods that protect the environment like regenerative land and sea farming, low-impact urban farming, and alternative protein farming, and toward healthy diets. The book's multidisciplinary team of authors lay out detailed fiscal and trade policies, as well as structural reforms, to achieve those goals. Chapters discuss strategies to make food production sustainable, nutritious, and fair, ranging from taxes and spending to education, labor market, health care, and pension reforms, alongside regulation in cases where market incentives are unlikely to work or to work fast enough. The authors carefully consider the different needs of more and less advanced economies, balancing economic development and sustainability goals. Case studies showcase successful strategies from around the world, such as taxing foods with a high carbon footprint, financing ecosystems mapping and conservation to meet scientific targets for healthy biomes permanency, subsidizing sustainable land and sea farming, reforming health systems to move away from sick care to preventive, nutrition-based care, and providing schools with matching funds to purchase local organic produce.--Amazon.

The questions of population growth and food supply have long been of central concern to economists. The World Food Economy seeks to examine the lessons of the past for wealthy nations, where agricultural output has steadily risen for decades, as well as for developing nations where the advances of the “Green Revolution” in the 1960s have introduced new problems in addition to solutions. This text assesses the challenge of satisfying food demand during the twenty-first century as consumers and producers in every part of the world—rich and poor alike—feel the effects of expanded global commodity trade, food aid, and national legislation in response to globalization. Examines increases in agricultural output and productivity in both the developed and developing worlds Analyzes the centrality of agricultural development to general economic progress and explores cases where governments attempt to foster economic expansion while neglecting food production Assesses the challenge of satisfying food demand during the twenty-first century, given the effects of globalization on international trade and national legislation.

The financialization, globalization and industrialization of our food systems make it increasingly difficult to access quality fresh food. In fact, the industrialized global food system is creating products that are less food-like, engendering growing questions about the health and safety of our food supply. In addition, the bio-engineering of food commodities is another factor influencing the growth of industrial farming for an increasingly homogenized, globalized market. This book describes the financialization process in commodity futures markets which transformed commodities into an asset class. Incorporated into the portfolio decisions of investors, commodity prices now behave like all asset prices, becoming more volatile and subject to periodic bubbles. As commodity prices were driven higher in the 2000s, farmland became more valuable, setting off a global land grab by investors, nations, and corporations. More recently, under the financialization food regime, slow growth and low returns encouraged merger activity driven by private equity firms, with food industry corporations as prime targets, leading to increased industry concentration. With government policy focused on supporting corporate interests, there has been a global reaction to the current food system. The food sovereignty movement is taking on the interests behind the global land grab, and the regional food movement in cities across the U.S. is hitting corporations at the bottom line. Food corporations are listening. Is the food movement winning? This book is of interest to those who study political economy, financialization and agriculture and related studies, as well as food systems and commodity future markets.

The food economy is increasingly shaped by such new issues as sustainability, safety and quality standards, consumer health, and industry concentration. Cultural and ethical arguments gain momentum when aligned with issues such as economic welfare and stakeholder interests. The food economy grows ever more global and encompasses more elusive elements like trust, integrity, transparency, corporate social responsibility and creating emotional bonds with customers. The food economy is inextricably interrelated with globalisation, changes in consumer demand for food and energy, the ICT revolution, sustainability issues, and shifts in the relationship between private companies and public regulators. The Food Economy explores a variety of trends and topics from the broad perspective that their evolution is interdependent with all kinds of counter currents and opposite notions: scarcity goes together with abundance, public and private initiatives co-evolve, slow food is connected with fast food, global brands and local products exist simultaneously. The Food Economy devotes chapters to existing and emerging issues and challenges of the expanding food economy. The Food Economy is relevant to academics, students, policymakers and consumers who are interested in recent developments in the food system and their implications for the food policy and research agendas in the years to come.

Publisher description

How we produce and consume food has a bigger impact on Americans' well-being than any other human activity. The food industry is the largest sector of our economy; food touches everything from our health to the environment, climate change, economic inequality, and the federal budget. From the earliest developments of agriculture, a major goal has been to attain sufficient foods that provide the energy and the nutrients needed for a healthy, active life. Over time, food production, processing, marketing, and consumption have evolved and become highly complex. The challenges of improving the food system in the 21st century will require systemic approaches that take full account of social, economic, ecological, and evolutionary factors. Policy or business interventions involving a segment of the food system often have consequences beyond the original issue the intervention was meant to address. A Framework for Assessing Effects of the Food System develops an analytical framework for assessing effects associated with the ways in which food is grown, processed, distributed, marketed, retailed, and consumed in the United States. The framework will allow users to recognize effects across the full food system, consider all domains and dimensions of effects, account for systems dynamics and complexities, and choose appropriate methods for analysis. This report provides example applications of the framework based on complex questions that are currently under debate: consumption of a healthy and safe diet, food security, animal welfare, and preserving the environment and its resources. A Framework for Assessing Effects of the Food System describes the U.S. food system and provides a brief history of its evolution into the current system. This report identifies some of the real and potential implications of the current system in terms of its health, environmental, and socioeconomic effects along with a sense for the complexities of the system, potential metrics, and some of the data needs that are required to assess the effects. The overview of the food system and the framework described in this report will be an essential resource for decision makers, researchers, and others to examine the possible impacts of alternative policies or agricultural or food processing practices.

Norberg-Hodge, Todd Merrifield, and Steven Gorelick of the International Society for Ecology and Culture discuss how a shift towards local food economies would protect and rebuild the agricultural diversity that has been lost in the current specialized, capital intensive, technology-based global environment. Coverage includes the history of this change in emphasis from local to global; the ecology of food marketing and production; food and health, the economy, and the community; food security; and changing direction. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR