Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System

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Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System (eBook) Pub. Date: 6/5/2012 Publisher: Melville House Publishing

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Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System Pub. Date: 4/1/2008 Publisher: Melville House Publishing
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Overview

It's A Perverse Fact: There are more people starving in the world than ever before (800 million) while there are also more people overweight (1 billion).

To find out how we got to this point and what we can do about it, Raj Patel launched a comprehensive investigation into the global food network. It took him from the colossal supermarkets of California to India's wrecked paddy-fields and Africa's bankrupt coffee farms, while along the way he ate genetically engineered soybeans and dodged flying objects on the protestor-packed streets of South Korea.

What he found was shocking: from the false choices given us by supermarkets to a global epidemic of farmer suicides and the real reasons for famine in Asia and Africa.

Yet he also found great cause for hope- in international social movements working to create a more democratic, sustainable, and joyful food system. Going beyond ethical consumerism, Patel explains, from seed to store to plate, the steps to regain control of the global food economy, stop the exploitation of both farmers and consumers, and rebalance global sustenance.

About the Author:
Raj Patel, former policy analyst for Food First, is currently a visiting scholar at the UC Berkeley Center for African Studies

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

Journalist and scholar Patel (Promised Land: Competing Visions of Agrarian Reform) focuses attention on the unfortunate irony of the current world food situation, in which the imbalance of world resources has created an epidemic of obesity in some parts of the world while millions in the "Global South" endure starvation. To make sense of the situation, Patel addresses the entire system of global food production, distribution and sale, concluding that "unless you're a corporate food executive, the food system isn't working for you." "Record levels of diet-related disease" plague consumers, cruel market realities (and unsympathetic officials) doom farmers, and communities are beset by a supermarket system that provides "cheap calories" while "bleeding local economies." Patel analyzes what can be done, presenting logical recommendations and strategies for individuals-eat locally, seasonally, and ecologically; support local business, workers' rights, and living wages; create a sustainable food system-though several primary components of his big vision (including ending agribusiness subsidies and corporate farming, and levying a tax on processed foods) are clearly a long way off. Those concerned about global health, social justice and the environment will be aware of many of the issues presented here, but should still find much to learn.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781933633497
Publisher: Melville House Publishing
Publication date: 4/1/2008
Pages: 416
Sales rank: 172,805
Product dimensions: 5.50 (w) x 8.18 (h) x 1.06 (d)

Meet the Author

Raj Patel is an award-winning best-selling writer, activist and academic. He has degrees from the University of Oxford, the London School of Economics and Cornell University. He has worked for the World Bank and WTO, and protested against them around the world. He’s currently a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley, an Honorary Research Fellow at the School of Development Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, SA and a fellow at The Institute for Food and Development Policy (aka Food First).

Introduction     1
Our Big Fat Contradiction     1
Arcadia Lost     6
About Joe     8
An Hourglass Figure     11
Ways of Being Free     15
The Menu of Chapters     18
A Rural Autopsy     21
And on That Farm He Had a Wife     21
Crooked Fictions     27
Debtward Ho     30
After Despair     33
Did the WTO Kill Lee Kyung Hae?     36
Some Farmers Are Pushed     41
But Where Does It Stop?     43
You Have Become Mexican     47
NAFTA and After     48
Corn for the Rich Men Only     54
Once Were Farmers     58
Beyond a Border     62
The Wrong Explanation     65
Bringing Agriculture to the City of Angels     71
Lee Again     73
'Just a Cry for Bread'     75
A Secret History of Refreshment     76
Rhodes' Conundrum     84
The Cold War for Food     88
After Food Aid     91
The World Trade Organization     96
The Customer is Our Enemy: A Brief Introduction to Food System Business     99
Permanent Banana Republic: The United Fruit Company     99
Varieties of Consolidation     102
The Market for Political Favour     108
Dwayne Andreas and the Currying of National Interest     111
Better Living through Chemistry     119
The Knowledge and the Initiative     120
Who Knows What     131
Corporations Address the Needs of the Poor     136
I'd Like to Thank the Academy     141
For Africa!     146
Making up Makhathini     153
Better Through Living Chemistry     158
Glycine Rex     165
Secret Ingredient     165
A Whole Hill of Beans     169
Learning the Soy Samba     173
The Perfect Storm     180
Blairo Maggi - Poster Soy     187
The View from Afar     194
The Perils of National Development     201
The World's Most Important Social Movement     204
Bringing It Home     212
Checking out of Supermarkets     215
The Self-Serving Store     216
Almost Orwell     224
666 and All That     226
Discipline in the Aisles     230
Wal-Mart      231
Supply Chain-gangs     236
The Contradictions of Convenience     237
Every Cloud Has a Redlining     242
Shelves of Love     244
In the Garden of the Black Panthers     247
Chosen by Bunnies     253
On Places and Taste and Food     253
Food Is from Mars     255
Wheat is Murder     259
Hooked on TV Dinners     262
The Now of Chow     267
War on the Obese     273
Feeling the Burn     277
Your Pace or Mine?     281
Anti-Malbouffe     286
Conclusion     293
Inside the Hourglass     293
It's Just We, Ourselves and Us     301
Follow the Leader     316
Notes     321
References     349
Acknowledgements     383
Permissions     389
Index     391

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Anonymous

Posted June 3, 2008

A reviewer

n his new book, 'Stuffed and Starved,' Raj Patel hits a nerve, or rather a whole digestive system worth of nerves. Until late, these two hot topics-obesity and the food crisis- were discussed separately. Patel's research shows why and how there are now more obese people than ever before, and more starving people. Patel takes an original view and places the blame not just on the governments, but on their famous trade agreements that we all thought were so fabulous-NAFTA ring a bell? He discusses how the 'consumer' market and trade agreements are what have caused an increase in percentage of farmer suicides, food riots, and starving communities throughout the world. The book is a fast read, full of stuff you definitely didn't know. Although perhaps intended for the political or activist type, it's a worthwhile, interesting read for anyone who shops at a supermarket, a Wal-Mart, is thinking of going organic, or is upset about the rising cost of food. Not only does Patel offer a hearty argument for his points, but he offers a 10-step 'fix' for us, everyday folk to start taking to help the problem....that, at least is worth the buy/read-in...

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