Global Politics of Food Quiz 4

Eating Disorders

-Food production in the modern world is globalized, due to technologies of transportation and storage -Industrialized agriculture produces food more efficiently while simultaneously decreasing the nutrition content and increasing the empty calories in our diet -In a sense, everyone in the developed world is on a diet •Having to choose what to eat everyday •Which is a major shift from prior eras

Worldwide spread of the Industrial food system through:

Worldwide spread of the Industrial food system through: •Development project •Food aid •Green Revolution •Debt crisis •Structural Adjustment Conditionalities •Free trade • •Haiti's story is the same as many, many developing nations •Forced social transition away from subsistence agriculture (stalled in middle-income trap)

Agroecology & the State

§Many 'Pink Tide' governments pursued polices of agroecological intensification (AEI) to varying degrees. § Some simply allowed the movement to flourish without much direct state support §Others, such as Ven. Bolivia, Ecuador, Brazil, Arg, and Nicaraugua enshrined agroecological principles into law. §They claim that despite this turn, the role of private sector agro-food processing, distribution and retail as not been challenged, sometimes allowed to expand. §Two-track policy of supporting sustainable smallholder farming (at least rhetorically), while also being complicit to ABM and mining incursions into peasant territories. §Unable to stamp out completely corruption in State bureaucracies (clientelist and patrimonial systems), many governments made 'deals' by offering continued expansion for MNCs & ABMs

•Focus specifically on inequality in access to quality food.

•"65% of the world's population live in a country where overweight and obesity kills more people than underweight" (WHO, 2009, p. 16). •Anthony Winson's (2013) "industrial diet" was based on the industrial processing of food and prevailed primarily in advanced capitalist countries. •It is predicated on raw materials such as corn, canola, and soybeans, crops at the forefront of the biotechnology revolution, controlled by a concentrated number of ABMs and subsidized by rich countries. •"Thus agribusiness technology, agricultural policy, and agri‐food processing are all inextricably linked in the industrial production of the food "choices" ultimately made available in the neoliberal diet." Technology paradigm Also relies on 3 principal additives to hook consumers: fat, salt, & sugar.

•The build a "neoliberal‐diet risk index" (NDR) to estimate people's risk of having access predominantly to the diet's energy‐dense foods component.

•"We argue that the most affected people are primarily the working classes, whose low to middle incomes shape their food "choices". We compare and contrast measures of food‐trade dependency and inequality that are likely to enhance the risk of exposure to the neoliberal diet for a group of emerging Countries." •Our NDR is thus made up of the geometric mean of five measurements and the result is represented by an index that ranges from 1 to 100; they are as follows: •(1) an index of food‐import dependency for the food sources that constitute each country's top 80% of caloric intake, as dependency is linked to international price volatility; •(2) the Gini coefficient, which measures the degree of inequality in each country (where 0 = perfect equality and 1 = total income concentration in a single individual), turned into a percentage; •(3) the rate of urbanization, with shifting lifestyles and food habits favouring the rise of convenience foods, and the expansion of foreign corporations into fast food and junk food; •(4) the rate of female labour‐force participation, as this factor increases the likelihood of eating processed food and/or eating outside the home; and •(5) the index of economic globalization, which supplements the dependency index and includes several components.

•Class nature of obesity

•"obesity in America is a largely economic issue" (Drewnowski & Darmon, 2005, p. 265S), especially if we include other aspects of socio‐economic status (SES), such as education and occupation, and even environmental factors, such as investigated by "food deserts" [or 'food swamp'] scholars" •Neoliberal‐diet foods are significantly cheaper than more nutritious alternatives (fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and leaner, unprocessed, meats). •With neoliberal globalization this has been expanding across the world. •The nutrition transition is the global transformation of diets resulting from rising incomes and urbanization (Drewnowski & Popkin, 1997, p. 31). •The increased access to cheap fats and sugars transforms traditionally low‐fat diets; cheap vegetable oils make "high‐fat diets accessible even to low‐income societies" •This "nutrition transition" to vegetable oils parallels the WHO's "risk transition" away from infectious to non-communicable diseases (NCDs). •Developing nations face both rising NCDs & malnutrition induced infectious diseases.

Badgley organic food study

•2007 - 2007 meta-study of organic yields vs. conventional: -8% in developed countries +80% in developing countries •A review of 286 projects in 57 developing countries, found farmers increased productivity by an average of 79% by adopting "resource-conserving" agriculture (Pretty et al., 2006). •40-year, 5-continent study of organic vs. conventional (Crowder & Reganold, 2015): +22-35% profitability +20-24% benefit/cost ratios

Marked shifts in Indian Diets

•A sharp reduction in cereal consumption—10% between 1993 and 2004. The intake of sugar decreased by 6% between 1993 and 2004. •Pulses/nuts/dry fruits/others recorded a sharp drop of 44% between 1993 & 2004. •By contrast, intakes of Vanaspati-oil and eggs rose more than moderately, as did meat/fish/poultry, fruits and vegetables in 2004. •Reduction in cereal intake was lower in urban India (7%). •Pulses/nuts/dry fruits recorded a sharp reduction of 37%, whereas sugar recorded a moderate decline. •Milk/ghee/butter, meat/fish/poultry, and fruits and vegetables recorded small increases in 2004, and eggs and Vanaspati-oil recorded moderately higher intakes.

agroecology definition

•A whole-systems approach to agriculture and food systems development based on traditional knowledge, alternative agriculture, and local food system experiences. Agroecology is careful to not draw too thick of a distinction between society and nature The application of ecology to the design and management of sustainable agroecosystems Links ecology, culture, economics, and society to sustain agricultural production, healthy environments, and viable farming communities.

•Western diseases - diabetes, obesity, hypertension & diet-related cancers

•Appear soon after a people abandons traditional diets •O'Dea's study focus not on specific nutrients but on large dietary patterns •Aboriginal hunter-gatherer diet v. urban diets •HG diet => improvements in every aspect of health Seven week return to HG diet improved or eliminated diabetic abnormalities

Consumer culture and health

•Consumer food products make us obese •Consumer media products reproduce the 'thin ideal' and beauty standards around culturally specific body image •Advertising convinces us that we are not as attractive as we could or should be •Consumer products sell us diets, pills, and other ways to augment our bodies to fit the thin ideal

Neoliberal Diet in China

•Despite China's rapid growth in the past decade, Chinese rural residents suffer from a continuing decline of both calorie and protein intakes. •There are two main explanations for the decline: 1.the changing demographic and economic structure contributes to a lower demand for energy compared to traditional rural society 2.the rising cost of non-food essential goods could lead to a squeeze in the food budget. •Using both national-level & provincial-level data, they find evidence for both factors and that the current abnormally low level of nutritional intake is mainly due to commodification in the context of diet westernization. •Rural residents' nutritional intake declines as they divert their consumption from relatively cheap sources of energy (grain and vegetable) to more expensive alternatives (meat and poultry) under a squeezed budget.

•They generate a neoliberal‐diet risk index (NDR), which is a composite of five other indices that capture increased food‐import dependence, income inequality, disruption of agri‐food systems in the form of urbanization rates, female participation in the labour force, and economic globalization.

•Diets change in tandem with change in agricultural production (e.g. shifts to export‐oriented production of cocoa, coffee, or wheat) or land tenure (e.g. from communal to plantation). •Inequality not only heightens food‐security risk in general, but also increasingly exposes the economically disadvantaged to the energy‐dense and predominant components of the neoliberal diet: low‐cost food that leads to considerable health risks. •They ask How did substitute, processed ingredients become cheaper than fruits and vegetables, for instance? •They link this to changes in ag due to NTAE and imports of cheap grains •Meat as one of the main processed foods of the neoliberal food regime

•Poverty-nutrition trap - poverty reduces nutrient consumption to levels that impair the ability to do manual labor, undermining income.

•Fairly robust evidence of a PNT in rural India's poorest groups. •1/3 of rural households had PNT issues. •Childhood undernourishment investigated along three main measurements: •Stunting - low height for age; an indicator of chronic undernutrition •Wasting - low weight for height; an indicator of acute undernourishment •Underweight - low weight for age; an indicator of both acute & chronic undernutrition. •Their results show higher rates of anthropometric failure than others. •They also find evidence that rising affluence is -> NCDs •With over half of India's disease burden now NCDs •There is a rise in obesity and NCDs among all income and geographic groups. •They analyze state responses, particularly the affect of 'right to food' polices.

Food miles

•Food miles - is the calculating of the calories it takes to produce, transport and store the food we consume •In 1993, a Swedish researcher calculated that the ingredients of a typical Swedish breakfast (apple, bread, butter, cheese, coffee, cream, orange juice, sugar) traveled a distance equal to the circumference of the Earth before reaching the table. •In 2005, a researcher in Iowa found that the milk, sugar, and strawberries that go into a carton of strawberry yogurt collectively journeyed 2,211 miles just to get to the processing plant. •In the United States food travels 1,500 miles on average from farm to consumer. •As the local-food movement has come of age, this concept of "food miles" - roughly, the distance food travels from farm to plate - has come to dominate the discussion.

•There has been an increase in both stunting & the underweight rate for rural children since the mid-2000s, reversing the decreasing trend in the previous two decades (Liu et al. 2013, 302).

•In surveys conducted between 2007 and 2010, Zhou et al. (2012) find children under 5 in 7 remote & poor counties have a high prevalence of stunting (19.3%) & underweight (13.1%). •Another survey in 2010 on 84 villages in mid-western provinces reports the prevalence of stunting among children under 3 years of age as being 27% (Jiang et al. 2015). •The rate of overweight has also been increasing in both rural and urban China (De Brauw and Mu 2011; Gordon-Larsen et al. 2014), •Wang et al. (2009) suggest this might be 'stunting overweight', due to undernutrition of children in the infant period & mothers during pregnancy & the lactation period. •A 2006 survey of 50 counties in 13 mid-western provinces showed the high prevalence of stunting (57.6%) among overweight children. •The study also reports that the rates of stunting and underweight are, respectively, as high as 30.2 per cent and 10.2 per cent for children under 5 years of age.

Malnutrition

•Malnutrition - having an insufficient and/or deficient diet •Sen argues that food crises, in the modern era, are due to the inability to buy it not a lack of food •Mike Davis in Late Victorian Holocausts shows that famines rise in India with colonization by Britain •Famines are political problems •Effects billions around the world (UNICEF claims > 2 billion) •Children are particularly effected because it stunts growth •Carolan places the blame on poverty but also the Green Revolution itself for high rates of micronutrient malnutrition. Yet some cast the green revolution as the solution to the problems •The UN FAO estimates that world agriculture produces roughly 2700 calories per day for every man woman and child; above the 1900 needed •Hunger is not a production problem, it is a distribution problem •World population is estimated to reach 9 billion by 2050 - 2 billion more - we will need to produce 70-100% more food. •While global crop production is estimated to slow from 2.2 percent to 1.3 percent between now and 2030, and to .8 percent by 2050. •If this occurs, we will only be able to feed half of the world's projected population needs under the current food system. •Distribution problems

Obesity and Hunger

•Mexico obesity rates are correlated w/ closeness to US border •Sao Paulo children growing up both malnourished and prone to obesity and diabetes (How?) •Patel blames consumer choice for incubating hunger & obesity •British cereal example - 28 sugar cereals, 27 exceed governments recommendations, 9 are 40% sugar = > 8.5% of 6 year olds & > 10% of 15 year olds are obese •Despite the appearance of choice in cereals, of the 200+ cereals in the supermarket they all roughly contain the same ingredients

•Is what we eat so unnatural that it is making us sick? • Are we all aboriginals? - have our diets changed so rapidly we haven't been able to adapt yet?

•Michael Pollan claims western diets change rapidly now - fad diets, nutritional findings, food trends... •"the greatest source of human mortality, have repeatedly emerged upon major shifts in socioeconomic and cultural practices" - Wallace et al 2019

Global Obesity

•Obesity is one of the leading risk factors for premature death. It was linked to 4.7 million deaths globally in 2017. •8% of global deaths were attributed to obesity in 2017. •There are large differences (10-fold) in death rates from obesity across the world. •13% of adults in the world are obese, 39% of adults in the world are overweight. •One-in-five children and adolescents, globally, are overweight. •Obesity is determined by the balance of energy intake and expenditure.

Neoliberal Diet

•Otero et al. argue against individual explanations for obesity •The posit a structural explanation for rising obesity rates through an investigation into US, Canada, and the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, •India, and China) plus Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa, and Turkey.. •They measures the risk of exposure to what we call the "neoliberal diet" for low‐to‐middle‐income working classes. •Showing how state policies -> obesity and how a shift in those policies is needed to address it. •"Transcending individualistic and consumption approaches will help us appreciate that the state, not the individual consumer, is best positioned to implement change when it comes to food "choices" and food production."

•"Our main goal here is to show that the issue of overweight and obesity is not just a matter of choice or personal lifestyle."

•Rather, it is a structural matter that is causally related to how neoliberal globalism affects people differently depending on: •(1) their country's level of the NDR and •(2) a class‐differentiated dietary convergence exacerbated by their economic class locations within each country. •"Consequently, only a societal actor such as the state can address the issue through the means of better agricultural and food policies on the structural level and education and subsidies for a better diet in the short term."

•Measuring the dietary transition through household surveys.

•Recognizing "the important role of urbanization, demographic changes, expansion of middle class and its growing affluence in eating out, or, more generally, consumption of snacks, beverages, and precooked meals. Nevertheless, even more deprived sections of the society are not immune to these evolving dietary patterns." •They utilize a "standard demand-theory framework, with food prices and expenditure (as a proxy for income) cast in a pivotal role. Demand functions are estimated for each of three nutrients, namely calories, protein, and fats. We find consistently robust food price and expenditure effects." •Meaning, rising incomes -> shifts in food consumption but not better diets.

Right to Starve in Rich Nations

•Rioux outlines the shift in welfare policy in the US and its effects on hunger. •Tracking the restructuring of public welfare and food assistance in the US. •Argues this is a class-based attack on the poor and working class. •Great Society success in poverty and hunger reduction. •SNAP and WIC •Attacks on great society despite rising hunger and food insecurity. •1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act •Tied Federal welfare programs to work and strict time limits. •Increased the rate of dependency on forms of welfare or food aid. •Led to large increase in poverty and children on school breakfast and lunch programs. •Post 08 crisis -> large uptick in food insecurity and dependence of food aid.

•Today we produce more food than ever before, yet one in seven people on Earth are hungry

•Simultaneously we have an obesity, heart disease, and diabetes epidemics growing around the world •China's diabetes rate grew from 1% in 1980 to 11.6% by 2013 •Diabetes in Africa is predicted to increase by 80% in 20 years. •Why? •Patel claims that "overweight and hungry people are linked through the chains of production that bring food from fields to our plates" •Our food choices are not entirely our own •How is our menu crafted by the power of food corporations?

All 8 of our selected emerging countries had increased NDR between 1985 & 2007

•South Africa and Mexico have the greatest risk of exposure to the neoliberal diet among emerging nations. •South Africa scored the highest (49) from emerging nations on the NDR for 2007. •By 2007, Mexico had become dependent on the importation of well above 20% of several top‐food sources, including wheat (58%), pig meat (29%), maize (28%), and milk (22%). •Indonesia, China, and India have relatively lower levels of the NDR, primarily due to their lower urbanization indices (50, 42, and 30, respectively). •Indonesia leapt from an NDR of 13 in 1985 to 35 in 2007—a dramatic increase of 175%, •Explained by a rise in import dependency level (from close to zero to almost 14%), a 122% increase in its index of economic globalization, & a 93% increase in urbanization rates. •The next‐highest NDR increases were 46% for Turkey, 44% for South Africa, 38% for Mexico, and 32% for China.

weston price compares HG food with Ag food, storage as key difference

•Stored food is designed to withstand storage - it was bred to do so •Remove nutrients that break down and attract pests is easiest way to allow storage and transportation •Sacrificed the quality of food for quantity and shelf life •No clear diet is superior, other than one based on fresh local foods produced on soils rich in nutrients •Believed the quality of the soil was important to food and health •Industrial Ag simplification of nutrient requirements and turned from focus on soil health to NPK (= reductionist) •Industrial AG disrupted the cycle of nutrients through the food chain, or what Marx called the 'metabolic rift'

Flex-Crops in Guatemala

•The Guatemalan northern lowlands encompass almost half of the national territory & are mainly inhabited by the Maya-Q´eqchi´ peoples. •In this agrarian frontier, the Mayan Biosphere Reserve coexists with thousands of indigenous cultivators supplying markets, traditional coffee estates & ranches. •Traditional haciendas & ranches coexist with capitalist agriculture & peasant farming, as flex-crop agribusinesses are expanding control over land resources. •The Market-Led Agrarian Reform (MLAR) and land titling programs implemented by the state land fund (FONTIERRAS) rendered local land resources commodities of interest to capitalized 'outsiders'. •This -> major changes in social relations around land & agricultural production, which ultimately became major sources of unrest among Q´eqchi´ lowlanders. •11% of northern lowlands families lost land tenure rights between 2000&2010, mostly to give way to oil palm and sugarcane plantations (Alonso-Fradejas 2012). •The land use changes between 2005 - 2010, shows that 23% of the lands used for oil palm in 2010 were previously used by small-scale cultivators to grow staples. •45% of WB funds for small farmers ended up in agrobusiness hands. •Guatemala in 2013 was the 5th biggest producer of palm oil and in 2017, it shipped 90% of the product, making it the 3rd largest oil palm exporter behind Indonesia and Malaysia (FAO). •Despite its rapid development of this agro-export industry, food security has deteriorated for many. •Much of this disparity in outcome can be explained by a few factors: Domestic elite's control over land, connected to the history of colonialism, US imperialism (UFC), and the 36-year civil war, which rests on racialized systems of power and domination Continued dispossessions of indigenous land (land grabs), which in some areas of palm oil development have accelerated due to neoregulatory changes of the state Widespread corruption and violence by state police, military and private security The transformations in diet caused by depeasantizating land grabs, CAFTA free trade liberalization, and rising food import dependence.

•The seeming contradiction between obesity and hunger is related.

•The food available to those of lower income are heavily processed and high in fat, sugar and salt •Those that have the least amount of income to spend on medical care and most likely to lack health care are also the most likely to eat non-nutritious food due to lack of income

Hunger, Obesity and Farming

•The link between hunger and working in agriculture around the global is very robust and well documented. •Poverty and the health problems associated with it are much higher in rural areas around much of the world than in urban areas. •Food import dependence and hunger are also highly correlated.

•Household characteristics, such as size, proportion of adults, and caste affiliation have significant impacts on the demand for various food commodities.

•To get at these shifts in diet a Food Diversity Index (FDI) is computed. •In percentages, this lies between 0 and 100. The higher the ratio, the lower is the food diversity. (measured by monthly per capita expenditures MPCE) •We use five food groups to construct the FDI: •(1) cereals and pulses; •(2) milk, milk products, eggs, and meats; •(3) oil; •(4) sugar; and (5) fruits and vegetables.

•Their main claim is "that food choices are structurally conditioned by income inequality, first; and, second, that we eat what huge oligopolistic food producers and distributors have on offer, which is in turn shaped or facilitated by neoliberal state intervention."

•Transcending individualistic and consumption approaches -> appreciation that the state, not the individual consumer, is best positioned to implement change when it comes to food "choices" and food production. •The "neoliberal diet" is both: •(1) the industrial diet as it becomes globalized, accessed primarily by the poor to middle classes; and •(2) the newly available quality foods for the rich, who can afford fresh fruits and vegetables from world markets." •Which specific foods make up basic and luxury foods in each country has changed as food provisioning has moved from peasants, communities, and regional markets to appropriation and control by capital. •These shifts structure the options for consumers based on income.

Normalization and spread of the western diet

•Unquestioned superiority of western diet •Lack of understanding of the links between the emerging western diseases and our food system changes

Movement from leaves to seeds

•Western diets revolve around the consumption of seeds (Why?) •Efficient at transforming sunlight, fertilizer, air and water into macronutrients - carbs, fats and proteins •Easy to convert these macronutrients into meat, dairy and processed foods •Can also be stored for long periods of time and transported great distances •Focus on macronutrients has led to health problems during this shift from leaves to seeds •Decline in Omega-3 oils (?) •Argues that because Omega-3's increase metabolism and Omega-6's slow it, the shift from plant to seed based diets has some biological tendencies (to overcome hunger we gravitate towards O-6s and away from O-3s when we can)

Giraldo and McCune remind us of the potential pitfalls of social movements aligning with the state around agroecology.

◦And the limitations of not engaging with the state in this project. Outline how agroecology as a state project actually exists: ◦Only Cuba has an alternative food system ◦State led agroecology projects have created niches, without challenging the dominance of ABMs and NTAE crops. ◦Counter-rev against Pink Tide shows the lack of durability of advances. ◦Ultimately argue for a multi-headed approach that both works with the state in these projects but also pushes forward ag revolutions.

Consumer choice (local or organic) as solution to food systems problems weaknesses

1.Relies on level of affluence or sacrifice of actors, which is currently limited (around 30-40%). 2.Can feed cultural divides. 3.It does not challenge the power of ABMs or states. 4.Let's structural problems off the hook and can lead to culture of complacency. 5.Is woefully inadequate given the nature of the challenges.

Unreflexive localism

We must be careful not to let local gloss over other concerns (?) What does local food mean anyway? Do local foods deal with labor, immigrant worker issues? Do you want your pesticides more local? Does this help deal with problems of access to healthy food by urban poor? Can be co-opted by corporations - Wal-mart Unreflexive localism masks the politics and choices of local food production/ reduces it to geography

flex crop expansion continued

1) The accumulation imperative and flex-crops. •In a day it is likely that a person uses palm oil multiple times, making it a 'golden crop' for investors in the current agricultural system -> rapid expanapansion worldwide, especially in several so-called middle-income countries (MICs: Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Colombia & Nigeria) •The current world politico-economic conjuncture in which oil palm has been transformed from an agricultural crop into a highly appealing accumulation project. Flex-crops are attractive to globally mobile financial investments; 'financial capital may be particularly attracted to flex crops because their multi-functionality helps to negate the purported trade-off between risk and yield on investments' (Borras 2014). (2) The green economy paradigm and flex-crops •Nature and the environment are becoming a new frontier for capital accumulation faced with the increasing global environmental crisis. Palm oil is increasingly used as biofuel feedstock - in 'greenwashing' fashion, biofuels are presented as a green alternative to fossil fuels. (3) Emerging multi-polar world and flex-crops •Oil palm flexing as embedded within the current changes towards a multi-polar world food and commodities regime, in which the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) and MICs (Middle income countries) play an increasingly relevant role. BRICS and MIC countries becoming not only major producers and consumers of the multiple products of oil palm, but increasingly mega-hubs of their trade too.

Civic Agriculture

•Because of the interlocked relationship between the food economy and consumers, people have a civic duty to support important agricultural engagements. •Communities that show an active involvement in civic agriculture aid economic development by supporting their local food production. •Juxtaposes Civic Agriculture with Commodity Agriculture Includes CSA's Farmers Markets Farm to school - http://www.healthyacadia.org/initiatives/farm_to_school.html Coops

Four periods of rural change

1.1991-96 dynamic rural growth Rising grain/ag prices Growth of TVE's 2.1996-2000 rural stagnation, increase of rural state predation SOE reforms -> urban unemployment and growth of export led growth Rural economies supported urban shifts -> negative growth in rural consumption & economic development 3.2003-2007 pro-peasant experimentation and activism Rising rural tensions -> state to ease modernization and support rural econ Recognition that continued urban migration was not sustainable -> rural support of central state Increasing resistance and growth of experiments in peasant subsistence New Rural Reconstruction pro-peasant group pushing peasant solutions to rural issues 4.Post-2008 ag modernization push to urbanize some and expand consumption of rural workers Return of modernization push to meet goals of transition from export to domestic market Consolidation of land in 'New style agriculture'; end of rural price supports Reform of institutions to induce enhanced market based rural behavior Encourage commercial households, entrepreneurial farms, and big households Vertical integration through 'dragon heads' & specialized cooperatives

Consumer choice (local or organic) as solution to food systems problems strengths

1.There are real tangible benefits to ecology, food quality, and farming community. 2.Creates a culture of concern and change, which can -> deeper structural shifts. 3.Localizes food systems politics, which can enhance transparency & the power of movements relative to other actors. 4.Reveals the limitations of individual action -> collective politics of change. ●

•Three waves of China's rural-urban divide transformation

1.Use of rural-urban structure to extract surplus form countryside to fund urban industrialization. This relied on state institution of the resident permit system (hukou) Unified purchasing and marketing (tonggou tongxiao) to regulate ag markets to produce an urban bias The urban work unit (danwei) where urban labor & investment are managed. 2.Long decollectivization process Increasing use of markets to set ag prices Steady dismantling of unified purchasing and marketing system Still maintained urban bias, at times forcing peasants to support shifts in urban employment (reform of SOE in 90s -> layoffs) 3.2000s as period of experimentation -> post-08 increase in 'modernization push' Rural workers as untapped consumers Size up ag through 'Dragonheads' and forms of large, market-based cooperatives

Orange- and grapefruit-picking pay slightly better, but the hours are longer.

A full sack weighs about a hundred pounds It takes ten sacks—about two thousand oranges—to fill a baño, a bin the size of a large wading pool. Each bin earns the worker a ficha, or token, redeemable for about seven dollars. An average worker in a decent field can fill six, seven, maybe eight bins a day. After a rain, though, or in an aging field with overgrown trees, the same picker might work an entire day and fill only three bins.

Growth of TAMs & AFNs

A number of factors have contributed to the rise of these movements, including the following: •food system consolidation •diminishing proportions of the food dollar arriving in farmers' hands •neoliberalization of the food system and withdrawal of state support for agriculture •persistent and widespread hunger, with smallholder farmers, ironically making up over half of the hungry in the world •25-50 percent of produced food ending up as waste •homogenization of diets These movements are fighting for the reinsertion of "defensible values" into the food system; namely, the reprioritization of human rights, aesthetics, sustainability, and equity.

Farm wages and cheap produce

Ag Economist Philip Martin computed that farm worker wages and benefits cost each US household in the US only $22 per year He also found that raising average farm workers wages by 40%, bringing them up to the poverty line, would add $8 per US household per year

mann dickerson thesis

Agriculture has specific qualities that produce unique production & market outcomes

Cultural services of agro-ecosystems

Cultural diversity Spiritual/religious values Knowledge systems Inspiration/aesthetic values Recreation Cultural heritage

examples of alternative agrofood networks

Farmers markets Local food Organic food Community Supported Agriculture Slow Food

Immokalee Farm laborers

Immokalee is a poor (average annual per-capita income: $8,576), immigrant (70 percent of the population is Latino, mostly Mexican) working town Immokalee's tomato pickers are paid as little as forty cents per bucket. A filled bucket weighs thirty-two pounds. To earn fifty dollars in a day, an Immokalee picker must harvest two tons of tomatoes, or a hundred and twenty-five buckets.

Organic Agriculture

Main goal to create a sustainable food production system - economic, environmental and social sustainability (stool) 32.2 million hectares (2.41 acres per hectare) of organic agriculture by 1.2 million producers 1/3 of world's organic land is in developing countries Organic sales of $50 billion

The Five Levels Transition Framework

Level 1. Increase the efficiency of industrial/ conventional practices in order to reduce the use and consumption of costly, scarce, or environmentally damaging inputs. Level 2. Substitute alternative practices for industrial/conventional inputs and practices. Level 3. Redesign the agroecosystem so that it functions on the basis of a new set of ecological processes. Level 4. Re-establish a more direct connection between those who grow food and those who consume it. Level 5. On the foundation created by the sustainable farm-scale agroecosystems achieved at Level 3, and on the new relationships developed through Level 4, build a new global food system based on equity, participation, democracy, and justice, that is not only sustainable but helps restore and protects earth's life support systems.

Supporting services of agro-ecosystems

Nutrient cycling Soil formation Soil hydration

Freedom's Just Another Word

Opening up the hourglass to create more freedom for others to compete Developing national government intervention to become food sovereign as creation of more freedom Resistance of "marketization of food security" or the transfer of responsibility for food security from the government to the market Labeling strategies

Other advantages of organic systems

Organic soils higher water content Organic systems use less energy Income unchanged More carbon sequestered in soil More nitrogen retained in the soil and less leaching Increased soil biodiversity

Traps of alternative food networks (?)

Still shaped by political, economic, cultural and social conditions of the dominant conventional food market (in fact they often aim to transform the same) Small local producers often sell wholesale when they have abundance Are dependent on niche pricing that doesn't always last Rest on ascetic consumers (hair shirt food) Tendency to scale up

•food miles often leads to the thinking that local is automatically better

This fails to consider the potential added ecological costs of producing something in a possibly not optimal climate (the use of heated greenhouses) It also does not consider that all forms of transportation are not equal ships and trains are very efficient means to move food when filled to capacity Greenhouse gas emissions associated with foods can be mostly attributed to the production retail and consumption phases what and how it is produced, sold and shipped is more important than where it was produced A change in diet will usually have a greater impact at reducing one's ecological footprint than switching to a local diet

ambiguity of the term "local Food"

Wal-Mart = says it spotlights fruits and vegetables as locally grown only if they come from the state in which it sells them Safeway = eight-hour drive to reach a store Kroger = produce grown in the same state or within the same region of the country." Whole Foods = only products that have traveled less than a day (7 or fewer hours by car or truck) can even be considered for 'local' designation 100 miles? What does local mean?

Farm Laborers

Workers borrow money to come work on the farms with interest rates as high as 25%, Tomato land p. 86 •South Florida, what a Justice Department official calls "ground zero for modern slavery." The area has seen six cases of involuntary servitude successfully prosecuted in the past six years. •Our food system relies on cheap, undocumented labor •Those workers here are the peasants displaced by food dumping.

Provisioning Services of Agro-Ecosystems

products obtained from ecosystems Food and fibre Fuel Genetic resources Ornamental resources Fresh water

Privatization

reduces ecological thinking by encouraging people to only see up to a property line A major cause of externalization of costs onto public

Molecularization

reductionist and abstract approach to agriculture (nutritionalism and nutrient reductionism)

Productivism

the consensus that increased productivity and/or output was the principal goal of agricultural research and technological change

Food waste

•Between 30 and 40 percent of all food is lost to waste in affluent and less affluent countries •In the US half of our food goes to waste, costing $100 billion per year •US waste has increased by 50 percent since 1974 •The waste in the US could pull 200 million people out of hunger •Major increase in US waste is in retail, food service and home preparation, not on-farm or transport/processing •Cultural aesthetics undergirds much of this increase in waste - over 60% of tomatoes are wasted because of appearance

Andean quinoa boom

•Boom in international organic quinoa markets due to health concerns & fad diets. •Offered Andean farmers a market opportunity. •High market price of quinoa -> farmers abandoning traditional fallows to maximize short-term yields -> soil degradation. •Some have started using chemical fertilizer inputs •Build-up of pests due to degraded natural processes •Farmers have switched consumption away from quinoa into less nutrient-rich foods. •Lack of balance between market & AEI principals -> nutritional, ecological, & economic issues.

The Chololo Ecovillage project

§-initial phase Sept. 11 to May 2014 - aimed to address these problems and create a model of good practice in climate adaptation. §Testing, evaluating and rolling out over 20 ecological 'technologies' in agriculture, livestock, water, energy, and forestry. §A multidisciplinary team - including a higher learning institute, a government agricultural research institution, a local authority, and three NGOs specializing in water, organic agriculture, and forestry - was formed to drive forward the project in a way that addressed a breadth of issues and entry points. §A second-phase 'scaling up' project, 'Chololo 2.0', began in 2015 and is rolling out the practices to three more villages. §Building the capacity of the two local authorities to plan and implement climate change strategies and developing a knowledge management system to share the learning nationally.

KEY POINTS FOR AGROECOLOGICALTRANSITION

§The case studies show that the greatest leverage points for transition sit at the intersection between different dimensions of change. §Connecting national government policies with local autonomy, NGOs with community groups, large farmers with small producers, consumers with producers...

Local VS. Organic

•Because of the conventionalization of Organic (?) many have become more interested in local foods Input substitution Average size of organic farm in US doubled from 189 acres in 1995 to 477 acres in 2005 Major food corps have put out or purchased organic food labels to hide themselves (Cascadian Farms)

Ghana Study of Small Farm Diversity

"The empirical analysis in this article shows that farm production diversity, along with household income, still matters for household dietary diversity in rural Ghana. The estimation results suggest that, despite agricultural transformation, the importance of farm production diversification for improving dietary quality rose between 2005-06 and 2012-13 on average, when controlling for household income. This production-consumption linkage rests mainly on the direct effect of own-consumption of produced foods rather than an indirect income effect emerging from changes in agricultural production conditions associated with diversification." •Olivier Ecker, Agricultural transformation and food and nutrition security in Ghana: Does farm production diversity (still) matter for household dietary diversity?, Food Policy, Volume 79, 2018

Obesity Epidemic

-Obesity is considered one of the top public health problems today -Most public health experts believe the problem is caused by: •Sedentary jobs replacing physical jobs •Children are more likely to watch television or play on the computer than play outside •Parents, pressed for time, turn to fast food •Marketing of junk food to children •Restaurants provide enormous servings

Food Policy for Europe continued

1.Aligning policies on the same objectives (bridging policy areas) §Aspects of a whole range of policies affect food but are run through different institutions §These institutions are sectorlized and poorly aligned §Produce contradictory policy overlaps, undermining effectiveness §Simultaneously the CAP promotes exports and production for export and goals of food self sufficiency and right-size scaled production. §Argues an EU Food Policy could serve to bridge these policy areas together 2.Harnessing local experimentalism (bridging policy levels) §Different levels of the food system fall under different governance. §Imperatives conflict and contradict each other §Dispersion of policy levels could be an asset (food federalism?) §Offer local experimentation through better EU coordination 3.Moving beyond productivism and adapting to new challenges §Policies are heavily path-dependent §Build up of a range of processes based on agro-industrial productionism §Technology choices, subsidies & taxes, regulatory framework, distribution systems, safety standards, diets... §All face threats due to lack of resilience §All face public 'double-movement' of public due to health, econ, cultural concerns 4.Moving beyond the tyranny of the short-term and sparking a transition §Short-termism of industry system undermines ability to build alternatives §Current system is paralyzed by trade-offs viewed through short-termism §Needed shift to long-term planning in agri-food system at EU and local levels 5.Reviving food democracy and building legitimacy §Problems are often framed based on available solutions (within paradigm) §Also influenced by power of agribusiness lobby §Enhancing and enlarging citizen engagement by widening the lens from agriculture to food §Bring in public and democratize the process to religitimize the EU

Top 10 Leading Causes of Death 2015

1.Heart Disease 2.Cancer 3.Respiratory Diseases 4.Accidents 5.Stroke 6.Alzheimer's 7.Diabetes 8.Pneumonia and Flu 9.Kidney disease 10.Suicide

Top 10 Leading Causes of Death 1900

1.Tuberculosis 2.Pneumonia 3.Diarrhea 4.Heart Disease 5.Kidney Disease 6.Accidents 7.Strokes 8.Cancer 9.Bronchitis 10.Diphtheria

Palm Oil & Peasant Displacement

A number of researchers have tested the relationship between displacement & oil palm development. a) Palacios (2012): Comparing rates of forced displacement between legal crops (oil palm) and illegal crops (coca) with different labour intensities, the study found that displacement was more likely where labour intensity was less, i.e. oil palm. b) Hurtado et al. (2017): Found a causal effect between the development of the oil palm industry and displacement in the Department of Magdalena (northern zone). They also noted that the positive correlation between paramilitary activities and expansion of oil palm was stronger in newer areas. c) Rey-Sabogal (2013): Discovered a direct relationship between palm and displacement across municipalities considered new oil palm producers. d) Marin Burgos (2014): Identified municipalities on what she described as the 'oil palm frontier' of new plantings and was able to find high and medium levels of displacement in those areas, many of which also contained alliances.

Palm Oil & Peasant Displacement continued

A number of researchers have tested the relationship between displacement & oil palm development. a) Palacios (2012): Comparing rates of forced displacement between legal crops (oil palm) and illegal crops (coca) with different labour intensities, the study found that displacement was more likely where labour intensity was less, i.e. oil palm. b) Hurtado et al. (2017): Found a causal effect between the development of the oil palm industry and displacement in the Department of Magdalena (northern zone). They also noted that the positive correlation between paramilitary activities and expansion of oil palm was stronger in newer areas. c) Rey-Sabogal (2013): Discovered a direct relationship between palm and displacement across municipalities considered new oil palm producers. d) Marin Burgos (2014): Identified municipalities on what she described as the 'oil palm frontier' of new plantings and was able to find high and medium levels of displacement in those areas, many of which also contained alliances.

Regulating Services of ecosystem processes

Air Quality maintenance Climate regulation Water regulation Erosion control Water purification Biological pest control Pollination Storm protection

Agroecological Laws in Bolivia

Key legislative initiatives towards agroecology under Morales in Bolivia. §The Law number 3525 on Regulation and Promotion of Ecological Agricultural and Non-Timber Forest Production. This law declares ecological production of national interest and necessity for producing safe food, protecting biodiversity, conserving the environment, and food security for all people. §in 2006, the Regulation of the National Technical Norm for Ecological Production (Ministerial Resolution 280/2006) and the Regulation of the National Control System of Ecological Production (Ministerial Resolution 217/2006) were approved. Motivated by these new regulatory instruments and the experiences of producers since 2008, several municipalities began to declare themselves as ecological. §Law number 3525, the Coordination Unit of the National Council of Ecological Production (UC-CNAPE) was created under the Ministry of Rural Development and Land (MDRyT) in 2010. Its activities focus on the coordination, organization, and implementation of plans, policies, and strategies to promote ecological production all over the country. §Law number 300 on Mother Earth and Integral Development for Well-Being. This law deals with the multiple functions of ecological production: (i) conservation and proper use of the components of mother Earth and life systems; (ii) achievement of wellbeing through ecological and organic food systems; (iii) promotion of sustainable consumption habits; (iv) conservation and strengthening of indigenous peoples cosmovisions; (v) food security with sovereignty; and (vi) dialogues of knowledge §Law number 144 on Agricultural Productive Community Revolution that refers to ecological production. It indicates that the development of the agricultural sector should take the traditional, ecological, and organic agriculture principles into account; and that the agricultural services and technical education must include ecological production (Asamblea Legislativa Plurinacional 2011). Finally, in 2013, Law number 338 on Peasant, Indigenous and Native Economic Organizations (OECAS) and Communal Economic Organizations (OECOM) was approved. This law establishes the responsibility of the public authorities to disseminate agroecological production systems and carry out research in the rural context by promoting sustainable family farming §At the National Agricultural Summit "Sowing Bolivia" in 2015, it was agreed that the central government would increase the national ecological production from 3.3% to 11% §2016-2020 Social Economic Development Plan: (i) generation of fair markets; (ii) prioritization of innovation lines; (iii) promotion of the production of ecological inputs and seeds; (iv) strengthening of national sovereignty; (iv) diversification of family and community farming; and (v) productive development within the framework of territorial management (Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia 2016). §Due to their own failures and successes, along with geopolitical interventions by the US and others, most of these progressive governments have receded form power. §Leaving agroecological movements in limbo. §They end up asking the question of if the state is the best mechanism to achieve agroecology? §Or are sovereign autonomous movements better vehicles? §Outlining the limitations and pitfalls, cooptation's and greenwashing (CSA), and how engaging with the state offers it some legitimacy which it often uses to expand agro-industrial expansion.

"Pink Tide" in Latin America

Latin America was highly influenced by early neoliberal model & IMF/World Band SAP's & the protests they fueled. Polanyi's 'double movement' - 1st move to liberalize econ -> 2nd move as citizen response to social breakdown caused by 1st Leftist critics of neoliberal reforms came into power in early 2000s ◦Lula in Brazil, Chavez in Venezuela, Morales in Bolivia, Correa in Ecuador, Kirchner in Argentina, Lagos in Chile, Zelaya in Honduras, Fernandez in Dom. Rep, Ortego in Nicaragua, Funes in El Salvador, Vazquez in Uruguay, Garcia in Peru, Fernando in Paraguay, AMLO in Mex. ◦Varied, though most preserved neoliberal macroeconomic policies; extractivism or neodevelopmental state ◦Strong antipoverty programs -> large reductions in poverty & inequality ◦Strong growth until collapse of natural resource prices (end of 'commodities super-cycle')

Approaches to Obesity

Obesity and poor diet connected as symptom and disease. Which other social ills are correlated with high rates of obesity? Obesity viewed as individual failing with the solution also seen as individual How? Obesity as moral panic? Particular social groups get targeted by this view Who? Why? Focus on people of color, immigrants and the poor and individualize the problem and solutions offered The same corporations own both junk food and diet companies Willing to sell you the antidote to the other thing they sold you Nestle and Jenny Craig, diet foods

Movement from whole foods to refined foods •Corn as example of this shift

Separation of corn syrup from corn gluten meal (animal feed) •Doubling the saleable products derived from a bushel of corn •Combined with rising yields of green revolution and subsidized industrial Ag History of flour and the movement toward durability and quantity, and make it more readily accessible •Refined grains extend the shelf life by removing fibers & releasing sugars •A lot of modern food developments have been aimed at releasing and delivering the glucose in food (to mimic the natural sugars in ripe fruit) •Glucose is the brains preferred food and the source of our energy •Development of grain rollers (1870) allowed the removal of the germ and the embryo from wheat kernels •Making flour a more desirable color (white) •Extending the storage life and distances it could travel without rotting •Similar processes altered rice into white rice and changed corn flour •Following were epidemics of pellagra & beriberi - diseases of Vit. B deficiency •In 1930 scientists discovered vitamins => fortification of white flour with B vitamins •Why is processing food more profitable than selling whole foods? •Major diet change since 1909: increased calories from sugars: 13% to 20% •Add the increased calories from carbohydrates, now at 40% = our diet is 1/2 sugar! •Sugar provides energy but little nutrients •Increased sugar intake means we consume less fiber and eat more overall calories •Spikes and drops in insulin levels leaves us feeling hungry sooner

Transformations & Activism in Rural China

•Changes in the Chinese agrifood system have increased productivity, reduced hunger, and ushered in a 'nutrition transition'. •Have also brought an array of social and ecological problems Rampant soil and water pollution Loss of biodiversity Diet-related diseases of affluence ('Western Diseases') Food safety issues Forms of dispossession Waves of peasant resistance •"Capitalist agricultural is transforming relations and forms of production, and conditioning prospects and modes of activism." •Moments of transition produce the most resistance/movements, in the interstices of regimes.

CHOLOLO, TANZANIA

§Chololo village, a 5,500-strong community located in the semi-arid drylands of Central Tanzania, faces challenges typical to this agro-pastoralist region: §recurrent drought, food insecurity, and vulnerability to climate change. §When a participatory climate vulnerability and capacity analysis was carried out in Chololo, key issues identified by residents and the village committee included: §increased drought frequency, deforestation, flooding and strong winds, to human diseases, livestock diseases, crop pests, and inadequate ground water recharge. §These problems were compounded by the traditional dependency on rain-fed agriculture: §the use of simple farm implements (such as hand hoes), the unsustainable use of natural resources, a lack of enforcement of natural resource by-laws, and a lack of awareness of climate change. §'Slash and burn' agriculture was often practiced, but was reaching its limits. §In response to food shortages, people typically travelled out of the district to seek work as farm labourers or migrated to the city.

Food Policy for Europe

§EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) - 60 year coordinated policy across EU §Subsidizes production of agro-industrial crops §De Schutter argues a "Common Food Policy" is urgently needed. §He offers five reasons: 1.Aligning policies on the same objectives (bridging policy areas) 2.Harnessing local experimentalism (bridging policy levels) 3.Moving beyond productivism and adapting to new challenges 4.Moving beyond the tyranny of the short-term and sparking a transition 5.Reviving food democracy and building legitimacy

CUBA

§Forced domestification of food production. §Embargo + collapse of USSR §State institutional support for Agroecology §Achieved a high level of food security through small, agroecological production §FAO states hunger is not a problem in Cuba, caloric intake averaged a relatively high 3,533 calories per person (2012 - 2014). §Under-nutrition afflicts 51.8% of Haitians, 14.7 of people in the Dominican Republic, 14.3% of Guatemalans, 12.1% of Hondurans, but fewer than 5% of Cubans.

SAN RAMÓN, NICARAGUA & VERACRUZ, MEXICO

§In the late 1990s, with coffee prices plummeting and a handful of multinational buyers able to set prices, farmers planted more coffee to increase their incomes, reducing or eliminating the crops that previously provided local food security. §In Nicaragua, coffee farming families experienced severe hunger (Bacon et al., 2014). §The Environmental Studies Department at UC Santa Cruz (UCSC) established a new non-profit organization: the Community Agroecology Network (CAN). §In 2011, the NGO joined forces with local organizations in smallholder coffee-growing communities in San Ramón, Nicaragua, & Veracruz, Mexico. §Together they launched a project to accompany the communities through a transition to reduce dependency on export-oriented industrial commodity production. §After five years of participatory interaction, learning, and monitoring, coffee-growing communities in San Ramón and Veracruz have been able to transition towards sustainable food systems in a variety of ways. §Built immediate resistance to diseases afflicting coffee crops through agroecological practices, while diversifying production in order to build resilient livelihoods over the long-term. §Built the capacity of women and youth in the communities. §Built a new coffee export brand emerged built on long-term relationships, predictable demand, and price premiums well above Fair Trade or organic prices. §This allowed San Ramón and Veracruz to increase food security, improve overall nutrition, and reduce the 'thin months'. §The project also paved the way for local stakeholders, particularly the cooperative movements in Nicaragua and Mexico, to become important political actors and advocates of institutional changes.

DRÔME VALLEY, FRANCE

§The Drôme Valley is a rural area of 2,200 km² in the Rhône-Alpes region in the South-East of France. Hemmed in by the Drôme river's watershed and surrounding mountains, it is populated by 54,000 inhabitants and comprises 102 small towns and villages. §Organic production in the Valley emerged as early as the 1970s, driven by peer-to-peer knowledge sharing networks, alternative extension agents promoting organic inputs, and the arrival of migrants from urban areas seeking to reconnect with the land and pursue organic practices. §40% of farmers in the Drôme now use organic practices, the highest share of any French département; country-wide, around 8% of farmers are certified organic. §Institutional support has played a crucial role in promoting transition in the Drôme Valley. §In 2012, the French government launched a national strategy in favor of agroecology. §Through the 2014 Law on the future of agriculture, food and forestry, France aims to be a global leader in agroecology, will support the majority of French farms to transition to agroecology by 2025.

VEGA, ANDALUSIA, SPAIN

§The comarca of the Vega is located in the southeast of Spain, around the city of Granada. §The agrarian modernization occurred as early as the beginning of the 20th C. §The establishment of crop commodity monocultures (primarily sugar beet) and the accompanying use of commercial seeds and mineral fertilizers. §The process sped up from the 1960s, with the implementation of Green Revolution technologies, and further accelerated when Spain joined the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1986. §The limits of this model were starting to show in Andalusia, and particularly in the Vega district. §Rural populations abandoned agriculture & natural resources - soil, water, biodiversity - were depleted & degraded. §Farmers disappeared at an annual rate of 5-6% between 1989 and 2009 §This culminated in the Vega de Granada Organic Farming Plan - an ambitious agenda for agroecological redesign of the district's production and marketing systems. §The plan was based on local provisioning of all inputs, the development of direct sales initiatives (biofairs, shops of producers' associations, etc.) and organic public procurement - referred to as 'social consumption' schemes. §Educational programs were also developed to build awareness of sustainability in the district.

The Biovallée initiative aims to establish the Drôme valley as a regional leader in the management and valuation of natural resources. Its objectives are as follows

• Develop high-level training opportunities in the field of sustainable development • Reduce the territory's energy consumption by 20% in 2020 and by more than 50% by 2040 • Convert 50% of farmers and agricultural surface area to organic agriculture by 2020 • Supply 80% of the procurement of institutional catering using organic or regional products • Supply 25% of energy consumption through locally-generated renewable energy by 2020, and 100% by 2040 • Change urban planning guidelines such that after 2020 no agricultural land will be diverted to urbanization • Halve the amount of waste brought to waste treatment plans by 2020 • Develop education & research linked to sustainable development (10 partnerships in 2012, aim of 25 by 2020) • Create 2,500 jobs in the eco-sectors between 2010 and 2020

Mingorria argument

•"the level of violence and threat, the role of the state, the funding context of NGOs and peasant organizations, and the strategies and alliances involved have influenced the evolution of the flex-crop conflict in the Polochic" She outlines three phases of the conflict: Silenced, Revealed, and Silenced again. She tracks how protest movements and NGOs brought attention to the struggles But also how NGOs caused splits in the movement between peasants & outsiders => divergent definitions of victory and the resilancing of the struggle. Indigenous groups tied the struggle into longer term processes of displacement. NGOs sought to quell the very immediate conflict, but not address structural issues over land ownership vs. use rights. She also highlights how state violence can act to both amplify visibility but also scatter social movements and disrupt them. NGOs reluctance to fight 'structural violence' (?)

Some benefits of organic, sustainable food production systems

•2 to 7-fold energy saving on switching to low-input/organic agriculture •5 to 15 percent global fossil fuel emissions offset by sequestration of carbon in organically managed soil •5.3 to 7.6 tons of carbon dioxide emission disappear with every ton of nitrogen fertilizer phased out •Biogas digesters provide energy and turn agricultural wastes into rich fertilizers for zero-input, zero-emission farms •625 thousand tons of carbon dioxide emissions prevented each year in Nepal through harvesting biogas from agricultural wastes •2- to 3-fold increase in crop yield using compost in Ethiopia, outperforming chemical fertilizers •Organic farming in the US yields comparable or better than conventional industrial farming, especially in times of drought •Organic farms in Europe support more birds, butterflies, beetles, bats, and wildflowers than conventional farms •Organic foods contain more vitamins, minerals and other micronutrients, and more antioxidants than conventionally produced foods •Up to 4t CO2 sequestered per hectare of organic soils per year •1000 or more community-supported farms across US and Canada bring $36m income per year directly to the farms •£50-78 m go directly into the pocket of farmers trading in some 200 established local farmers' markets in the UK •Buying food in local farmers' market generates twice as much for the local economy than buying food in supermarket chains •Money spent with a local supplier is worth four times as much as money spent with non-local supplier

transformations and activism in rural china continued

•All of these fed into and were responses to forms of resistance and activism in rural China. •NRR social cooperatives as alternative to market expansion •Recent market and state neoregulatory reforms have undermined the possibilities of NRR approaches •Reduction of rural tax base has led state and town officials looking for investment. •Rise of specialized cooperatives and dragon head agricultural modernization. •Shift in food consumption -> activists shifting focus to AFN •Focus on consumption choices instead of shifting production (?)

Slow Food

•An alternative to fast food •Strives to preserve traditional and regional cuisine and encourages farming of plants, seeds and livestock characteristic of the local ecosystem. •The movement has since expanded globally to over 100,000 members in 150 countries. •Its goals of sustainable foods and promotion of local small businesses are paralleled by a political agenda directed against globalization of agricultural products. •https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1LwnTRtufs&feature=related •Point of production and consumption important •Increase cultural link of food from farm to fork •Combat fast life (?) •Critiques of slow food - "virtuous globalization" alternative modes of global connectedness Find global market for slow local food products Conventionalization ? Less food revolution more about food reform Elitist (?) Culinary romanticism that fails to recognize the democratization of choice in the food system

UFW support for the Fairness for Farm Workers Act

•At the start of 2019, our Agricultural Worker Program Act of 2019 ("Blue Card" bill) was introduced by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (S.175) and Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren (HR 641). •This critical bill provides farm workers a way to earn lawful permanent residence by continuing to work in the fields. •This bill sends a clear signal that there are leaders in Congress ready to roll up their sleeves and work on immigration solutions. •Agriculture is vital to America's economy and the threat of deportations has caused disruptions that are affecting the economic stability of this key industry. •The Blue Card bill would help ensure a stable, legal, skilled workforce. •It would benefit farm workers, employers, and consumers.

Neoliberal Model

•Based upon overproduction by the grain-oilseed-livestock complex, an unshakable faith in the power of technology, the continual, unregulated expansion of global markets, and particularly strong engagement from large, philanthropy capitalism. •Biggest neoliberal initiative is the World Bank's Global Agriculture & Food Security Program. The program is a multilateral trust fund set up by the US, Canada, Spain and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to span the gap between the $40 billion a year needed to end hunger, the $20 billion promised by the G-8 countries, and the $14 billion that is actually forthcoming on these promises. The program draws for strategic direction on the World Bank's World development report 2008: agriculture for development, which recommends more global trade and more public money for the dissemination of new proprietary agricultural technologies. (?) •Industry-NGO partnerships also take a production-oriented approach to the food crisis. The Global Harvest Initiative, for example, brings together biotechnology companies Monsanto and DuPont, grain giant Archer Daniels Midland, and farm machinery supplier John Deere with NGOs Conservation International and the World Wildlife Fund to promote agricultural intensification and increased public investment in (and regulatory approval of) proprietary genetically modified crops. This approach (increased aid, accompanied by modest reforms and a mention of conventional, organic and genetically modified agriculture) appears again and again in reformist platforms from the Comprehensive Framework for Action to the draft text of the US Senate's Global Food Security Act. •Projects include: continued neoliberal 'development' model of agro-industry dominated by ABMs.

Permaculture in El Salvador

•Campesino a campesino (CaC) model of agroecology in El Salvador. •Mobilized during the 1980s Civil War -> AFNs in 1990s •Movement seeking food sovereignty through permaculture-based agroecology. •A post-colonial AFN, relied on experimentation with indigenous knowledges. •Connect indigenous peasant knowledge with right-sized technology that favors small, owner-operator farms producing food for local consumption. •Reject green revolution tech & export oriented ag

colombia palm oil cultivation

•Colombia has the most unequal distribution of landownership in Latin America. The top 1% of large farms account for 81% of the country's productive land while the other 19% of land is split among the remaining 99% of small landholders. •The amount land under cultivation grew 200% in less than two decades, from 157,000 hectares in 2000 to 516,000 hectares in 2017. •To promote palm oil expansion, Uribe provided lower taxes & credit finance options. Victoria Marin-Burgos' studies on palm oil expansion between 2000 and 2010 showed Uribe's special treatment helped expand palm oil projects into municipalities that had experienced high & medium levels of displacement. •In the conflict-torn Catatumbo region near Venezuela, the palm oil corporation Oleoflores S.A. received support from USAID, as part of an effort to encourage campesinos engaged in illicit crop cultivation to switch to oil palm. •The agribusiness provided seeds, fertilizer and technical assistance, and the palm oil produced by these small-scale growers was sold into Oleoflores' biodiesel projects. •On January 28, 2016, President Santos signed a law that will allow for the formation of Rural, Social, and Economic Development Zones (ZIDRES). If the effects of these more recent developments are similar to the past, this will lead to heightened displacement of smallholders and declining food security in rural areas

•Historical process of agro-system development:

•Colonization and decolonization struggles •Green Revolution, land inequity, and SAPs •Liberation theology and civil war of 1980-92 (FMLN) •INGOs and CaC from Guatemala and Nicaragua in wake of civil war •'Permaculture missionary' Jaun Rojas, exiled during civil war. •Domestic and international NGOs helped launch permaculture in El Salvador based on CaC approach of disrupting knowledge hierarchies. •The CaC based permaculture approach rests on popular education in opposition to top-down development models. •Set of 12 principles that focus on mimicking ecological processes of feedback and diversity.

Palm Oil Cultivation in Colombia

•Commercial oil palm cultivation in Colombia began in 1945 when a U.S.-based company established a plantation in the banana zone of the Magdalena department. •Following the economic liberalization of Colombia's economy in the 1990s and the 2002 election of President Alvaro Uribe, the palm oil industry began a trajectory of rapid growth. •Colombia produces more palm oil than any other country in Latin America and is considered the fourth-largest producer worldwide. •The disarming of Colombia's oldest, largest guerrilla group the FARC in 2016 -> government's goals to expand economic and social investment in the countryside by encouraging agricultural development — especially in areas that were previously off-limits due to conflict. US funds went to support the expansion of flex-crops to reduce the drug trade Investigations have revealed that money made its way into drug cartel hands instead •Critics charge the recent land use policy reforms to grow Colombia's palm oil production as an effort to "legalize the accumulation of land" that agribusiness interests "illegitimately obtained during the armed conflict" at big costs to the country's small farmers and indigenous groups.

Local Food = Greener ?

•Ecological Footprint study in British Columbia compared the resource inputs required to grow 1000 tons of tomatoes in hydroponic greenhouses with inputs needed for conventional open field operations. •The hydroponic approach required 14-21 times more Footprint area than conventional farming to produce the same quantity. Another example of the energy dependency and fragility of high-output agriculture.

Food Regimes & Food Movements

•Eric Holt Giménez & Annie Shattuck discuss how the food crises affected food movements within the Corporate Food Regime •Corporate Food Regime is held firmly in place by: Northern-dominated international finance and development institutions (e.g. IMF, WTO, World Bank) Major agrifood monopolies (e.g. Cargill, Monsanto, ADM, Tyson, Carrefour, Tesco, Wal-Mart) Agricultural policies of the G-8 (US Farm Bill, EU's Common Agricultural Policy) Big philanthropy capital (e.g. the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation). •They outline the neoliberal, reformist, progressive and radical approaches to the food system and food movements. •Argue from a Polanyian perspective Neoliberalism -> food crises -> double movement push for reforms

•Overcoming degenerative trajectories, depletion of soil, water, & genetic resources.

•Ethiopia and Malawi both have large populations dependent on farming while the productivity is greatly reduced due to degraded and unproductive soils. •Government policy has sought to overcome this problem through fertilizer subsidies and input supply improvements. •Soil fertility is too low for plant-based, cover-crop regeneration; it requires some level of nutrient input before legume cover-cropping can improve yield & reduce input needs. •Fertilizers can be used in a regeneratively, rather than just market-based output. •Regenerative agriculture will improve the resources of farmers -> improved yields on agroecologically based production -> sustainable, healthy smallholder agriculture.

fao report on organic food

•FAO Report says organic farming fights hunger, tackles climate change, good for farmers, consumers and the environment •Organic agriculture overcomes paradox of conventional food production systems •The new FAO Report frames the paradox within the conventional food production systems Global food supply is sufficient, but 850 million are undernourished and go hungry Use of chemical agricultural inputs is increasing; yet grain productivity is dwindling Costs of agricultural inputs are rising, but commodity costs have declined over five decades. Knowledge increasingly available, but nutritionally related diseases are rising Industrialized food systems cause deaths through pesticide poisonings and high numbers of farmer have committed suicides, while millions of jobs have been lost in rural areas. •In contrast, organic agriculture offers an alternative food system that improves agricultural performance to better provide access to food, nutritional adequacy, environmental quality, economic efficiency, and social equity.

Flex-crop Expansion

•Flex crops and commodities are defined as those with 'multiple uses (food, feed, fuel, industrial material) that can be, or are thought to be, flexibly interchanged. •An aspect of 'substitutionism' in the bioindustrialization of agricultural commodities. "The new biotechnologies will enhance the efficiency with which all forms of biomass, whether field crops, crop residues, wood or organic waste, are converted in all uses, not only into food products but also fuel and chemical' (Goodman et al. 1987). •Palm oil as exemplar example of a flex-crop 3 major & interconnected drivers of oil palm flexing: (1) the accumulation imperative, (2) the green economy paradigm, (3) changes towards a multi-polar world food & agro-commodities regime.

Long-term field trials at Rodale Institute

•From 1981 through 2002, field investigations were conducted at Rodale Institute in Kutztown, Pennsylvania on 6.1 ha. •3 different cropping systems: conventional, animal manure & legume-based organic, & legume-based organic. •Yields no different except under drought conditions •For the first five years of the experiment (1981- 1985), the yields of corn grain averaged 4 222, 4 743 and 5 903kg per ha for organic-animal, organic-legume, and conventional systems. •After this transition period, corn grain yields were similar for all systems: 6 431, 6 368, and 6 553 kg per ha.

Permaculture in El Salvador transition

•From developmentalism to pluralist systems design. •A deep focus on popular education and democratic deliberation to replace the focus on only market mediated 'development' as central to Permaculture in El Salvador and CaC more broadly. •Decolonizing form of knowledge through AFNs, while moving towards food sovereignty.

Green New Deal in Agriculture

•Green New Deal as an approach to climate and environmental problems using the state to mitigate the potential negative effects on working people. In the wake of the Yellow Vest protests in France against a carbon tax, and other binary understanding of class and the environment. •The Green New Deal is a call for "a more sustainable food system that ensures universal access to healthy foods," as Rep.s Ocasio-Cortez & Markey's proposal calls to work "collaboratively with farmers and ranchers in the United States to remove pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector." •It represents a major opportunity to transform our food system by aligning goals to improve the food Americans eat, employ millions in well-paying jobs, and green our food system. •American Farm Bureau vs. Farmers Union Hegemony of 'conservative' FB approach History of FB to blunt radical agrarian movements of the populist era •Climate change is ravaging rural, 'conservative' America, will it lead to a radical awakening? •New Deal AAA as emerging from a bloc of competing interests around reform •Radical criticism of the AAA by the STFU and others

Palm Oil in Ecuador

•In 2000, palm oil company Energy & Palma bought land in the district of Esmeraldas in northern Ecuador. This land is home to the Afro-Ecuadorian community of Wimbi, a town of 400 people settled in the 19th C. •The situation came to a head in 2015 when judges in the provincial court of Esmeraldas ruled in favor of the company and ordered the evacuation of Wimbi residents. •In 2016, Energy & Palmas began clearing the land for an oil palm plantation. •Wimbi community members refused to leave, forcing the company to vacate the area and agree to not develop it. Residents say that the land sale, although legal in the eyes of the court, is invalid as only one person in the community agreed to it. •Researchers say Afro-Ecuadorian communities have lost over 30,000 hectares of ancestral land since the 1990s. They found palm oil companies have used several tactics in order to acquire land, including buying it through intermediaries, buying from the community directly, invasion, and using pressure and threats.

LVC

•In September 2012, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution to prepare a draft declaration "on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas" (UNHRC 2012). The language used by the council parallels LVC's Declaration of Peasant Rights—Men and Women (La Vía Campesina 2009). •The values endorsed by LVC draw on international human rights treaties, and specifically on the rights enumerated around food—rights nearly universally agreed upon, at least in name. •This Covenant commits signatories to the recognition of self-determination, one of the fundamental normative values supported by LVC. •Yet dominant contemporary food systems do not provide for the type of self-determination envisioned by LVC. •In demanding self-determination and other rights for peasants, LVC fundamentally demands the "right to have rights over food," (Patel 2009, 663)—a demand to political systems at all levels to recognize and actively support defensible values.

•"far from improving food security, trade liberalization in agriculture has worsened it, at least in the form of a heightened risk of exposure to the neoliberal diet". (?)

•Increasing ag-trade dependency -> heightened food insecurity and exposure to neoliberal diet related health problems. • They present data showing overall concentration during the neolib era, with extreme concentration in the agri-food sector. •The benefits of liberalized trade were undermined by corp. concentration. •Comparative advantage was overrun by competitive advantage of ABMs •Emerging countries that have resisted an all‐out neoliberal reform since the 1980s have retained a significant level of food self‐sufficiency. •Conversely, Mexico and South Africa, which have been some of the main developing‐country adopters of neoliberalism, have become particularly food dependent and obese.

Neoliberal Diet in India

•India has undergone rapid economic and demographic transformations -> rising living standards •Measured in increasing GDP per capita growth rates, declines in poverty, rising urbanization, and improvements in some health outcomes. •India's "dietary transition consisted of a substitution of traditional staples by primary food products that are more prevalent in western diets"(Gaiha et al.) •Underlying factors for this shift: expansion of the middle class, higher female labor market participation, emergence of nuclear two-income households, sharp age divide in food preferences, and rapid growth of supermarkets and fast-food outlets. •Marked trade off due to dietary transition: •Decline in infectious diseases w/ rise in NCDs (epidemiological transition) •Rise in diet-related noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) - diabetes, coronary heart disease, certain types of cancer. •Deaths from NCDs rose from 40.46% to 66.70% of all deaths between 1990 & 2020 •During this era overall calorie consumption declined by 10% in rural areas. •Declines greater among the affluent sections & negligible for the bottom quartile of income per capita. •In urban areas, there was a slight change in average calories. •Overall, proteins declined, and fats consumption increased. •The average price of food changed little. •Per capita calorie consumption is lower at every given income level. •Rural households' proportion of undernourishment rose from 71% to 90%. •Urban households' undernourishment rose to 64% in 2004. •57% of rural households consumed fewer than the required protein intake in 1993, it rose to 67% by 2004. •Rural fat intake also declined to over 83% consuming <50 gms per day. •"Thus, taking the nutritional norms as valid, the overall picture of nutritional deprivation worsened considerably over the period 1993-2004, despite significantly enhanced economic growth in per capita income." •"Because these are linked to intakes of calories, proteins, and fats with varying importance, an investigation of how food consumption patterns changed in response to changes in income and relative prices is necessary." •How food commodities changes contributed to reduction in calories, protein, and fats.

Many of the world's farming systems are on degenerative trajectories, where the basic agro-resources of soil, water, and genetics are eroding.

•One major goal is to enhance the resources of small-holding farmers. •Move from resource-poor farmers (RPF) -> resource-rich famers (RRF) •What types of resources are we talking about? •How would these enhance the lives of peasants? •This requires the inclusion and recognition of resources and values beyond money and short-term, market dictated ones. •Seeking a heterogenous set of values - cultural, nutritional, ecological, as well as monetary. •Designing approaches that enhance the sustainability of these values.

5) from food culture to food science

•Industrial food systems undermining traditional food culture •Culture as mediation between humans and nature •Cultures tell us what, how and when to eat specific things •Food cultures developed during the co-evolution of humans and the plants/animals we eat •Impact of marketing on our ability to choose => overwhelming force that undermined food culture and led to food anxiety •Lacking food culture people either listened to ads or looked to nutritional experts, government and popular culture trends for food cues •Should we put our faith in food science or food cultures? •Medicine is adopting to our diet and learning to deal with these chronic illnesses from our food system •Turning a problem it created into new business opportunities

•Reductionism in western diet - reduce food to its nutrient constituent parts and AG to the NPK, completely absent is a concern with food cultures

•Instead Pollen argues for seeing food as a cultural relationship •Relationship between species in a food chain •Co-evolution of species that live in symbiosis •Ex: milk-digesting enzyme mutation result of cultural practice of drinking cows and other milks •Therefore the domestication of cows led to changes in human culture that then changed human biology Enhance the ecological and cultural resilience

Agroecological Intensification (AEI) - the intensification of production w/ a commitment to biological interactions.

•Integration of diverse components -> heterogenous, multifunctional systems, locally adapted. •Tempering (balancing) market-driven development with AEI •Smallholders can benefit from improved market access & improved input & output markets. •May subject households to increased ecological, nutritional & financial hazards. •Markets to the exclusion of self-provisioning •Market concerns without concern for stability and sustainability •Must balance concerns for short-term profits & long-term sustainability Must balance market-oriented production w/ fulfilling dietary diversity

Lifecycle analysis

•Lifecycle analysis (LCA) - reduces the footprint shifting often associated with the food miles approach •For example - the preparation method often has a bigger impact on the ecological footprint than if the food is local •Using LCA reveals where the energy is actually used •Shows that in the US most energy goes to making processed foods, then meat and eggs, then beverages, next dairy, followed by fruits and vegetables, and finally cereal grains Local foods can help cut down on the processing of food.

Novelty of these foods as possible source of our ill health:

•Long co-evolution of humans and maize •Maize was domesticated from wild grass more than 8,700 years ago, in Mexico's Central Balsas River Valley. •Relatively short relationship between humans and high-fructose corn syrup •Developed in 1965 and hit the markets in the early 1970s •Overtime, we might develop a symbiotic relationship with corn syrup, some may already be doing this, but most haven't, and the result is health problems

Patterns of Health

•Major change from infectious to chronic diseases •What are the causes of western societies changes in mortality and diseases? •Medical advances in the treatment of infectious diseases •Longer life expectancy •Changes in diet •Shifts in culture and lifestyle

flex crops in guatemala part 3

•Neoregulation of agro-exports and smallholder farming •States Market-Assisted Land Reform (MALR) efforts facilitated through Fondo de Tierras •Pushed by the World Bank, IMF and USAID, MALR was claimed to be a pro-poor growth model connecting smallholder farmers with global value chains to produce economic growth and poverty reduction. •The outcome was the opposite, with increased land-grabs, land concentration, rising poverty and hunger. Racialized practices combined with state corruption undermined the project However, was it really a pro-poor approach to rural development? •"Land-control grabs have grown alongside the cultivation of flex crops, and the Guatemalan state has played a key role in facilitating those that serve the elite-owned agriexport industries" (Alonso-Fradejas 2012; Borras et al. 2012). •"Aid from the state's 'definitions of legality' and its legitimate monopoly in the use of physical violence (Weber 1958, 78) by the military and police forces has enabled the dispossession or forceful repression of the poor and often indigenous people in the face of new plantations or their expansion (Harvey 2003, 145; Granovsky-Larsen 2013; Mingorría 2017)." •"The MALR has been used as a cooptation instrument for land control that reinforces racist power relations, connecting the neoliberal food regime with accumulation by dispossession." •Small-scale growers met standards problems, declining access to land, water, and markets. •Households employed in the palm industry and those engaged in small-scale production both experience higher rates of food insecurity than local subsistence farmers (Hurtado and Sanchez 2011; Alonso-Fradejas 2012; Durr 2016). •Households have cut back on healthcare and education spending to make up the needed deficit due to rising food costs. "We can't eat palm" How does this improve development or human capital? •Residence across the region have noticed: Declining availably of clean water for both consumption and irrigation Increasing water pollution and declining subsistence crop production

To presume that an agricultural failure can be corrected by following the present course a little faster, more intensely pursuing conventional agricultural development, appears naive

•Nor can adapting the existing conventional methods to new problems necessarily solve them. •Could a new green revolution, solve industrial ag's problems? •Agroecology really is a different approach to agricultural development based on broader philosophical premises than conventional agriculture. •It does not reject the currently dominant premises. •It tempers them with additional ways of understanding farming and implementing rural change. •By being methodologically pluralistic, it addresses the fact that multiple logics give multiple answers and that experiential judgment and community decision processes are necessary to determine what changes should be implemented.

Move from quality to quantity

•Nutrients declining in our food - Vitamin C declined 20%, Iron 15%, riboflavin 38% and calcium 16% •Meaning you have to eat 3 apples to get the same nutrition of one apple 50 years ago •30% of Americans have a diet deficient in Vitamin C, E, A and magnesium (which some view as a great market opportunity!) •Case for Organic food (?) •Soil nutrition reduction •Less time in the soil •Pesticide killing of beneficial micro organisms •Unprotected plants are stronger and have more beneficial chemicals from their defensive mechanisms Plant breeding •Our food system is organized around selling large quantities of calories as cheaply as possible •Official US policy since the 1970s (oil crisis, rising food prices) •Earl Butz (secretary of Agriculture under Nixon) encouraged US farmers to plant "fencerow to fencerow" •Since 1980 US farmers have produced 600 more calories per person per day while the price of food has been declining => us eating 300 more calories per day (10% increase) •25% of those additional calories are from sugars, 25% from fats, and 46% from grains...leaving 4% increase in fruits and vegetables •For the first time we have people who are obese and undernourished in this country •Reduced micronutrient intake and the health consequences

permaculture in el salvador continued

•Offers an attempt to revalorize short food supply chains, while recognizing its reliance on new tech and forms of connectivity made possible by globalizing cultures. •Not outside of neoliberal globalization and its restructuring but building off and supplanting it. •Seeks to relocalize food, encouraging contact between food producers and consumers, respatializing food systems that have become 'spaceless'. •SAPs across G. South have given rise to LVC and other AFNs & TAMs. •It therefore connects issues of rights with those of production, while understanding that communities would be better equipped to solve issues of long-term development if they could cultivate a full range of food crops within their borders, rather than relying on export crops. •This will enhance environmental resilience, overcome degenerative trajectories, safeguard cultural practices, expand rights, and enhance nutrition and democracy. •Agroecology seeks to break the separation between nature and culture, through an ecosocial production and food consumption system. •These divisions do not exist in most indigenous systems of knowledge. •LVC, food sovereignty, & CaC forground this indigenous holistic approach.

Transnational Agrarian Movements (TAMs)

•One of the most striking manifestations of globalization's politics is the emergence and growth of Transnational Agrarian Movements (TAMs) "Transnational agrarian movements are political projects with deep historical roots in diverse national societies, multiple and shifting alliances, varied action repertories, and complex forms of representation, issue framing and demand making." Globalization has caused extreme changes in agrarian production, exchange, and the agrarian way of life. These changes have mostly favored MNCs while undermining peasant and small holder farming existence

Organic Food

•Organic Farmers Are more likely from urban areas Have higher levels of education Are younger Greater % female •Organic Consumers Varied reasons for consuming organic food Health, taste, green values, income, gender, family/children, age, education, socio-economic structure

Organic Cotton Beats Bt Cotton in India

•Organic cotton from indigenous varieties incomparably superior to genetically modified Bt cotton in all respects •Organic cotton is more environmentally friendly, better for the health of the community and for the local economy than GM cotton, according to a study by the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture in Andhra Pradesh. •The GM Bt cotton was compared with cotton grown without pesticide, under non-pesticide management (NPM). Bt cotton more prone to pests and diseases Beneficial insects prevail on NPM cotton Farmers stop spraying chemical pesticides, yields go up •Farmers in India are not alone. •In two years, 2 000 poor rice farmers in Bangladesh reduced insecticide use by 99 percent. •Gary John, senior scientist at the International Rice Research Institute in Manila, said: "To my surprise when people stopped spraying, yields didn't drop, and this was across 600 fields in two districts over four seasons. I'm convinced that the vast majority of insecticides that rice farmers use are a complete waste of time and money."

Struggles in the Polochic Valley of Guatemala over Flex-crop expansion.

•Over the last two decades, the expansion of oil palm and sugarcane plantations in the Polochic Valley has exacerbated the historical struggle of Maya-Q'eqchi' peoples for land rights. •Flex-crop expansion displaces peasant communities and destroys natural resources, is linked to environmental with human rights and social justice concerns. •89% of the population in the Polochic Valley are indigenous Mayan decedents •The two main and antagonistic repertoires of contention are the one in 'defense of territory' and the one in the promotion of the 'agrarian extractivist project'. •Growing difficulties in dealing with grievances over land use and promises made -> many, even those who initially welcomed the corporate sugarcane and oil palm plantations, to transform their unrest into a practice of resistance. •After a period of intense and violent contestation between indigenous groups and corporate flex-crop expanders, NGOs arrived to 'support' the indigenous struggles. •The arrival of the NGOs helped to reveal the struggle to a broader audience but it also muted many local activists voices and lead to the acceptance of a compromise against the wishes of most •Once the NGOs left, after celebrating victory, State violence, physical and structural, resumed.

Agroecology

•Overexploitation of natural resources due to poverty + abandonment of traditional ag. practices + transformation of the environment in areas of colonization -> erosion, loss in soil fertility, & downstream sedimentation. •Genetic resources have been eroded, comprising (Altieri and Ferrell); (1)primitive cultivars and adapted breeds of animals, which evolved as part of traditional cultures over centuries, (2)unmanipulated wild plant and animal species, (3)wild progenitors and relatives of domestic plants and animals used today. •Modernization has not reached resource-poor farmers in Latin America. •It has increased agricultural productivity and overall production but also led to significant environmental and social consequences in many regions.

Palm Oil

•Palm oil is an edible vegetable oil derived from the mesocarp (reddish pulp) of the fruit of the oil palms. •The use of palm oil in food products has attracted the concern of environmental activist groups; the high oil yield of the trees has encouraged wider cultivation, leading to the clearing of forests in parts of Indonesia to make space for oil-palm monoculture. This has resulted in significant acreage losses of the habitat of the three surviving species of orangutan. One species in particular, the Sumatran orangutan, has been listed as critically endangered. •Synthetic palm oil also exists and can be made from carbon-containing waste (i.e. food waste, glycerol) by means of yeast. •Along with coconut oil, palm oil is one of the few highly saturated vegetable fats and is semisolid at room temperature. Palm oil is a common cooking ingredient in the tropical belt of Africa, Southeast Asia and parts of Brazil. Its use in the commercial food industry is widespread because of its lower cost and the high oxidative stability (saturation) of the refined product when used for frying. Humans consumed an average 17 pounds (7.7 kg) of palm oil per person in 2015

Reformist Model

•Reformists employ a cautious food security discourse and seek to mainstream less socially and environmentally damaging alternatives into existing market structures. •Advocate incentive-based certification and corporate self-regulation. Aim to modify industrial behavior through the power of persuasion and consumer choice. 'Voting with our forks', less damaging trade and production alternatives will someday transcend market niches (frequently high-end specialty products) and set new industrial standards. -> uneasy dualism between 'quality food' for higher income consumers & 'other food' for the masses. •The Reformist model is compatible with capitalist overproduction and proprietary technologies Tempers this with calls for renewed public financing for ag development, and self-regulatory and third-party certification systems that attempt to address problems of weak sustainability and poor equity. •Relies on the same guiding documents as its neoliberal counterpart, but emphasizes a renewed role for the state in establishing safety nets and reinvesting in agricultural development, in part to ensure governability along the lines of the post-Washington consensus. Projects include: the corporate mainstreaming faction of Fair Trade; principles for 'responsible' foreign direct investment in agricultural land (i.e. land grabs); the various industry-dominated 'roundtables' for sustainable soy, palm oil and biofuels; corporate sectors of the organic foods industry; and civil society driven corporate social responsibility and industry self-regulation initiatives. •Major actors: Bread for the World, Oxfam-America, CARE, World Watch,World Vision, and International Federation of Agricultural Producers (IFAP).

Move from complexity to simplicity

•Simplification of biochemical needs of crops through industrial fertilizers •Since the adoption of chemical fertilizers in the 1950s the nutritional quality of produce in the US has been declined substantially •Due both to declining soil complexity and plant breeding for specific characteristics and declines in varieties grown •Up and down the food chain simplification •Reduction of whole foods to inputs in an industrial process and simplification of nutrients in crop production •Monoculture •Despite the large variety in modern supermarkets, the number of crops has declined significantly: •Half of broccoli is one variety - marathon •Majority of chickens are the same hybrid, 99% of turkeys are Broad-Breasted Whites •FAO estimates that since the 10th C. genetic variety of crop has declined by 75- 90% •30 crops now feed the world, providing 95% of humanity's plant-based calories •The top ten crops - rice, wheat, maize, soy, sorghum, millet, potatoes, sweet potatoes, sugar and bananas - supply 75% of our plant based calories •Big three cereals - rice, wheat, maize- account for > half of plant based calories •75% of vegetable oils come from soy & over 1/2 of the sweetener comes from Corn •Despite the large variety in modern supermarkets, the number of crops has declined significantly: •Half of broccoli is one variety - marathon •Majority of chickens are the same hybrid, 99% of turkeys are Broad-Breasted Whites •FAO estimates that since the 10th C. genetic variety of crop has declined by 75- 90% •30 crops now feed the world, providing 95% of humanity's plant-based calories •The top ten crops - rice, wheat, maize, soy, sorghum, millet, potatoes, sweet potatoes, sugar and bananas - supply 75% of our plant based calories •Big three cereals - rice, wheat, maize- account for > half of plant based calories •75% of vegetable oils come from soy & over 1/2 of the sweetener comes from Corn

Patel

•Support for a sustainable architecture of food •Farmers markets •CSA's •Locally owned stores that sell local produce •Snapping the food system's bottlenecks •Advocate for the elimination or alteration of farm subsidies •Increase regulation on monopoly and oligopoly in the food system •Tax processed food (?)

TAMs & AFNs

•The Farmer to Farmer movement (Movimiento Campesino a Campesino, or MCAC) is organized by and focused on small, mostly poor farmers in Latin America. •MCAC has existed for over 30 years and claims to have several hundred thousand farmer-promoters: small farmers trained in an empowerment-based pedagogy who travel to other villages and other countries to directly train other small farmers. •"Using this peer-to-peer knowledge network, MCAC seeks to empower promoters and farmers, and to build autonomy and sustainable livelihoods based on agroecological methods and a culture of experimentation" (Holt-Giménez 2006). •La Vía Campesina (LVC), or the International Peasant Farmers' movement.

Progressive Trend

•The Progressive trend is primarily based in northern countries & is possibly the largest and fastest growing grassroots expression of the food movement. •It employs a food justice discourse grounded in an empowerment orientation in which the poor, oppressed and underserved assert their rights through the power of self-respect and community organizations. •Connects food justice with racial, labor, and environmental justice issues. •The model focuses: Local foodsheds, family farming and 'good, clean and fair' food with a strong representation from urban agriculture and direct rural-urban linkages, e.g. farmers markets and forms of Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs). On access to fresh, healthy food in low income neighborhoods, explores worker-owned and alternative business models, and can even advocate for minority ownership of food businesses explicitly. Insist on social rather than individual (consumer) responses to food regime failings •Key Actors: A blend of community food security and environmental justice NGOs In the US, Real Food Challenge, Rooted in Community, and Growing Food & Justice The focus on mobilizing local communities to solve local problems constitutes both a strength and a weakness of Progressive food justice movements. Energizing grassroots constituencies and creating innovative models but not challenging global power.

Radical Trend

•The Radical trend in food movements seeks deep, structural changes to food and agriculture. •Framed primarily by the concept of food sovereignty. Embraces agroecology and local, community-based food systems, as well as traditional knowledge. Advocates for the dismantling corporate agri-foods monopolies, parity, redistributive land reform, protection from dumping and overproduction, and community rights to water and seed. Call for regional and local democratic control over agriculture and food systems. •Issues: La Vı´a Campesina's political evolution; land reforms; socioecological crises with agroecology and food systems studies; global resurgence of peasant identities with new social movements and transnational social movements; the unequal burden borne by women in the food crises, and migration; the politics of hunger; agrarian demands and international peasant movements; trade and agricultural policy; GMOs; agroecology; energy, climate and peasant agriculture.

Ethnoagricultural analysis has done much to expand the conceptual and practical tool kit of agroecology.

•The focus on "emic" frameworks (based on a given culture's explanation) has suggested relationships that "etic" frameworks (that is, external frameworks, usually referring to western models of explanation) would not easily capture, but that can often be tested with the methods of western science. •Such as what? What emic frameworks can be tested to show agroecology functions better than industrial ag?

Food Politics Going Forward

•The food movement in general, and especially the Progressive trend, is often perceived as coming from predominantly educated, middle class and elite communities. •This characterization belies the social, racial and economic complexities that exist between trends and even between groups within those trends. The Detroit Food Policy Council and the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network, for example, though rooted in progressive actions, have an explicit analysis of structural racism in the food system, and a policy platform that includes eliminating 'barriers to African-American participation and ownership in all aspects of the food system', as well as 're-distribution of wealth through cooperative community ownership'. Several important middle-class movements straddle reformist and progressive trends. The 'movement-based' wing of Fair Trade and many actors within the organic foods and urban farming movements take progressive and often radical positions on the issues of food and justice. The Slow Food movement, focused on 'good, clean and fair' and already critical of industrial food, is being cautiously turned at the top by calls for food justice and food sovereignty. In Africa as well as the US, newly-formed Food Sovereignty Alliances between farmer federations, NGOs, women's organizations, and labor and environmental groups are acting on local and national issues and organizing transnationally

•Weston Price (1930s)

•Wondered why everyone needs a dentist and so many in our society require braces, root canals, extractions of wisdom teeth •Why do our teeth require constant care and non-developed people did not? •First asked if hygiene or nutrition was behind tooth decay •Found control groups - isolated populations not exposed to modern foods: •Populations eating traditional diets did not need dentistry as much •Populations that had not come to adopt the western diet were mostly without modern degeneration - chronic disease, tooth decay, and malformed dental arches

Palm Oil environmental impact

•The footprint of palm oil production is astounding; plantations to produce it account for 10% of permanent global cropland. •The World Wildlife Federation convinced a small number of palm growers, manufacturers and retailers to establish the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). •A decade later, most of the major users of palm oil had committed to production the RSPO deemed "sustainable" & 19% of global product was certified as such by the organization. •But the Environmental Investigation Agency three years ago found RSPO to be "woefully substandard" and "in some cases ... colluding ... to disguise violations". •A 2019 peer-reviewed study by Roberto Cazzolla Gatti, Jingjing Liang, Alena Velichevskaya, and Mo Zhoua found: From 2001 to 2016 in about 40% of the area located in certified palmoil concessions there is evidence of forest loss. We detect significant tree loss before and after the start of certification schemes. Certified concessions do not differ much from non-certified ones in terms of forest degradation. Subsequently the RSPO and other sustainable palmoil schemes have been abandoned by environmental NGOs and deems mostly untrustworthy by Int. community

•Agroecological technologies strengthen ecological & cultural processes, instead of overriding them.

•The institutional structures supporting research and development relink the social system to the ecological system to allow for local coevolution. •Agroecology initiates coevolutionary development through: 1. Conceptualizing agriculture as a process following ecological principles gives new knowledge about the behavior and management of diverse agroecosystems. 2. Power is redistributed in the social system through decentralized institutions and popular participation.

•In line with the food‐sovereignty literature, they assume that food self‐sufficiency is a better guarantor of food security.

•The loss of self‐sufficiency may lead to a country's loss of food security, or at least increase its vulnerability to price fluctuations in food. •Further, increased dependence on agricultural exports necessarily internalizes the "world price" for crops into the domestic economy. •Fluctuations in world prices disproportionately affect the lower‐income classes in any country, because they tend to spend larger shares of their household budgets on food, which aggravates any conjuncture of food‐price inflation (Von Braun, 2007). •The neoliberal turn also deepened inequality in most countries (Piketty, 2014). •They analyze Mexico's shifting decile income spent on food to demonstrate how neolib -> increasing inequality divides in income spent on food. •Price fluctuations affect these deciles more under neolib than before. •Which is heightened by rising inequality.

•Two plausible hypotheses for the observed decline in nutritional intake: the lower energy demand and the budget squeeze.

•They find that both the lower energy demand and the budget squeeze explanations are related to the decline in nutrition. •Urbanizing Chinses workers, reduced their calorie and protean intake voluntarily due to less energy required occupations. •And, rising non-food essential costs squeezed food budgets -> diet changes. •A 1%-point increase in the non-food essential share of household consumption lead to a 0.86% decrease in calorie intake and a 0.84% decrease in protein intake. •From 2000 to 2010, the average Chinese rural family increased the share of its spending on education, health care and other non-food essential goods by 10% of their consumption budget. •That alone decreased their daily calorie intake by 9%, from 2,595 kcal to 2,360 kcal. •"We argue that the abnormally low level of nutritional intake is due to commodification in the context of westernization."

•Permaculture in El Salvador, particularly based on the CaC model, is a post-colonial AFN.

•To critique & rework conventional principles of food security & development. •Seek to legitimize campesino and indigenous knowledge and expertise. •Based on a post-colonial politics of knowledge. •Is the global market based, large agro-industrial development model a form of neocolonialism by expanding forms of production that produce dependency and enhance exploitation? Does AEI based on CaC offer a post-colonial alternative development model?

food miles importance

•Transportation has been estimated to only make up 11 percent of the carbon footprint of food •The retail sector is the cause of a considerable amount of greenhouse gases •90 percent of frozen pea greenhouse gas emissions after production occur in grocery store refrigeration •A report by the Africa Research Institute criticized a buy local foods campaign in the UK Their research showed that foods shipped by jet plane into the UK had a lower ecological footprint than if they were raised domestically.

Water

•Virtual water is a measure of the water in foods and using this matrix often reveals that it is more efficient to import food than the water needed to produce food locally. This is highly dependent on specific locations •The UN estimates that water scarcity will be the number one constraint on food security in the future, not land. •Global demand for water has increased 300 percent since the 1950s •Increase in meat consumption has caused much of this as 1 kg of ground beef requires 20 times the water of a 1 kg of wheat •How crops are watered also matters, with drip irrigation as the most (80-90 %) efficient

Agroecological alternatives

•Well documented that small, diverse farms out-produce large, specialized farms in land productivity, while large monocropped farms outcompete in labor productivity •Based on 300 studies, Badgley et al. (2007) concluded that organic agriculture could produce enough food for the entire world Organic agriculture can be as productive or more productive and offers increased drought and stress resistance It also requires smaller farm units and therefore reduces the ease and likelihood of concentration

Flex-Crops in Guatemala continued

•While 59.3 percent of the Guatemalan population is officially regarded as poor (increasing since 2000), poverty especially affects the rural indigenous people and prevails in the FTN region (INE 2015a). Of all rural Guatemalans 76% are poor and 46% of them are extremely poor (INE 2015a). Furthermore, as of 2015, Guatemala had more undernourished people than during the last years of the civil war (FAO et al. 2015, 47) and, in indigenous areas, some '65 percent of the population is chronically malnourished' (USAID 2015). •Post-CAFTA, US imports to Guatemala grew 90% in a decade (2006-2016) •Continual increase in agri-export land area and declining domestic food production. •Cereal import dependency ratio (IDR) grew to 44% & in wheat it was 100% in 2013; for Maize it grew from 0% in 1985 to 9% in 1990, rising to 24% by 2000 & 40% in 2013. •Growing supermarket industry that now accounts for 30% of all food sold; with Wal-Mart leading the way, importing 85% of foodstuff they sell in Guatemala. •While oil palm production expanded 270%, total agriculture employment declined 26%. Why is this happening? •Minimum wage across the region & on oilpalm plantations, doesn't cover the cost of food.

palm oil production

•Worldwide production of palm oil has been climbing steadily for five decades. Between 1995 and 2015, annual production quadrupled, from 15.2m tons to 62.6m tons. Used in processed foods & 70% of personal care items contain one or more palm oil derivatives. By 2050, it is expected to quadruple again, reaching 240m tons. Today, 3 billion people in 150 countries use products containing palm oil. •Of this, 85% comes from Malaysia and Indonesia, where worldwide demand for palm oil has lifted incomes, especially in rural areas - but at the cost of tremendous environmental devastation and often with attendant labor and human rights abuses. •Producing nations view palm oil as a poverty-reduction scheme, while international finance organizations view it as a growth engine for developing economies. The IMF & World Bank have pushed Palm Oil production around the world. USAID has funded projects in Colombia and other Latin American Nations •Palm oil's world domination is the result of five factors: first, it has replaced less healthy fats in foods in the west. Second, producers have pushed to keep its price low. Third, it has replaced more expensive oils in home and personal care products. Fourth, again because it is cheap, it has been widely adopted as cooking oil in Asian countries. Finally, as Asian countries have grown richer, they consume more fat, much of it in the form of palm oil. India, China, and Indonesia account for nearly 40% of all palm oil consumed worldwide.

defensible lifespaces

•a physical and social space enabling a family to make a living and to exert a degree of autonomy over their own conditions. •Unconstrained international trade places the control necessary for this physically and socioculturally outside the reach of individual communities -> This decreases the sustainability of the food system, as control and uniformity of a heterogeneous world requires significant and continuously growing inputs of energy (Tainter 1988), and is in opposition to the idiosyncrasy, variety, and thus adaptability and stability of peasant farming systems (Di Falco and Perrings 2003;Edelman 2005; Jarvis et al. 2011). It also causes social traditions, diversity, and culture to be lost, as "subsistence customs and traditional social relations [are replaced] with contracts, the market, and uniform laws" (Scott 1976, 189, in Edelman 2005).

Permaculture definition

•an agroecological approach to food production that employs a systems perspective by focusing its interventions on the points of interconnection between qualitatively divers system of biophysical, socio-economic, and social-cultural life. •It is also a principle of environmental design that strives to establish 'permanent agricultures' - multiple species ecologies that support their various human and non-human components through mutually enhancing feedback loops and interactions. •Traditional and indigenous techniques are valued but tested experimentally against existing practices.

La Vía Campesina

•as a social movement fights for autonomy, sovereignty, and a participatory democracy •It advocates for "defensible values." Specifically, its fight for normatively defensible values—for a food system reflecting ideals of ethics and justice—and its quest to build and maintain defensible lifespaces for small farmers in terms of socioeconomic, ecological, and political autonomy.

Modern agriculture effects

•entails increased distancing between producers and consumers, planners and beneficiaries, researchers and practitioners. •Agricultural practices displace, rather than work with, processes in the ecological system. •The social system thus must invest in and maintain increasingly complex and global institutional mechanisms to regulate its interactions with the ecological system. (soc. relations of prod. vs. forces of prod.) •Under the selective pressure of conventional modern agricultural practices, agroecosystems and agricultural strategies which were unique to particular cultures and ecosystems merged in the process of globalization. (producing homogeneity of ag systems)

Alternative Agro-Food Networks

•shorter distances between producers and consumers; •small farm size and scale and organic or holistic farming methods, which are contrasted with large scale, industrial agribusiness; •the existence of food purchasing venues such as food cooperatives, farmers markets, and Community Supported Agriculture and local food-to-school linkages; •a commitment to the social, economic and environmental dimensions of sustainable food production, distribution and consumption. •Agroecology increases resilience - environmental and cultural Enhances diversity Reduces externalizations Promotes traditional knowledges (anticolonial)

Alternative Food Network (AFN) definition

•the chains and linkages between farmers, producers, shops, suppliers and consumers - where the production and consumption of food are more closely tied together spatially, economically, and socially. The main food-network is often called the 'productionist' model, and originated in the 1950s and 1960s in the so-called 'Green Revolution