JUST 357: JMU Final Watkins

food regime

rule-based structure of production and consumption of food on a global scale
--can be a global, national, local

food regime is embedded in capitalism, AND central to the mechanisms that drive it (T/F)

TRUE

-particular relations of food production & consumption are central to the functionality & reproduction of global capitalism

capitalism

think labor and capital --> labor has to be fed so food production is key to capitalism

1st global food regime

-late 1800's, great depression
-food imports from global south & american colonies fed European industrial expansion

2nd global food regime

-Post-WWII
-reversed flow of food from Northern to Southern hemisphere to fuel cold war industrialization in global south (green revolution)

Todays Corporate Food Regime (1908's-?)

-all encompassing AGRIFOOD INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

ex: Cargill and Walmart

todays corporate food regime is based on...

-fossil fuels (Chemical and industry)

Todays corporate food regime includes:

-monopoly market power (no real competition)
-mega-profits of agrifood MNC's (multi-national corporations)
-GMO's and privatization
-globalized meat production
-concentrated land ownership
-links between food and fuel --> connects back to fossil fuels as the price of oil directly related to price of food
-growing opposition (food movements)

todays corporate food regime influences:

governments and multilateral organizations that control rules for trade, labor, property and technology

todays corporate regime is supported by:

private and public institutions

ex: world bank, IMF, USAID, USDA, and big philanthropy

Rise of the corporate food regime (list)

-colonialism/imperialism
-Green Revolution
-Structural adjustment policies
-Neoliberal Free Tradism

Colonialism/imperialism

1500-mid 19th century
-plantations monocultures and slave labor regimes

Green Revolution

1960-1980's (still going on)
-weakened peasant agriculture and empowered large landowners
-deepening of class, gender, and regional inequalities in agriculture

Structural adjustment policies

1980's-90's
-non-food export crops --> but production of food for people there has gone down

Neoliberal Free Tradism

1990's-present
-WTO, FTA's --> drop barriers to free trade
-subsidies, surplus, dumping

Polanyis "double movement"

Liberalization period of unregulated markets & capital expansion, followed by surpluses & devastating busts

Polanyis "self regulating" market

Reformist period of regulating markets, supply, & consumption to re-stabilize the regime

Polanyis double movement and self regulating market...

Appear politically distinct, but are actually two complementary sides of the same system

Countering Hunger in the CFR (corporate food regime)

-institutions, programs, and campaigns for food aid & agricultural development

Neoliberals see hunger and poverty as...

a business opportunity
-Neoliberal strategies (privatization & free trade), public-private partnerships, corporate efficiency & competitiveness

REFORMERS counter hunger in the CFR by...

seek to hold government & industry accountable for policies or enterprises that undermine the human right to food

-Call for reinvestment in agriculture & revival of the Green Revolution
-Often accompanied by calls for GMOs, & occasionally reforms
-Often apply a discourse of food security

Neoliberal (food regime) focuses on:

-food enterprise
-corporate/global market: overproduction, corporate concentration, unregulated markets and monopolies, monocultures, GMOs, mass global consumption of industrial food
**Phasing OUT of peasant & family agriculture and local retail

Reformist (food regime) focuses on:

-food security
-development/aid: mainstreaming niche markets like organic, fair, sustainable, local, maintaining northern agriculture subsidies, 'sustainable' roundtables for agrofuels, market led land reform, microcredit

2 types of food movements

-progressive: focuses on food justice and empowerment

-radical: focuses on food sovereignty and entitlement/redistribution

Progressive empowerment model (food movement)

-agroecologically produced local foods
-investment in underserved communities
-new business models and community benefit packages for production, processing & retail
-better wages for agriculture workers
-solidarity economies
-land access
-regulated markets & supply

Progressive approach to food crisis

Right to food:
-better safety nets
-sustainably produced
-locally sourced foods
-agroecologically based agricultural development
-committee on World Food Security (CFS)

Radical Entitelment/Redistribution model (food movements)

-dismantle corporate agri-foods monopoly power
-parity (equal)
-redistributive land reform
-community rights to water and seed
-regionally based food systems
-sustainable livelihoods
-protection from dumping/overproduction
-revival of agroecologically managed peasant agriculture to distribute wealth and cool the planet

Radical approach to the food crisis

Human right to food:
-locally sourced
-sustainably produced
-culturally appropriate
-democratically controlled
-focus on UN/FAO negotiations

Food enterprise

-a neoliberal trend in CFR
-Dominant, corporate-driven food enterprise discourse anchored in neoliberal ideologies of privatization & free-market trade

free market

an economic system in which prices are determined by unrestricted competition between privately owned businesses.

Counter movements to CFR (food justice movements)

CFR's persistent social & environmental failures have spurred tens of thousands of local, national, & international social movements concerned with food & agriculture

Counter movements to CFR (list of counter movements)

-Land reform & food sovereignty
-Sustainable & agroecological agriculture
-"Good, clean & fair" food, or food justice
-Fair trade
-Local food
-Slow food
-Community food security

-Alternative agriculture-agrifoods wing of the New Social Movements; the Transnational Social Movements; the World Social Forum's "movement of movements," & parts of labor & class-based "Old Social Movements"

Food Justice (global north issue)

"The struggle against racism, exploitation, & oppression taking place within the food system that addresses inequality's root causes both within & beyond the food chain"

-Fair DISTRIBUTION of benefits & risks of production, transport, distribution, access & consumption, without disparities or inequities.
-works within CFR to reform the mechanisms of production and consumption (progressive politics)

Food Sovereignty (associated w/ global south)

-People's right to healthy & culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound & sustainable methods & & their right to define their own food & agriculture systems

-Radically disrupt the global system through anti-antiimperialist, anti-corporatist, and/or anti-capitalist movements & reforms (radical politics)

"The way the world grows its food will have to change radically to better serve the poor & hungry if the world is to cope with growing population & climate change while avoiding social breakdown & environmental collapse."

quote from the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development

Green Revolution (definition)

-a large increase in crop production in developing countries achieved by the use of fertilizers, pesticides, and high-yield crop varieties.

-a set of research and technology transfer initiatives occurring between 1950 and the late 1960s, that increased agricultural production worldwide, particularly in the developing world, beginning most markedly in the late 1960s

Green Revolution (origin)

-Philanthropic beginnings
-Rockerfellers, Ford, USAID --> Funded agricultural scientists led by Norman Borlaug
-Rockefeller Mexican Agricultural Program (MAP) 1943
-Cold War GreenRevolution opposed to Red Revolutions
-US national security issue

MAP 1943

Rockerfeller Mexican Agricultural Program
-launched the Green Revolution

Green revolution intensified the production of worlds principal cereals:

maize, wheat, rice

Green Revolution was based on:

High-yield varieties (seeds)
-Intensive irrigation
-Synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides
-Mechanization
-Privatization
-Fossil fuels***

High Yield Varities of seeds

**Costly inputs reliant on fossil fuels
-Pesticides, herbicides made from petrochemicals
-Energy-intensive irrigation infrastructure
-Energy-intensive mechanization
-Wider transport networks

-EXPENSIVE, linked to the price of oil, and UNsustainable
-Increased cost to farmers (had to buy HYV of seeds)

-higher yield but lower profit margin per acre

2 main areas of concern for yield plateau

India and China
-2 most populous countries

impact 1 degree celsius has on agricultural yields

decrease of:
Maize by 7.4%
Wheat by 6%
Rice by 3.2%

Consequences of Green Revolution (on land)

-reliance on costly inputs --> fossil fuels, irrigation, fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides
-soil degredation (salinization) & erosion
-chemical pollution
-water depletion
-blight susceptibility (increase in pests and weeds)

Consequences of Green Revolution (on humans)

-mechanization displaces labor
-Rural-to-urban migration
-Weakens peasants & smallholders
-Favors those with concentrated land & capital
-Deepening of class, gender, & regional inequalities
-Erosion of (agro)biodiversity
-Soil & landraces
-Erosion of indigenous knowledge

SECOND Green Revolution (traits)

-Genetic engineering, rather than conventional plant breeding
-Genetically modified (GM) crops (GMOs)
-Potential to again increase global harvest
-Potential to exacerbate GR's negatives
-Increased reliance on costly & unsustainable inputs

Roundup Ready spray

modifies crops to resist herbicides

SECOND Green Revolution (effects)

-Reliance on purchased seed & inputs
-Energy, pollution, soil, equity concerns
-Empowers MN seed & pharma corps.
-Erosion of biodiversity (landraces)
-Privatize seeds
-Limit farmer breeding rights
-Proliferate across farms inadvertently
-Toxicity to humans?--> Contentious, emergent research
-Reliant on fossil fuels, contemporary agroindustry remains unsustainable

We have ample food to feed the world (T/F)

TRUE

-there is just inadequate access and distribution

The number of those malnourished has been on the rise since 2014 (T/F)

TRUE

Green Revolution is ________________ agriculture

conventional

Green Revolution is an ____________ of indigenous knowledge

erasure

Green Revolution in historical context

-Worldwide domestication of plants
-European agricultural revolutions 18th c.
-Chinese improved rice varieties 1000 CE
-Ongoing processrather than an event

GR enabled food production to exceed rapid population growth in Global South after 1950 (T/F)

TRUE

however, Increased yield but not distribution to poor

Ways Forward from the Green Revolution

-GMO's are unnecessary --> do not raise intrinsic yield, unable to fully address climate resilience
-global governance titled against small farmers
-transformative and empowering potentials of agroecology & local food systems & economies
-diversified agroecological systems could increase global food production by 50% a day --> could easily support population peak of 10-11 billion people by 2100

Agroecology

The application of ecological concepts & principles to the design & management of sustainableagriculturalecosystems

Agroecology is a scientific discipline...

that uses ecological theory to study, design, manage & evaluate agricultural systems that are productive but also resource conserving

Agroecology combines __________ with ____________

(agro)ecological science with indigenous and other traditional knowledge

Agroecology enhances

Enhances food security while conserving natural resources, biodiversity, & soil & waterthroughout countless rural communities across all world regions

Agroecology is ___________ intensive

Knowledge intensive (rather than capital intensive), tends toward small, highly diversified farms, & emphasizes farmer-to-farmer research & collaboration within local communities

Unlike uniform monocultures, _________________ ______________ ______________ replace chemicals with organic inputs, optimize biodiversity & stimulate _____________ interactions between species, as part of holistic strategies to build & manage ________ & ________ agro-ecosystems

1) diversified agroecological systems
2) symbiotic
3) productive
4) resilient

Agroecological farms

-Support biodiversity, rebuild soil fertility, & sustain yields
-Provide secure farm livelihoods, food security, diverse diets, & improved health for farmers & their consumers

Crop Rotations

Crop nutrients & breaking the life cycles of several insect pests, diseases, & weeds

Polycultures

-Complex cropping systems of multiple crops
-Competition or complementation, thus enhancing yields

Animal integration

High biomass output & optimal recycling

Agroforestry systems

-Trees cultivated in integration with annual crops and/or animals
-Complementary relations between plants & other components (soil, atmosphere, markets)
-results in increased biodiversity and reduced erosion

Cover crops

-Legumes & other annual plants under trees grown for fruit, timber, etc.
-Improving soil fertility, enhancing biological control of pests, & modifying microclimates

Industrial food systems (characteristics)

-agroexport crop and biofuel production --> huge greenhouse gas emissions
-focus on less than 20 livestock and crop species
-large scale monocultures
-high yielding varieties of crops
-high petroleum dependence
-uses fertilizers for crop nutrients
-top down, corporate controlled scientific research
-nonconducive to conservation of wild species

agroecological peasant food systems

-local, regional, and/or national food production, local consumption and production
-more than 40 livestock species
-small scale diversified farming systems
-local resources, ecosystem services provided by biodiversity
-plant and animal derived organic matter to feed the soil
-Campesino a campesino (Farmer to farmer), local innovations, socially-oriented horizontal exchanges via social movements
-holistic knowledge of nature

conventional wisdom of farming based on coloniality and modernity (T/F)

TRUE

-belief that small family farms & peasant agriculture = backward & unproductive

Evidence shows that small family farms can be & often are much more productive than large industrial farms (T/F)

TRUE

-they outperform under environmental stress

Benefits of small family farms

-Food security
-More sustainable energy inputs
-Efficiency: reduced emission, pollution, & waste

Agroecology is new (T/F)

FALSE

-there is traditional agroecological knowledge

Milpas

translates to "cultivated field"
-3 sisters: maize-beans-squash complex

in 3 sisters corn is the structure for _______________

climbing beans

in 3 sisters beans adds __________ to the soil

nitrogen

in 3 sisters, squash ____________ weeds

suppresses

3 sisters has the same proteins as dairy and meat (T/F)

True

3 sisters was the basis for _____________ societies

Mesoamerican

Indigenous Agricultural biodiversity

~5,000 different varieties of potatoes

-not only biotic creations but botanical knowledge
-biodiversity as risk avoidance strategy
-Biodiversity protects numerous varieties with specific tolerances (e.g. heat, drought, disease)

There are economic, social, and environmental overlaps that all effect

food production

Wes Jacksons Land Institute

The Institute's goal is to create an agriculture system that mimics natural systems in order to produce ample food and reduce or eliminate the negative impacts of industrial agriculture.

Indigenous agroecologists are sources for research & development

-Productive, efficient, & sustainable◦Integrated with dynamic, heterogeneous environmental forms & processes
-Detailed knowledge of local plants, animals, soils, & their interactions**
-Maintain biodiversity through polyculture & native plants
-Use minimal tillage, recycling, & biological pest & weed control
-Continuous innovation

The USDA gives less than 15% of research and education grants to agroecology (T/F)

TRUE

USDA focuses on:

Minimizes chemicals, enhances soil composition & function, & promotes biodiversity

USDA Certified Organic properties

-Organic crops cannot be grown with synthetic fertilizers, synthetic pesticides or sewage sludge
-Cannot be genetically engineered, modified, or irradiated
-Animals must eat only organically grown feed (without animal byproducts) & cannot be treated with synthetic hormones or antibiotics
-Animals must have access to the outdoors, & ruminants (hoofed animals, including cows) must have access to pasture
-Animals cannot be cloned

most organic food in US is from agroecological or small farms (T/F)

FALSE

Combining agroecology and food sovereignty

-creating co-opt of agroecology into the Green Revolution
-Center agroecology within a politically transformativepeasant movement for food sovereignty

Agrobiodiversity

includes all the different kinds of plants and animals that people raise for food. It also includes living things in the soil that break down and recycle soil nutrients, as well as bees and other things that pollinate

Agrobiodiversity fortifies resilience to _____________ __________ __________ and other shocks

global climate change

Agroecology is __________ to global climate change

mitigation

Agroforestry within polycultures integrates trees into productive landscapes (T/F)

TRUE

____________ _____________ increases agricultural output & community resiliance

Gendered development

-ex: 80% of women in subsaharan africa producing foodstuffs

List of salient food justice issues:

-farming and land as civil rights issue (MLK Jr.)
-Food security --> Distribution of food to whom?--Food "deserts" --> Access to what food?
-Food & farming regulations
-US Farm Bill (decides on subsidies) --> Lobbying effort -CFR
-Farm subsidies
-SNAP (food stamps program)
-Food vs. fuel
-Ethanol, biodiesel, & food

Food Justice and recognition

-what is "american" food?
-who gets to claim it?
-how do we perceive it?
-how are our perceptions of food shaped by ideologies

EX: Michael Twitty and traditional "American" food being made from african american slaves

agricultural knowledge, science, & technology (AKST) the world has built up should be targeted toward agroecology strategies that combine _____________ with ___________ natural resources like soils, water, forests, & biodiversity.

1) productivity
2) protecting

Research & development efforts must now target & include in a participatory manner _________________

small scale/family farmers

-since they make up most of the poor/hungry & make up majority of stewards of the movement

Agricultural practices like organic, biodynamic, conservation, & agroecological are [...] options that address the main constraints to food & nutrition security as well as ________ ___________ issues

food sovereignty

Food (In)security

UN agencies 1970s --> Focus on general food supply & theoretical availability
-Production oriented policies & incentives
-Yet famine & malnourishment continue despite ample food availability
-Problem of food distribution &access

1 in 6 US children are food insecure (T/F)

TRUE