Food. Jennifer Clapp

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CHAPTER ONE Unpacking the World Food Economy

      Pause for a minute to reflect on how much you know about the path followed by the food you ate this morning as it made its way to your breakfast table. Of course, your understanding and knowledge depends very much on what exactly you had to eat. Some may know almost every detail of the production, transport, processing, and exchange relationships involved in the preparation of that meal – particularly those who choose to consume foods such as fresh eggs, oats, and strawberries from a local organic farm, or ethically traded shade-grown coffee from Nicaragua. Others may know very little, especially when they consume pre-packaged and highly processed foods like boxed cereal, frozen waffles, or instant hot chocolate. These latter items, most likely purchased from a neighborhood supermarket, made their way to your table after a long and winding journey through the global industrial food system. Most of us probably have a vague idea of our food’s origins and travels, as well as the power relationships that might be associated with it along the way, but we are not 100 percent sure.

The gap in our knowledge about the global food system can be understood as a kind of “distance” – which is often, but not always, related to the physical distance food travels from farm to table. Today, the average plate of food eaten in Europe and North America travels around 1,500 miles before it is consumed. The concept of “food miles,” picking up on the notion of physical distance, has attracted widespread attention in recent years, particularly because of growing concern about the greenhouse gas emissions associated with transporting food across great stretches of land and water. The distance between consumers and food can also be mental, as in the gap in knowledge we have about the social, ecological, and economic relationships associated with the foods we eat. And it can come in the form of power differentials between actors in the food system, where some experience its benefits while others absorb a disproportionate share of its costs. We often lack a full understanding of the natural and human conditions under which our food is produced and are only somewhat aware of who controls the various steps along the supply chains of the most basic and intimate resources necessary for human survival.¹ In these various ways, we have become increasingly distanced from much of the food we consume.

Some say it’s not necessarily important for people to know all of the details of the functioning of the global food system – the web of relationships that span the production, processing, trade, and marketing of the food we eat. If that system conveniently provides safe, abundant supplies of food at affordable prices, then many consider that it is doing its job. Indeed, as the global reach of the industrial food system has expanded, with foods being traded across long distances, a greater variety of foods from around the world have become increasingly available to global consumers through the rapidly growing retail grocery market. This broader range of foods, such as fresh fruits and vegetables available year-round, can bring nutritional benefits to consumers. As scientific methods are employed to make foods last longer and better able to handle the journey to areas of the world that lack sufficient food supplies, wastage can be reduced. For the better part of the past fifty years, the system has outwardly appeared to provide the advantages of a truly global and stable food supply that could be accessed by an ever larger range of people. Its stability and abundance brought lower prices in addition to expanding its geographical reach. So long as the system is providing cheap and readily available food, why question it?

      But questions have been raised about the benefits and costs associated with the way food is grown, processed, and marketed in the global industrial food system. Recent decades have seen heightened awareness of the ecological and social consequences of the current organization of that system. The increasingly obvious environmental side effects of large-scale industrial agricultural production, including biodiversity loss and exposure to toxins from the use of pesticides, have been of widespread concern since at least the 1970s. The commercial planting of genetically modified (GM) crops since the 1990s has raised questions about their potential ecological consequences. The reality of a warming climate, as demonstrated by extreme weather patterns in recent years, has added СКАЧАТЬ