Food and Language: Production, Consumption, and Circulation of Meaning and Value

2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martha Sif Karrebæk ◽  
Kathleen C. Riley ◽  
Jillian R. Cavanaugh

We interrogate the many ways that language and food intersect. Food and its uses provide setting and structure for language, just as language and its uses constrain and inform food activities. We illuminate where and how food and language co-occur and how they are dynamically co-constitutive, foregrounding the potential for food-and-language scholarship to contribute to understandings of political economic processes and structures. We organize our review around the mutual production, consumption, and circulation of food and language. We show that the richness of scholarship about consumption (especially around the family meal) has not been matched by research concerning the production of food and language, whereas the co-constituting circulation of food and language contributes to new meanings and values for both. More research is needed to clarify the surging attention to food, which may be motivated by the complex global food system and the speed and ease of mediatization and circulation of food images and ideologies.

2016 ◽  
Vol 371 (1709) ◽  
pp. 20150467 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Charles J. Godfray ◽  
Daniel Mason-D'Croz ◽  
Sherman Robinson

Fungal diseases are major threats to the most important crops upon which humanity depends. Were there to be a major epidemic that severely reduced yields, its effects would spread throughout the globalized food system. To explore these ramifications, we use a partial equilibrium economic model of the global food system (IMPACT) to study a hypothetical severe but short-lived epidemic that reduces rice yields in the countries affected by 80%. We modelled a succession of epidemic scenarios of increasing severity, starting with the disease in a single country in southeast Asia and ending with the pathogen present in most of eastern Asia. The epidemic and subsequent crop losses led to substantially increased global rice prices. However, as long as global commodity trade was unrestricted and able to respond fast enough, the effects on individual calorie consumption were, to a large part, mitigated. Some of the worse effects were projected to be experienced by poor net-rice importing countries in sub-Saharan Africa, which were not affected directly by the disease but suffered because of higher rice prices. We critique the assumptions of our models and explore political economic pressures to restrict trade at times of crisis. We finish by arguing for the importance of ‘stress-testing’ the resilience of the global food system to crop disease and other shocks. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Tackling emerging fungal threats to animal health, food security and ecosystem resilience’.


2013 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 21-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. A. Monteiro ◽  
J.-C. Moubarac ◽  
G. Cannon ◽  
S. W. Ng ◽  
B. Popkin

2006 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Per Pinstrup-Andersen ◽  
H. E. Babcock ◽  
J. Thomas Clark

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franziska Gaupp

<p>Currently, the global food system is the single largest threat to people and planet. Food is the leading cause behind transgressing five of the nine planetary boundaries. It is a major source of carbon emissions, as well as the single largest contributor to global deforestation, overuse of fresh water and eutrophication of our aquatic ecosystems. And while agriculture has been a major engine of poverty reduction, agricultural activities are unable to deliver a decent livelihood for an estimated 80 percent of those living in extreme poverty. The projected increase in frequency and severity of climate extreme events is posing additional threats to the global food system.</p><p>A transformation towards a more inclusive, sustainable and health-promoting food system is urgently needed. This presentation will introduce the newly established Food Systems Economics Commission (FSEC) that provides detailed and robust evidence assessing the implications of the policy and investment decisions needed to foster a food system transformation. It integrates global modelling tools such as integrated assessment modelling and innovative applications of agent-based modelling with political economy considerations.  It investigates the hidden costs of our current food system, explores transitions pathways towards a new food and land use economy and suggests key policy instruments to foster the transformation towards a sustainable, inclusive, healthy and resilient food system.</p>


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