Who Governs The World Food System?

Is there a single world food system? There is not yet a single centrally governed world food system. Food is still produced and consumed mostly inside separate and separately governed nation-states. International food markets have grown, but international trade still supplies on average only 10...

Food Safety and Genetically Engineered Foods

How safe is America’s food supply? In rich countries, the food choices available in supermarkets and restaurants are almost always free from dangerous levels of toxic or microbial contamination. Even when they are not healthful or nutritious, they at least can be considered “safe.” In...

Agribusiness, Supermarkets, And Fast Food

What does the word “agribusiness” mean? The term “agribusiness” was coined in 1957 by two professors at the Harvard Business School, Ray Goldberg and John H. Davis, in recognition of an important change then taking place in the American agricultural sector. The “on-farm” part of...

Livestock, Meat, and Fish

How are farm animals different from crops? In some respects, they are not so different. Human beings have eaten animals—including fish—from the beginning, and we have bred domesticated animals to serve our food purposes in much the way that we have bred crops. Moreover, market...

The Politics of High Food Prices

When did high food prices become a political issue? Most recently high food prices became an intense political issue in 2007–2008, when international market prices for rice, wheat, and corn all spiked sharply upward at the same time. By April 2008, the price of maize...

The Politics of Chronic Hunger And Famine

How do we measure hunger? In our personal lives, hunger is a sensation we feel regularly at mealtime. In the world of politics and public policy, “hunger” is often used as a substitute word for chronic undernutrition, a long-term dietary condition that includes either a...

Food Production and Population Growth

Who was Thomas Malthus, and why did he see hunger as inevitable? Thomas Robert Malthus was an English economist who authored in 1798 a highly influential treatise, An Essay on the Principle of Population. In this essay, Malthus argued that food production could...

An Overview of Food Politics

What is food politics? Since biblical times, the policies of governments have shaped food and farming. The book of Genesis (47:24) records that in Egypt the pharaoh took 20 percent of all food production from his farmers as a tax. Governments in Africa today often...

The Politics of Obesity

Is the world facing an obesity crisis? Worldwide, obesity rates have nearly doubled in the last three decades. In 1980, 5 percent of men and 8 percent of women around the world were obese. By 2008, the rates were 10 percent for men and 14...

Organic and Local Food

What is organic food? The label “organic” refers to a method of food production. Organic food is produced without any human-made (i.e., synthetic) fertilizers, pesticides, or preservatives. In organic systems, farmers use a variety of methods that do not require synthetic substances. For example, soil...