Patel, Raj - Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System

[oyceter]

I found this to be very eye opening, but I also don't know much about global agriculture or environmental justice, so YMMV. I admit that I've been a bit skeptical of various environmental movements before, not because they're wrong, but because there are way too many examples of privileged white people espousing environmentalism while culturally appropriating and especially not thinking about how their movement fits in with other social justice movements. Patel specifically addresses these issues, especially in terms of class, colonization, and global agriculture.

Patel touches on a huge number of topics, from the rise of soy in everything we eat to high-fructose corn syrup to how big agricultural companies use genetically modified crops to control small farmers. But the central threads through the book are Patel's critique of the system that rewards big agricultural companies and the middlemen between farmers and consumers, how they are privileged over farmers and consumers, and his understanding of how this works globally. I find the last bit most helpful; Patel doesn't just look at the UK and the US, but focuses a lot on the Global South*. He also makes an effort to focus not just on the "big" players, but also on grassroots organizations and farmers themselves.

I had a problem with Sonia Shah's The Body Hunters, which is on big pharma, because I felt the focus was so much on those organizations that the people they were testing medicine on became a faceless crowd of victims. Patel does do this more in some chapters than others, but the sense I got from his writing was that he's worked very closely with the farmers he's writing about. As such, they come across as people, not victims. It also helps that he continually returns to solutions that small farmers and consumers have come up with; he focuses on how they help themselves, not on how the same international organizations that contributed to the poverty of the Global South are "saving" them.

One thing I took away from this book and others I've been reading (ex. Conquest, Dragon Ladies) is the power of bottom-up movements, how important it is for movements to focus on the people who are the most oppressed and have the least power in the system, because it generally seems easier to start there and end up with solutions that benefit everyone, whereas going from top-down tends to generate solutions that help those on top, but overlooks those on the bottom, particularly people who suffer more than one oppression. For example, feminism's focus on middle-class white women, the male focus in a lot of anti-racism and LGBTQ movements, etc. Of course, this is not saying that those of us who are more privileged should just not do anything, but just that we cannot center movements on the more privileged. I am still trying to figure out how to apply all this to my own attempts at social change and to IBARW, but right now, I have more questions than answers.

Anyway, highly recommended and very eye opening for me.

Links:
- furyofvissarion's review
- sanguinity's review


Note: Patel uses the term "people of colour" to describe non-white people (he is from the UK). I can't tell if this is only in the US edition, because it preserves the British spelling of "colour." I also can't remember if Patel footnoted or explained this usage or not; I, uh, already returned it to the library.

* He notes that he prefers this term over "developing countries" or "third-world countries." I have the same problems he does with the prior two terms, and I like that "Global South" does not sound like it is passing judgment, but I think it may overlook countries in the Northern hemisphere that also suffer the effects of colonization.

Comments

[littlebutfierce]

I can't remember if POC was in the version I read (which was obviously British) either!

[oyceter]

Because I am totally procrastinating, I searched inside the book on UK Amazon. It has lots of results for "people of colour" but nothing for "non-white people," so I guess that's what he used in the book, unless the UK Amazon text is drawing from the US edition.

[unusualmusic.livejournal.com]

Thanks a lot for this review! Its on my list, but I've got so freaking much to read....

[oyceter]

I've got so freaking much to read....

I'm so with you!!

It's a really fascinating read, and I actually got through it pretty quickly, considering the non-fiction aspect (I go through non-fiction slower than fiction). But haha, yes to the stacks of stuff to-be-read.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

This sounds very interesting. The Omnivore's Dilemma, which covers some of the same topics, has a middle class, white, American point of view throughout: useful for discussing a lot of what's broken about the American food system, but painfully lacking on issues affecting people of color in this country, to say nothing of a global perspective.

That global perspective is critical to fixing food, so it's great that Patel's book offers it. Looking forward to checking it out.

[oyceter]

It's really interesting! I especially liked getting a look not just as the way food in the US works, but how it affects global farmers and infrastructures. A lot of it is still very US-focused, but that is because many of the large agricultural companies are USian (at least, that was my impression from the book). But the farmers affected are everywhere... he opens the book with Korean and Mexican farmers and how they're working together.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

Very cool. I'll have to see if my local foodie bookstore has a copy.

[sanguinity]

He endnoted "people of colour" when he was talking about Brazil. IIRC, the note was that "people of colour" in a Brazilian context is a gross simplification to the point of being highly questionable, but that he was using it this once anyway. (Don't trust me to not have mangled it; I honestly don't remember if he said why he was using it anyway, and I do know that he didn't say enough in that endnote for me to feel like I understood the nature of the issue.)

I don't remember him saying anything else about the term, but I also know that I didn't read every endnote.

:: but right now, I have more questions than answers. ::

Yeah. More and more, though, life seems to me to be the art of refining and reformulating the question. I don't think there's a way to shortcut that process.

Well, except live a long time, maybe. But that's not really a shortcut.

[oyceter]

Ooo, thanks for the notes! Sigh. This is why I should not write stuff up a month after I read them. I also skipped a lot of endnotes. (This is why I like footnotes! Less flipping around for me.)

Well, except live a long time, maybe. But that's not really a shortcut.

Heeeee. Alas!

[color-blue.livejournal.com]

You reminded me that I never finished this book! *makes note*


One thing I took away from this book and others I've been reading (ex. Conquest, Dragon Ladies) is the power of bottom-up movements, how important it is for movements to focus on the people who are the most oppressed and have the least power in the system, because it generally seems easier to start there and end up with solutions that benefit everyone, whereas going from top-down tends to generate solutions that help those on top, but overlooks those on the bottom, particularly people who suffer more than one oppression.

Yes! I completely agree with this, and also think that bottom-up movements are the most likely to be dismissed or trivialized or ignored in mainstream media and education, just because of the way hierarchies work.


He notes that he prefers this term over "developing countries" or "third-world countries." I have the same problems he does with the prior two terms, and I like that "Global South" does not sound like it is passing judgment, but I think it may overlook countries in the Northern hemisphere that also suffer the effects of colonization.

Somewhat of a digression - I can never figure out which of these to use, but the main problem I have with all of them is that they reduce things to binaries. Like you said, countries in the northern hemisphere that suffer effects of colonization, and Australia, and also, I feel like they all derive from an attempt at determining what countries should be and what they shouldn't, since the modern/developed/etc world seems to have no place for things such as Native American reservations or poor inner-city neighborhoods or immigrants, instead it's images of things like skyscrapers and large corporations and malls and neat suburban neighborhoods. So, yeah, I feel like these terms are more brands rather than reflections of reality (though that doesn't stop me from using them, because how else can we talk about things such as this without endless disclaimers?).

[oyceter]

Yes! I am just realizing how much more I need to read on bottom-up movements and how you fund them and support them without compromising and etc.

And I'm very with you on terminology! And how "first" world nations have "third" world problems, like you cite, and just... yeah. And yet, I don't know what to do except footnote excessively, otherwise there is no vocab for discourse.