Most scholars attribute systemic causes of food insecurity to poverty, human overpopulation, lack of farmland, and expansion of biofuel programs. However, as Chen argues here, another significant factor has been overlooked. The current food insecurity is not absolute food shortage, since global food production still exceeds the need of the entire world population, but a problem of how to secure access to resources. Distorted agricultural trade undermines world food distribution, and uneven distribution impedes people’s access to food, particularly in poor developing countries. Examining EU and US agricultural policies and World Trade Organization negotiations in agriculture, the author argues how they affect the international agricultural trade, claiming that current food insecurity is the result of inequitable food distribution and trade practices. The international trade regime is advised to reconcile trade rules with the consideration of food security issues. Several other enforceable solutions to reduce world hunger and malnutrition are also advanced, including national capacity building, the improvement of governance, and strategic development of biofuel programs. This book will be of great interest to agricultural trade professionals and consultant policy makers in the EU, US and developing countries. Students and researchers with a concentration on international trade, agriculture economics, global governance and international law will benefit greatly from this study.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps, is one of the most controversial forms of social welfare in the United States. Although it’s commonly believed that such federal programs have been cut back since the 1980s, Maggie Dickinson charts the dramatic expansion and reformulation of the food safety net in the twenty-first century. Today, receiving SNAP benefits is often tied to work requirements, which essentially subsidizes low-wage jobs. Excluded populations—such as the unemployed, informally employed workers, and undocumented immigrants—must rely on charity to survive. Feeding the Crisis tells the story of eight families as they navigate the terrain of an expanding network of assistance programs in which care and abandonment work hand in hand to make access to food uncertain for people on the social and economic margins. Amid calls at the federal level to expand work requirements for food assistance, Dickinson shows us how such ideas are bad policy that fail to adequately address hunger in America. Feeding the Crisis brings the voices of food-insecure families into national debates about welfare policy, offering fresh insights into how we can establish a right to food in the United States.

Our global food system is undergoing rapid change. Since the global food crisis of 2007-2008, a range of new issues have come to public attention, such as land grabbing, food prices volatility, agrofuels and climate change. Peasant social movements are trying to respond to these challenges by organizing from the local to the global to demand food sovereignty. As the transnational agrarian movement La Via Campesina celebrates its 20th anniversary, this book takes stock of the movement’s achievements and reflects on challenges for the future. It provides an in-depth analysis of the movement’s vision and strategies, and shows how it has contributed not only to the emergence of an alternative development paradigm but also of an alternative conception of human rights. The book assesses efforts to achieve the international recognition of new human rights for peasants at the international level, namely the 'right to food sovereignty' and 'peasants’ rights'. It explores why La Via Campesina was successful in mobilizing a human rights discourse in its struggle against neoliberalism, and also the limitations and potential pitfalls of using the human rights framework. The book shows that, to inject subversive potential in their rights-based claims rural social activists developed an alternative conception of rights, that is more plural, less statist, less individualistic, and more multi-cultural than dominant conceptions of human rights. Further, they deployed a combination of institutional (from above) and extrainstitutional (from below) strategies to demand new rights and reinforce grassroots mobilization through rights.

Nutritional Anthropology and public health research and programming have employed similar methodologies for decades; many anthropologists are public health practitioners while many public health practitioners have been trained as medical or biological anthropologists. Recognizing such professional connections, this volume provides in-depth analysis and comprehensive review of methods necessary to design, plan, implement and analyze public health programming using anthropological best practices. To illustrates the rationale for use of particular methods, each chapter elaborates a case study from the author's own work, showing why particular methods were adopted in each case.

In an ever changing interconnected world, the agriculture and food system faces constant challenges in many forms, such as the impacts of climate change, uncertainty surrounding the use of novel technologies and the emergence of new zoonotic diseases. Alongside these challenges professionals working in the food system are faced with opportunities to improve food production and distribution. As decision-makers attempt to balance these threats and opportunities in order to secure more sustainable production systems, the key question that arises is: What do we envisage as the future for agriculture and food production? With numerous voices advocating different and sometimes conflicting approaches, ranging from organic farming to wider use of GMOs through in vitro meat production, this discussion of the future raises significant ethical questions. The contributions in this book bring together a diverse group of authors who explore a set of themes relating to the ethical dimensions of the agriculture and food futures, including the role of novel technologies, the potential issues raised by the use of biofuels, the ethics of future animal production systems, concepts of global food security, as well as chapters on food governance priorities and educational aspects. It is intended that this volume serves as an interesting collection and acts as a source of stimulation that will contribute to wider debate and reflection on the future of the agriculture and food system.

In this world of abundant resources and huge wealth, hunger cannot be understood simply as a problem of food production. It is also a matter of human relations. Hunger grows out of widespread indifference and exploitation. The goal of ending hunger has been achieved in many places, including places where people have little money. In stable, strong communities, where people care about one another's well-being, no one goes hungry. That caring is strengthened when people work and play together. This insight tells us the direction we need to take to move toward a world without hunger. The problem of global hunger will be solved when we learn to live together well locally.