| It¹s a perverse
fact of modern life: There are more starving people in the
world than ever before (800 million) while there are also
more people overweight (1 billion).
To find out how we got to this point and what we can do
about it, Raj Patel launched a comprehensive investigation
into the global food network. It took him from the
colossal supermarkets of California to India's wrecked
paddy–fields and Africa's bankrupt coffee farms, while
along the way he ate genetically engineered soy beans and
dodged flying objects in the protestor–packed streets of
South Korea.
What he found was shocking, from the false choices
given us by supermarkets to a global epidemic of farmer
suicides, and real reasons for famine in Asia and Africa.
Yet he also found great cause for hope—in
international resistance movements working to create a
more democratic, sustainable and joyful food system. Going
beyond ethical consumerism, Patel explains, from seed to
store to plate, the steps to regain control of the global
food economy, stop the exploitation of both farmers and
consumers, and rebalance global sustenance.
RAJ PATEL, former policy analyst for Food First, a
leading food think tank, is a visiting scholar at the UC
Berkeley Center for African Studies. He has written for
the Los Angeles Times and the Financial Times, and though
he has worked for the World Bank, WTO and the UN, he¹s
also been tear-gassed on four continents protesting them.
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