poverty with added vitamins? competing ways to govern the world food system’ raj patel

Poverty With Added Vitamins?Competing Ways To Govern

The World Food System

Raj PatelResearch Professor

Lyndon B Johnson School of Public Affairs University of Texas at Austin

Which is the most important agricultural technology?

1. the plough2. fencing3. the seed drill 4. inorganic fertilizer5. genetically modified crops

•19th century21st century

TECHNOLOGY OF EXCLUSION

Source: UK Ordnance Survey

Global Ecological Footprint:Cheap Nature

Davis, Steven J., and Ken Caldeira. 2010. "Consumption-based accounting of CO2 emissions." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107 (12):5687-92.

Cheap Workers need Cheap Food needs Cheap Nature

Credit: Mike Mozart (cc v2 license)

THE FOOD INDUSTRY

New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition

Source: The Guardian

Business Alliance for Food and Fortification

• ‘Companies already own the right technology to make a difference as well as the distribution channels and communication networks’

Business Alliance for Food and Fortification 2005

Source: ONE (2013)

Malawi’s Key Commitments

1. Improved score on Doing Business Index to top 100 countries

2. Increased dollar value of private sector investment in the agriculture sector and value added agro-processing

3. Increased private investment in commercial production, sale of inputs and produce and value addition

Some specific commitments to the New Alliance

Source: New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition

So Why is it Called the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition?

Source: Kevin Dooley/Flickr, Nishan Bichajian/MIT Libraries

The Era of Poverty with Added Vitamins

Malawi’s Problem in 2000

• Life expectancy : 46 years old• HIV/AID Prevalence: 14%• Child malnutrition (stunting): 50%• GDP/Capita: $150

Soils, Food and Healthy Communities Project, Malawi

Source: Raj Patel, Rachel Bezner Kerr, Lizzie Shumba, Laifolo Dakishoni. 2015. Cook, Eat, Man, Woman: The New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, Nutritionism and its Alternatives from Malawi. Journal of Peasant Studies, 42(1)

Results

• Sanitation & Healthcare• Grain Storage• Credit facilities• Climate change enterprise• Child Malnutrition Clinic closes• Cost $8/person/year

Source: Smith, Lisa C., and Lawrence Haddad. 2015. "Reducing Child Undernutrition: Past Drivers and Priorities for the Post-MDG Era." World Development 68 (0):180-204. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2014.11.014.

Food Sovereignty &Agroecology

• Everyone is a scientist-entrepreneur-activist-cook

• Contributive justice• Peer-to-peer• Joyful and tough• Internalised social and environmental costs• Re-learning the commons• Challenge power and inequality

Questions• What’s your theory

of change?• What happens to

corporate power?• What happens to

private property?

Gandhi on Salt March

Thank you

• RAJPATEL@UTEXAS.EDU• @_RAJPATEL