Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System - Softcover

Patel, Raj

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1933633492 ISBN 13: 9781933633497

Publisher: Melville House Pub, 2008

Synopsis

How can starving people also be obese?
Why does everything have soy in it?
How do petrochemicals and biofuels control the price of food?

It's 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.

About this title

About the Author:

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, he's also been tear-gassed on four continents protesting them.

About this edition

• Publisher: Melville House Pub
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1933633492
• ISBN 13: 9781933633497
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 398