How Is Food Political? Market, State, and Knowledge - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 25

developmental problematics to relatively poor societies now seems quaint given current
knowledge about malnutrition, food-related illnesses, and hunger in rich and rapidly
growing nations. In truth, politics around appropriate technology, adequate nutrition,
food safety, ecological impact of agriculture, and challenges of climate change know
no income threshold. Nor are countries the obvious unit of analysis; rich individuals
whether in India or the United States face risks of overconsumption, just as the poor
in both countries face worse nutritional options than the rich. Nevertheless, “develop-
ment” thinking still drives much food policy and politics.
The World Development Report 2008 of the World Bank, Agriculture for Development ,
specifically recommended greater investment in agriculture in “developing countries.”
The report warned that agriculture must be placed at the center of the development
agenda “if the goals of halving extreme poverty and hunger by 2015 are to be realized.”
Food is a central element of recommended poverty reduction strategies; malnutrition is
a first consequence of poverty. Globally, though roughly 75 percent of the world's poor
live in rural areas in poor nations, only 4 percent of official development assistance is
even targeted for agriculture; much less reaches food producers and hungry people. The
report acknowledged the power of Michael Lipton's analysis of “urban bias.”59 Income
growth originating in agriculture is “about four times more effective in raising incomes
of extremely poor people than GDP growth originating outside the sector.” In terms of
regional poverty, sub-Saharan Africa illustrated the World Bank's point: “public spend-
ing for farming is also only 4 percent of total government spending and the sector is
still taxed at relatively high levels.” Subsequent chapters address where we are lacking
knowledge, what we know about politics driving bad policies, and where knowledge at
the frontier offers great hope for moving forward ethically.
For the richer countries, the production game against nature has declined in politi-
cal significance—food is obtainable with money—and politics takes on issues charac-
terized by luxury of choice: up the Maslovian hierarchy of needs toward treating food
as a matter of identity and self-actualization.60 Choosing between a local product that
is not organic and an organic product that is not local would seem a frivolous anxiety
for the majority of the world's food consumers. Nevertheless, genuine developmental
dilemmas do not magically disappear at some level of per-capita income. As of early
2014, about 47 million Americans received benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition
Assistance Program (SNAP)—the new name for “food stamps”—for those unable to
afford an adequate diet.61 Even in a society that has solved the aggregate food problem
and claims high standards for science-based regulation, public trust in food wavers over
time; anger at inadequate, politicized, or inept regulation erupts episodically. Americans
have become accustomed to press reports of sporadic outbreaks of salmonella and E coli ,
often difficult to trace—some domestic, some with import histories. The Centers for
Disease Control estimate that each year roughly 1 in 6 Americans (or 48 million people)
become ill; 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die of foodborne illnesses ( http://www.
cdc.gov/foodborneburden/ ). Nor is the United States necessarily a laissez-faire outlier;
the “mad-cow” crisis significantly affected European faith in government and science in
regulating food. Insecurities of food supply in rich countries have largely been replaced