Global Movements for Food Justice - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 715

Chapter 29
Global Movements for
Food Justice
M. Jahi Chappell
Introduction
The surge in interest in food systems of the past decades, and the concurrent rise of food
movements, should come as no surprise given recent trends in the global food system.1
A number of factors have contributed to the rise of these movements, including the
following:
• foodsystemconsolidation
• diminishingproportionsofthefooddollararrivinginfarmers'hands
• neoliberalizationofthefoodsystemandwithdrawalofstatesupportforagriculture
• persistentandwidespreadhunger
• 25-50percentofproducedfoodendingupaswaste
• homogenizationofdiets
• thecontinuingplightoftheworld'shungryandpoor—withsmallholderfarmers
ironically making up over half of the hungry in the world2
These factors offer more than sufficient grounds for the rise of food movements contest-
ing the direction and nature of these trends.
These movements are fighting for the reinsertion of “defensible values” into the food
system; namely, the reprioritization of human rights, aesthetics, sustainability, and
equity. They claim that the neoliberal aspirations of minimal state involvement, nomi-
nally free markets, and the extension of private property regimes have led to market
concentration and excessively large and powerful corporations. Further, this has come
at the cost of increasing inequality and the continued neglect of less powerful popula-
tionsandimportantnonmarketvalues(Holt-Giménezetal.2009;Gold,thisvolume).