Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
ing factors in 2007-08 were substantially different from those in the early 1970s and,
thus, involved new factors to whih the global food system would eventually adjust.
Additional causes of food insecurity external to the food system included the inter-
relation of the global financial crisis and food commodity prices. At one level, the
dynamic of 'financialization' - where previously more tangible economic assets are
converted into financial instruments and traded accordingly - is one of the signal
haracteristics of the world economy in the twenty-first century. In the case of 2008,
however, the relative insecurity of traditional investment targets led to increased
speculation on food commodity futures, exerting further upward pressure on prices.
Suh speculation represents the most extreme effect of the transformation of food
into a commodity as its 'value' is determined on the basis of its potential return to
investment relative to other commodities, with no recognition of its quality as an es-
sential element of life. This situation, we argue, raises the essential issue of whether
we treat food as a vital part of community, family and tradition, or as just another
thing to be bought and sold.
In this topic we also wish to suggest that the representation of the food crisis as
an event, has undermined our ability to respond to global food security in positive
and meaningful ways. To the extent that it assumes the capacity to maintain and
reinforce a particular set of power relations in global society, the representation or
descriptive narrative of a food crisis might be referred to as discourse. This discourse
is then used as a rational basis to promote an inflexible, defined set of responses
and policy solutions - in other words, the fact that a crisis occurred means that
something is not working as it should. There has been a rupture. For the food crisis
of 2008 the pakaging of its causes within a descriptive phrase - the perfect storm
- assumes that we know exactly what is not working. The result is a failure to ac-
knowledge, let alone address, the injustices inherent to the existing food system. In
the concluding hapter, we will argue that the concept of utopia - that is, envision-
ing an alternative food system founded in the recognition of the qualities of food,
including the moral value of the right to food - offers a means to begin restructuring
the food system in more just and flexible terms.
he argument that underlies the analysis in the following hapters is that, rather
than an isolated event caused by a perfect storm of factors, the crisis was indicative
of problems in the global food system as a whole. This is not a novel argument, but
it is one that bears repeating with the essential need to shift away from business-
as-usual. he approahes and positions utilized by the contributing authors to the
