Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
threats of the 'soyization' process and the implications for food sovereignty in the
Southern Cone.
Kiah Smith and Kristen Lyons shit atention to small-scale producers in Africa
in
hapter 12
Negotiating organic, fair and ethical trade: lessons from smallholders in
Uganda and Kenya.
In this case, the focus is on two situations in whih an emphasis
on quality (organic and audit system defined products) offers a potential pathway to
a more equitable engagement with the global food system. The quality focus of the
products facilitates privileged access to European markets and promises more demo-
cratic production conditions. Smith and Lyons conclude that social issues of power
inequalities related to gender and class remain to be overcome before the potential
of this engagement can be realized.
Alec Thornton concludes the second section with an assessment of the develop-
ment of urban agriculture in
hapter 13
Food for thought? Linking up urban agricul-
ture and local food production for food security and development in the South Pacific.
In both Samoa and Fiji, tourism and industry have initiated a shift from customary
food production systems on communal lands to market oriented production on the
urban fringe. Thornton compares the systems of provision that have emerged around
community-initiated farmers' markets and offers an insight to the potential for urb-
an food production to contribute to domestic food security.
Eah of the hapters in the topic stands alone as a critique of a speciic aspect of
business-as-usual as it pertains to global food security. As a whole, they form a com-
prehensive condemnation of the global food system that has failed to remain true
to the imperative to feed the world. We argue that the food crisis was more than a
momentary blip, an event that developed as the result of a discrete set of new in-
fluences on the global market for food commodities. Something needs to be done -
not merely to alleviate the vagaries of commodity prices, but also to re-establish the
moral foundation of the imperative to feed the world. In the conclusion, we return
to this point, arguing that this necessarily radical hange involves a redeining of
the utopia of a food-secure world. Suh a utopian perspective is founded in the es-
sentialization of food not as a commodity, but as a fundamental element of human
existence.
