Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Planning Studies
) or interdisciplinary heritages (e.g.,
International Journal of the
Sociology of Agriculture and Food
,
Agriculture and Human Values
). Human geog-
raphers have succeeded in obtaining research monies from national funding sources.
A steady stream of empirically grounded theorisations from different research
groupings has appeared in the international literature. All this said, a Google search
of 'food geography' conducted in early 2008 reveals just seven university courses
(only one was outside the USA) and the surprising paucity of geographical writings
in the course reading lists. Yet, considerable contemporary interest in food and
agriculture - within geography - can be found. In 2006, for instance, a theme of
the International Geographical Union 'The Dynamics of Economic Spaces' Com-
mission was 'Agri-food commodity chains and globalizing networks'. A year later,
both the Association of American Geographers and the Institute of British Geogra-
phers conferences had multiple, well-attended and vibrant sessions dealing with
'food'.
The chapter opens by looking at pressing issues around global agriculture and
food identifi ed in an international literature that is biased towards what is happen-
ing in developing nations. The literature deals with food for affl uent consumers as
comprehended from Europe and North America, rather than livelihoods for the
many and poor in other places. The chapter then turns to understandings of the
origins and emergence of globalising food and agriculture developed since the late
1980s. This work is heavily infl uenced by human geographers using political
economy approaches, and with a production emphasis. This is followed by discus-
sion of food consumption, focusing on aspects of cultural economy, well-being and
moral evaluations. In the 2000s, after cultural and social geographers had enriched
the fi eld in the previous decade, a signifi cant convergence of ideas began. Increas-
ingly, work centres on the nexus of political economy and moral economy, although
there is still hesitation about acknowledging and using jointly what each tradition
has to offer.
Situating Agriculture and Food
Food, after water, is the second concern of daily life for humans. Food is implicated
in who dies, starves or goes hungry, where and why, on the planet today (Grigg,
1981; Watts and Bohle, 1993). The Food and Agriculture Organisation's (FAO)
State of Food Insecurity Report (2006) estimated that over 850 million people
worldwide suffer from hunger and malnutrition, including 820 million in developing
countries. Those most affected live in countries dependent on food imports. Some
37 countries, 20 in Africa, 9 in Asia, 6 in Latin America and 2 in Eastern Europe
currently face exceptional food shortages in food production and supply. Over 40,
mostly developing countries, depend on a single agricultural commodity for more
than 20 percent of their total export income (International Fund for Agricultural
Development, 2004). Issues such as household food insecurity, the physical and
economic access to adequate food for all members of the household, without undue
risk of losing that access, have been considered by the International Geographical
Union Commissions on the Geography of Famine and Vulnerable Food Systems.
Plenty and poverty are different starting points when examining agriculture and
food.
Today a wide spectrum of actors is trying to redirect the food agenda in develop-
ing and developed countries. Agriculture and food are contested arenas. That struc-
