Food System Intermediaries (Paperback)

Adrian Hearn

ISBN 10: 0262553511 / ISBN 13: 9780262553513

Published by MIT Press Ltd, 2025

About this Item

Paperback. A cutting-edge analysis of food systems sustainability, including COVID's impact on current food systems, in up-to-date case studies of community farms in Australia, Brazil, Cuba, and China.A cutting-edge analysis of food systems sustainability, including COVID's impact on current food systems, in up-to-date case studies of community farms in Australia, Brazil, Cuba, and China.What does expanding agribusiness-and community resistance to it-reveal about the influence of global trends on local livelihoods, and conversely, the influence of food traditions on international networks? In Food System Intermediaries, anthropologist Adrian Hearn examines how small farmers and their allies are defending their lands and livelihoods from expanding commodity plantations. At the heart of these encounters are food system intermediaries- people who carefully articulate food traditions to forge consensus among otherwise disconnected community producers, local governments, and urban customers. Their efforts to bring these groups together must contend with alternative portrayals of food circulated by more powerful corporate and government actors.The book offers case studies of urban farms in Melbourne, S o Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Beijing, and Havana to demonstrate how intermediaries are building alliances to cultivate more sustainable food systems, particularly as China's impact on global agriculture deepens. "As China's impact on global agriculture deepens, the book shows how community intermediaries in Australia, Latin America, and China are building alliances to cultivate more sustainable food systems"-- Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9780262553513

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Food System Intermediaries (Paperback)
• Publisher: MIT Press Ltd
• Publication Date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0262553511
• ISBN 13: 9780262553513
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

A cutting-edge analysis of food systems sustainability, including COVID’s impact on current food systems, in up-to-date case studies of community farms in Australia, Brazil, Cuba, and China.

What does expanding agribusiness—and community resistance to it—reveal about the influence of global trends on local livelihoods, and conversely, the influence of food traditions on international networks?  In Food System Intermediaries, anthropologist Adrian Hearn examines how small farmers and their allies are defending their lands and livelihoods from expanding commodity plantations. At the heart of these encounters are food system intermediaries: people who carefully articulate food traditions to forge consensus among otherwise disconnected community producers, local governments, and urban customers. Their efforts to bring these groups together must contend with alternative portrayals of food circulated by more powerful corporate and government actors.

The book offers case studies of urban farms in Melbourne, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Beijing, and Havana to demonstrate how intermediaries are building alliances to cultivate more sustainable food systems, particularly as China’s impact on global agriculture deepens.

About the Author

Adrian H. Hearn teaches at the University of Melbourne. His books include Diaspora and Trust, Cuba, The Changing Currents of Transpacific Integration, and China Engages Latin America. His organization, Suns of Mercury, works with communities around the world to create music, films, and urban farms.