Food Systems Failure

This book provides a critical assessment of the contemporary global food system in light of the heightening food crisis, as evidence of its failure to achieve food security for the world's population. A key aspect of this failure is identified in the neoliberal strategies which emphasize industrial efficiencies, commodity production and free trade-ideologies that underlie agricultural and food policies in what are frequently referred to as 'developed countries'.

The book examines both the contradictions in the global food system as well as the implications of existing ideologies of production associated with commodity industrial agriculture using evidence from relevant international case studies. The book's first section presents the context of the food crisis with contributions from leading international academics and food policy activists, including climate scientists, ecologists and social scientists. These contributions identify current contradictions in policy and practice that impede solutions to the food crisis. Set within this context, the second section assesses current conditions in the global food system, including economic viability, sustainability and productivity. Case study analyses of regions exposed to neoliberal policy at the production end of the system provide insights into both current challenges to feeding the world, as well as alternative strategies for creating a more just and moral food system.

Christopher Rosin is a Research Fellow and Deputy Directory with the Centre for Sustainability: Agriculture, Food, Energy, Environment (CSAFE) at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. His primary research interest is in the social negotiation of sustainability in the agricultural sector.

Paul Stock is a Lecturer in Sociology and a Post-Doctoral Fellow with the Centre for Sustainability: Agriculture, Food, Energy, Environment (CSAFE) at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. Paul’s current research interests include the social and cultural aspects of agriculture, the intersection of morality and the environment, and the Catholic Worker movement.

Hugh Campbell is Professor of Sociology and was formerly Director of the Centre for the Study of Agriculture, Food and Environment at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. His research interests include rural sociology, sustainable agriculture, neoliberalism and agrifood governance, food waste, masculinity and rural gender.