[TLDR (too long didn’t read): If you are reading this, chances are this has aroused your interest. This Reader is about the many things that are wrong with the prevailing food system –and what to do about it. For a quick overview, just read the bolded text]. Traducir/traduire los/les Readers; usar/utiliser deepl.com
–Hunger and food insecurity are in no way inevitable. Each and every child that starves to death is murdered. (Jean Ziegler, human rights activist, 1934-2026) [Ergo, children in Gaza and in Sudan are not just starving, they are being murdered].
Agro-industrial food systems produce violence since they commodify life
1. As land is being commodified in the hands of the few, as for example in land-grabbing, states are selling their food sovereignty. Access to land is central to the right to food; it is not only a natural resource, but its ownership has moved away from being a resource for the peasants’ expression of their self-determination and sovereignty. The right to food is also a political and civic right, not only an economic, social and cultural right. (Michael Fakhri)
The purpose of the food system’s transformation is what it will do (and to whom)
–‘Food system transformation’ has become the mother of all development clichés in this decade.
2. A growing number of scholars and activists contend that the above is not real a transformation —it is more about fiddling on the fringes. To truly overhaul the current food system, we need to see a major shift in the structure and dynamics of power. Unsurprisingly, those in power do not really want such a shift, whatever they proclaim in conferences, interviews and annual reports. But they do want to be seen to be on the right side of history –being thought-leaders, champions of change, game-changers– so they go through the needed cosmetic motions to achieve that. Transformation without political change, without a shift in power, is fake.
3. What is really being discussed in these conferences and reports is transition, not transformation, i.e., an incrementalist journey from one setting to another within the same system. In transitions, the driving force is ‘innovation’. The problem, however, is that any emerging innovations will follow the evolutionary logic of the system, that is, they will be technological, not social. Corporations will retain control, as long as it is still being the same game. Any new policies and programs will be in their image, with their imprint.
4. What it is is that there is something prominently missing. Certain actors who have immense power are nowhere to be seen in transformational efforts. Where are the investors tackling upstream causes to be seen? The hedge funds and asset management firms are surely not interested. Where are the politicians, then? Are they with the corporate lobbyists who aim to defuse, dilute and delay regulation?
5. Corporate power deploys a clever sleight of hand, namely, blaming individuals for social problems (more about this below), relegating everything to behavioral economics, while lobbying against systemic changes. Their interventions mainly target consumer choices –not businesses in food supply chains, not the structural and broader systems-level drivers of, for instance, the rise of ultra-processed edible products (UPEPs, not UPFs) in human diets. The onus is still placed on individuals to change their behavior. The UPEPs industry is not challenged. There is no discussion of the power* and purpose of the food oligopolies that have captured every stage from farm to fork in our global food system.
*: If power is mentioned at all, it is in phrases like ‘managing power dynamics’ or ‘navigating power asymmetries’. We hardly ever see an explicit statement of intent or course of actions to actually change the balance of power in food systems. (adapted from Rebecca Solnit)
6. With all that is said above, this is not transformation, it is tweaking at the margins, piecemeal incrementalism that effectively just supports business-as-usual. Real transformation, on the other hand, involves a radical overhaul in which the system is reinvented and reshaped. In which purpose, power and governance change. Transformation cannot be engineered within the existing system by those who control it. (We have seen a fusion between commercial and political power in recent years that further consolidates lock-ins). Transformation will require pressure from outsideaimed at challenging and disrupting the corporate entrenchment of power.
7. Food system transformation will require a new definition of public value that is, not solely commercial and economic, but grounded in human rights (HR) and ethics. In short, one that is focused on people and planet, not plunder and profit. For this, as this Reader keeps repeating, claim holders themselves will have to become more active, more involved, their voices, not only heard, but exerting influence. (Stuart Gillespie, Food Fight)
8. Ultimately, the most powerful actors in the food system are the ones that use their power politically to confront governments who are not regulating Big Food and Big Soda and, conversely, derail, delay and/or dilute policy that seeks to protect public health (via lobbying and, increasingly, corporate litigation) (S. Gillespie)
The great lifestyle deceit and why we need to re-politicize public health nutrition
9. ‘Lifestyle’ is a word that was coopted and propagated by Big Food and Big Soda (and Big alcohol) to obscure and deceive –to distract us from the harms they are generating; to keep the spotlight on the consumer, not on the product or on the practices behind it.** ‘Lifestyle’ frames public health at a personal level effectively blaming individuals for making irrational decisions that are harmful to their health. Big Food can conveniently obviate responsibility for harms, just as it passes the cost of these harms down the line to individuals, households and health systems. This strategy is so seductive, precisely because it sounds so empowering. But, as a smokescreen, it stigmatizes, alienates and insults people. None of the above implies that we do not have any responsibility…that everything is pre-determined or driven by forces beyond ourselves. Of course not. What we really need is a radical shift in public, media and policy framing to drive a much stronger regulatory action by governments. (S. Gillespie)
You may ask: Why is the United Nations responding so ambiguously?
–How can the UN stay true to its founding principles? –Is it actually united and speaking with one word?
10. Well, there is the UN Business Compact. But the Compact is limited in its impact and has been surpassed, furthermore, it never arranged for much of any accountability.** Many have asked why the Compact did not include health and nutrition in its list of criteria (along with HR, labor, environment, anti-corruption, terrorism, crime, arms, pornography, gambling, tobacco…?).
**: The UN Global Compact calls on businesses to align strategies with universal principles on HR and labor, as outlined in its Principles 1 and 2. It advocates for a “Protect, Respect, and Remedy” framework, requiring companies to implement HR due diligence to prevent, mitigate, and address impacts in their operations and supply chains.
11. UN agencies positions also differ in regards to Big Food (and Big Soda). UNICEF and WHO do not engage with Nestlé; but UN Women, UNESCO, UNU (and Tufts University) do! FAO’s guidelines contain exclusionary criteria including: “manufacturers of sugar-sweetened beverages and/or high in fat, sodium, and/or sugar foods” –but it is not clear whether this precludes FAO from sharing platforms at policy conferences. UNICEF’s position is unequivocal and laudable.
12. The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) is not immune either: The Chair of its Board was a board member of Nestlé for her full term. What this tells us is that public interest civil society organizations have to stay vigilant. (A recent PAHO-Ferrero engagement deal was cancelled and came about only through external pressures). (S. Gillespie)
Bottom Line
—It is the geopolitics, stupid! that is affecting food availability and access for those rendered poor worldwide (referring here to political sanctions, trade disputes, military conflicts, challenges to the multilateral system, aid cuts, planetary heating and spurious corporate interests). (Jomo Sundaram)
13. We do not need corporations to feed us. We need peasants, we need women, we need fisherfolks, we need indigenous peoples. That is who feeds the world today (Michael Fakhri)
—Food economies need to shed decades of corporate capture and become grounded in principles of agroecology, justice, HR and food sovereignty in which the voices of those most affected are heard and acted upon. (IPES Food)
14. Measures are urgently needed include: eliminating conflicts of interest, reducing power asymmetries, repurposing food system subsidies in the North and financial flows and moving towards more robust legal mechanisms that hold all actors (especially the powerful food and beverages industry) accountable for health, social and environmental harm.
15. Alternatives available to the leading agro-industrial food production model and alternatives to the modern (unhealthy) diet have been slow in coming about and are contested by powerful interests so that the diseases that are related to it cannot wait for slow approaches to only slowly succeed. Radical change requires radical ideas (and vice-versa). (Mike Lee) …and this is what this Reader attempted to share with you.
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
Your comments are welcome at schuftan@gmail.com
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