scholarly journals Winning the War of the World

2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
John McMurtry

The global corporate experiment has failed. Existence on earth is in rapid decline on every level of life organization. The air, soil and water cumulatively degrade and disappear; the climates and oceans destabilize without connection; species become extinct at a spasm rate across continents; pollution cycles and volumes rise endangering life systems on all planes in synergistic despoliation; the world’s forests, meadows and fisheries are cumulatively destroyed by the profit drivers of globalization; food pollinators, songbirds, coral reefs and large animals crash in unconnected response; public sectors and services are defunded and privatized as tax evasion by the rich multiplies; the global food system produces more and more disabling junk and wastes; non-contagious diseases multiply to the world’s biggest killer; the global financial system issues money out of control while collapsing in productive investment; the vocational future of the next generations is erased across the world; official lies and corruption are normalized as public relations. All the trends are one-way, degenerate, and undeniable.

Focaal ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 (83) ◽  
pp. 72-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Astrid B. Stensrud

The neoliberal global food system has intensified the uncertainties associated with peasant farming and agrarian livelihoods around the world. This article examines processes of precarization among smallholder farmers in the Majes Irrigation Project in Peru. By discussing price volatility and uncertainty related to the “free market,” I argue that the conditions of small-scale entrepreneurial farmers today can best be understood in terms of gambling and precarity. After four decades of neoliberal deregulation, farmers in Majes describe agriculture as a “lottery” where one can win or lose everything. Despite prospects of growth and progress, most farmers rely on low-income dairy farming or contracted crops for agro-industrial corporations. The freedom to take risks in the open market entails uncertainty and often results in loss, and farmers must negotiate the ambiguous relation between autonomy and dependency.


2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 504 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ragnheiður Bogadóttir ◽  
Elisabeth Skarðhamar Olsen

Abstract While the doxa of growth continues to dominate mainstream understandings of what constitutes a healthy economy, the concept and agenda of degrowth beg for theorization about how culture and power render some economic strategies more viable and meaningful than others. In this article we discuss the highly contested practice of Faroese pilot whaling, grindadráp. Through autoethnographic methods we identify and analyze forces challenging this deep-rooted practice, both within and outside Faroese society. Faroese resistance to abandon the practice, expressed in local pro-whaling narratives suggest that, in the struggle to legitimize the grindadráp as a sustainable and eco-friendly practice, Faroese people are simultaneously deconstructing central tenets of the global food system, and comparing grindadráp favorably with the injustices and cruelties of industrial food procurement. In this sense, we argue that the grindadráp not only constitutes a locally meaningful alternative to growth-dominated economic practices, but may also, in this capacity, inspire Faroese people to reduce engagement with economic activities that negatively impact the environment and perpetuate social and environmental injustices in the world. Keywords: Degrowth, whaling, Faroe Islands, relational ethic, noncapitalism.


1978 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 655-677
Author(s):  
Robert L. Paarlberg

Too often world food problems are viewed as North-South problems, as matters to be resolved between rich and poor. In fact, most world food trade takes place entirely among the rich. The industrial nations of the European Community, Japan, and the USSR import more food today than all of the poor countries combined. These industrial food importing nations make a dubious contribution to the stability and security of the world food system. In different measure, they seek to shift adjustment burdens onto others, to enjoy something of a free ride. All have subsidized production for export in times of world surplus, and all have stepped ahead of poor countries to purchase high priced imports in times of scarcity. To these burden-shifting trade policies, the USSR in particular adds its own troublesome nonparticipation in most multilateral efforts at world food policy management. Prospects for improved burden sharing in the future are dim. Fortunately, the world food system still gains most of its stability and security from separate production decisions within nations, rather than from collective storage, trade, or aid decisions among nations.


Author(s):  
Vladimir Gorev ◽  
Olga Djunina

Public relations have always been full of contradictions. The roots of these contradictions are in the system of economic relations. It is not a coincidence that it has always been the task of economics, first of all, to reveal the nature of economic relations and, secondly, to find ways to resolve the social contradictions caused by these relations. The evolution of economic theories reflects the search for ways of solving the problem. Economic theory has constantly experienced pressure of certain social groups at various stages of its development, that benefited from the historical realities developed at the given time. The interest of these social groups have almost always been limited to the desire to prove that the existing system of economic relations is not historically transient, but the eternal and the best possible one. Having excluded production from the system of economic relations, reducing the extent of production relations to market relations, modern economic theories do not go beyond vulgar political economy. The article deals with the problem of property and social inequality, as a factor that slows down economic growth in Russia, as well as the possibilities of modern theoretical concepts to explain the essence of the economic contradictions of the modern world. There have always been poverty and injustice in the world. But if the gap between the rich and the poor has diminished in the last century, the world has returned to its state on the eve of the First World War by the beginning of the 21st century, as far as the degree of inequality is concerned.


Author(s):  
N. Shurakova

The article examines the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the world food system (WFS) through the prism of economic and social aspects. It is revealed that the paralysis of world trade caused by the coronavirus pandemic has had a devastating effect on the WFS and threatens global food security. It is proved that in order to prevent a food crisis in the foreseeable future, it is necessary to restructure food systems at the national and global levels, ensure their stability and continuity of operation. Some measures are proposed to prevent trade barriers, protect food supply chains and expand access to food. It is concluded that there is a need to expand domestic «food sovereignty», especially in countries that depend on agricultural imports and are involved in the global food trade system.


2021 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-33
Author(s):  
Madison Powers

The coming decades will present an immense challenge for the planet: sustainably feeding nearly ten billion people that are expected to be alive by 2050. This is no small task, and one that intersects with climate change, geopolitics, the increased globalization of agricultural markets, and the emergence of new technologies. The world faces a challenge of increased demand, propelled by an expanding world population and a global shift in dietary patterns toward more resource-intensive foods. Moreover, changes in demand occur in the context of declining soil fertility and freshwater availability, agriculture's growing contribution to water pollution and climate change, and the emerging threats to agricultural productivity caused by climate disruption.


Author(s):  
Gerelene Jagganath

As the world becomes more urbanized and poverty and food insecurity rise, it is inevitable that varied forms of urban agriculture (UA) will play an important role in the future of the global food system. Food security presents a global challenge particularly among vulnerable groups and the poor and the great cities of Africa are no exception. This study presents an overview of two African cities and the evolving presence of UA in these cityscapes. It is an attempt to examine and explore the potential of smart cities toward supporting urban agricultural practices in Africa. The 1st part of the study provides a brief conceptual background on smart cities and UA in the African context, while the 2nd part provides an overview of the development of two smart cities, namely, Cape Town (South Africa) and Arusha (Tanzania) specifically.


Author(s):  
Surbhi Kapur

The majority of the nations around the world have become melting pots of civilization, leading to an increasing interconnectedness of the global food system. However, with the long-winded food supply chains there exists information asymmetry between the consumers and the food they consume, making them more vulnerable to the outbreaks of diseases caused by tainted food. As an assurance that food is acceptable for human and animal consumption, food safety averts any exposure to food frauds and foodborne illness outbreaks therefrom. For this reason, the law endows the food regulators and the food business operators (FBOs) with the “trace, alert, and recall” tools at all levels of a food supply chain to regulate the safety of both the domestic as well as the imported articles of food. As a risk assessment and management tool, traceability furthers the mandate of law enforcement in facilitating and targeting the recall or removal/withdrawal of articles of foods.


Author(s):  
Henk Jochemsen ◽  
Corné J. Rademaker

Today's predominant food system on the one hand produces plenty of food, making food relatively cheap for most people in the world. However, for many people, the food they can afford is insufficiently nutritious. Major global health problems like obesity are partly a result of the present food system. Furthermore, the modern industrial way of producing food has negative environmental consequences, consisting among others of a decline in soil fertility and a loss of biodiversity. Another food system is required to obtain sustainable global food and nutrition security. This food system should observe the normativity of the agricultural practices that produce food. The authors' analysis of agricultural practices shows that the farm is economically qualified but that the primary process of care for soil, crops, and animals can best be seen as an ethically qualified supporting practice that steers the “meaningful shaping” of the interventions foundational for agricultural practices.


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