This book explores the links between food and democracy. It addresses how democratic principles can be used to shape our food system and takes a practical ‘how-to’ approach to using democratic processes to regain control of the food we eat. It also highlights what food democracy looks like on the ground and how individuals, communities and societies can be empowered to access, cook and eat healthy food in ways that are sustainable. Food democracy, as a concept, is a social movement based on the idea that people can and should be able to actively participate in shaping the food system rather than being passive spectators. The book is useful for university and advanced TAFE courses that cover topics examining food in health sciences, social sciences and other areas of study. It is also relevant to health practitioners, nutritionists, food advocates, policy makers and others with a keen interest in exploring an alternative to the industrial food system known as “Big Food.”

Food Democracy brings together contributions from leading international scholars and activists, critical case studies of emancipatory food practices and reflections on possible models for responsive communication, design and art. The book includes recipes and essays that ask how to counter the role of the food industry as a machine of consumption.

In Food and Power in Hawai`i, island scholars and writers from backgrounds in academia, farming, and community organizations discuss new ways of looking at food policy and practices in terms of social justice and sustainability. Each of the nine essays describes Hawai`i’s foodscapes and collectively makes the case that food is a focal point for public policy making, social activism, and cultural mobilization. With its rich case studies, the volume aims to further debate on the agrofood system and extends the discussion of food problems in Hawai`i. Given the island geography, high dependency on imported food has often been portrayed as the primary challenge in Hawai`i, and the traditional response has been localized food production. The book argues, however, that aspects such as differentiated access, the history of colonization, and the neoliberalized nature of the economy also need to be considered for the right transformation of our food system. The essays point out the diversity of food challenges that Hawai`i faces. They include controversies over land use policies, a gendered and racialized farming population, benefits and costs of biotechnology, stratified access to nutritious foods, as well as ensuring the economic viability of farms. Defying the reductive approach that looks only at calories or tonnage of food produced and consumed as indicators of a sound food system, Food and Power in Hawai`i shows how food problems are necessarily layered with other sociocultural and economic problems, and uses food democracy as the guiding framework. By linking the debate on food explicitly to the issues of power and democracy, each contributor seeks to reframe a discourse, previously focused on increasing the volume of locally grown food or protecting farms, into the broader objectives of social justice, ecological sustainability, and economic viability.

“Grounded in the urban politics of the 21st Century world-wide, this thoughtful volume hooks urban food – and especially its production – to social justice in a realistic and manageable way.” —Diana Lee-Smith, Mazingira Institute, Kenya “An excellent international overview of urban food democracy and governance, with impressive geographical reach.” —Andre Viljoen, University of Brighton, UK This edited collection explores urban food democracy as part of a broader policy-based approach to sustainable urban development. Conceptually, governance and social justice provide the analytical framework for a varied array of contributions which critically address issues including urban agriculture, smart cities, human health and wellbeing and urban biodiversity. Some chapters take the form of thematic, issue-based discussions, where others are constituted by empirical case studies. Contributing authors include both academic experts and practitioners who hail from a wide range of disciplines, professions and nations. All offer original research and robust consideration of urban food democracy in cities from across the Global North and South. Taken as a whole, this book makes a significant contribution to understanding the potential enabling role of good urban governance in developing formal urban food policy that is economically and socially responsive and in tune with forms of community-driven adaptation of space for the local production, distribution and consumption of nutritious food.

Across the globe, people are challenging the agro-industrial food system and its exploitation of people and resources, reduction of local food varieties, and negative health consequences. In this collection leading international anthropologists explore food activism across the globe to show how people speak to, negotiate, or cope with power through food. Who are the actors of food activism and what forms of agency do they enact? What kinds of economy, exchanges, and market relations do they practice and promote? How are they organized and what are their scales of political action and power relations? Each chapter explores why and how people choose food as a means of forging social and economic justice, covering diverse forms of food activism from individual acts by consumers or producers to organized social groups or movements. The case studies embrace a wide geographical spectrum including Cuba, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Mexico, Italy, Canada, France, Colombia, Japan, and the USA. This is the first book to examine food activism in diverse local, national, and transnational settings, making it essential reading for students and scholars in anthropology and other fields interested in food, economy, politics and social change.

Grabbing Power explores the history of agribusiness and land conflicts in Northern Honduras focusing on the Aguán Valley, where peasant movements battle large palm oil producers for the right to land. In the wake of a military coup that overthrew Honduran president Manuel Zelaya in June 2009, rural communities in the Aguán have been brutally repressed, with over 60 people killed in just over two years. United States military aid--spent in the name of the War on Drugs--fuels the Honduran government's ability to repress its people. A strong and inspiring movement for land, food and democracy has grown over the last two years, and it shows no sign of backing down.

This Encyclopedia offers a definitive source on issues pertaining to the full range of topics in the important new area of food and agricultural ethics. It includes summaries of historical approaches, current scholarship, social movements, and new trends from the standpoint of the ethical notions that have shaped them. It combines detailed analyses of specific topics such as the role of antibiotics in animal production, the Green Revolution, and alternative methods of organic farming, with longer entries that summarize general areas of scholarship and explore ways that they are related. Renewed debate, discussion and inquiry into food and agricultural topics have become a hallmark of the turn toward more sustainable policies and lifestyles in the 21st century. Attention has turned to the goals and ethical rationale behind production, distribution and consumption of food, as well as to non-food uses of cultivated biomass and the products of animal husbandry. These wide-ranging debates encompass questions in human nutrition, animal rights and the environmental impacts of aquaculture and agricultural production. Each of these and related topics is both technically complex and involves an – often implicit – ethical dimension. Other topics include methods for integrating ethics into scientific and technical research programs or development projects, the role of intensive agriculture and biotechnology in addressing persistent world hunger and the role of crops, forests and engineered organisms in making a transition to renewable, carbon-neutral sources of energy. The Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Ethics proves an indispensible reference point for future research and writing on topics in agriculture and food ethics for decades to come.