ISS-4343 Political Economy of the Global Food System
Code
Weight of the course
Period
Course Leader
Lecturer
Teaching Methods
Modes of Assessment
Contact
ISS-4343
8 ECTS
TERM 3
Mindi Schneider & Harriet Friedmann
Mindi Schneider, Harriet Friedmann, Olivier de Schutter, Jun Borras
Participatory Lecture, Tutorials, Workshop (Group work)
Assignments: 90% (40% and 50% Essays), Group Assignment: 10%
Nalini Harnam
Learning objectives
The course is designed both for AES participants and for students of other Majors whose research
interests relate to the political economy of hunger and the global food system. The course aims to
strengthen your capacity for critical analysis of the broad issue of food and farming systems. You will
become familiar with theoretical tools for understanding the roles of powerful corporations and states
in the organization of agrifood systems, the social and ecological implications of present trends, and
emerging alternatives aiming for food justice and sustainability. On completion of the course you will
have gained confidence in critical theoretical and policy analysis at inter-connected local, national and
international levels.
Course description
Why do we have a coexistence of a billion hungry and a billion overweight people across and within
the North-South divide? Why is agriculture now acknowledged as a major contributor to climate
change and biodiversity loss, while evicting millions of farmers from countrysides? How did we get
here? Who are the winners, and who are the losers? What are the trajectories of the current model ,
and what and where are the emerging alternatives for a just and sustainable agrifood system? What
political and institutional instruments are being developed and deployed in the hope of agrifood
system transformation? These are some of the most challenging questions confronting humanity
today, and the questions we want to explore in the course.
Block 1 examines key theoretical explanations of world hunger and related food issues. Block 2 is
devoted to understanding the historical origins, current conditions, and most pressing issues in the
global agrifood system. We focus on power relations that underlie global and local inequalities in the
production, circulation, and consumption of food, asking questions about how these relations came to
be, and how they are resisted. Block 3 considers how ‘alternative’ food initiatives might constellate
into a different and better agrifood system, including discussions on citizen-led initiatives for change,
food sovereignty, urban and peri-urban agriculture, and agroecology. Block 4 will be a day-long,
student-led, peer review/seminar discussion among students on the outline of their final essay
assignment.
Indicative readings
McMichael, P. (2013) Food Regimes and Agrarian Questions. Halifex: Fernwood Publishing.
Sen, A. K. (1983) Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
van der Ploeg, J. D. (2010) ‘The Food Crisis, Industrialized Farming and the Imperial Regime’,
Journal of Agrarian Change 10(1): 98-106.
Friedmann, H. (2005) ‘Feeding the Empire: The Pathologies of Globalized Agriculture’. Socialist
Register 41: 124-143.
Weis, T. (2010) ‘The Accelerating Biophysical Contradictions of Industrial Capitalist Agriculture’.
Journal of Agrarian Change 10(3): 315-341.
Gonzalez de Molina, M. (2013) ‘Agroecology and Politics. How to Get Sustainability? About the
Necessity for a Political Agroecology’, Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems 37(1): 4559.