rationalism of capitalism.
In this sense, the chapter of Praveen Jha, Santosh Verma, Manish Kumar is a great opportunity to start with the analytical chapters of the book, since it covers these dimensions. The authors relate the beginning and deepening of neoliberalism in India with the serious food problems that seem to be getting worse and worse in this country. In fact, they mention that the characteristics that development has had since the neoliberal stage in India have strongly affected the supply of adequate food for the population. Moreover, all this took place while the country lived a stage of strong GDP growth. The drivers the authors mention to explain this are: the orientation of production to exports, the focalization of food distribution policies, the decline in income of the rural and urban population, the expulsion of peasants from the land, the cutback of public expenditures in the agricultural sector.
Dialoguing with the issues mentioned earlier, Ana Carolina Oliveira and Maria Luiza Feitosa emphasize the importance of considering food to be a human right as well as the importance of public policies for achieving this right. The authors highlight the role that states should play in guaranteeing the right to food, which does not imply only secure access to food according to cultural guidelines but also individual emancipation and autonomy in the consumption and production of food. The authors thus contribute to the discussion of human security, as they consider food sovereignty to be a matter that goes beyond food security, rather than the reverse.
Note that the solution poses a challenge to the idea of “one Humanity”: dividing in an attempt to achieve solidarity? That is, does sovereignty need to be valued as an element that makes communities independent, in order for those communities to better feed themselves in the face of transnational economic forces? Whatever the answer, it seems foolish to disregard national constitutions as a privileged instrument for guiding the adequate nourishment of the population. The trend in this regard is encouraging: several countries have incorporated the HRAF into their constitutions.
One example of the potential international interference in national agrifood systems is offered by Thiago Lima, Erbenia Lourenço and Henrique Menezes. They discuss the reasons behind international food aid from the US to African and Latin American countries containing genetically modified organisms. Although there are humanitarian motivations for the donations, there are also clear economic interests and a disrespect for the recipients’ preferences. Certain international forums and dispute settlement environments may thus play a key role in shifting dysfunctional agrifood systems towards food sovereignty.
Indeed, it is not surprising to find that trade agreements and international organizations can reinforce the hierarchical relationship among countries in the North-South direction, keeping the latter vulnerable and dependent. However, international agreements and organizations can also be mobilized to spread solidarity among countries.
South-South cooperation to promote food and nutrition security is one example. In this context, the UN World Food Program’s Centre of Excellence against Hunger, established in Brazil, excels at encouraging international cooperation in school food and nutrition. Clarissa Dri and Andressa Silva examine the Centre’s actions through the principles of South-South cooperation, in terms of the autonomy of the countries involved and of strategic relations beyond the economic sphere. It is one example of how food security is more political than economic, as it does not depend as heavily on a country’s ability to produce food but rather on deciding which food to produce and how to distribute it. South-South cooperation can therefore be a strategy for solidarity, which reinforces sovereignty.
In this vein, Felipe Albuquerque explains how policies to fight against hunger and poverty implemented in Brazil in the 2000s (at least until 2016) created a repertoire of success that enabled Brazilian diplomacy to make the country a relevant power for the region and for other developing countries. Throughout the text, Albuquerque shows how changes in the general direction of the economy (from President Lula to President Roussef and then to President Temer) impacted the country’s external role as an international engine for policies to fight against hunger. This role is called into question by the movement that ousted President Dilma Roussef and brought her vice president, Michel Temer, to power.
A crucial food for Latin America is maize, and the history of its uses has much to do with the relations that Latin American countries have with developed countries. In their chapter, Andrea Santos Baca and Julia Cristina de Sousa e Berruezo show the role of maize in the world food market and the constructed image of it as a second class food, in a colonial attempt to sweep away the customs of the local people of Latin America and impose a mode of feeding similar to the European one, at the same time as spreading European uses of it worldwide. Furthermore, as the authors show, this crop has become one of the first to go through a process of hybridization and genetic modification, which responds to the “negative” image of food for animals (and not humans) that the Europeans gave to maize, as opposed to the images of wheat or rice as typically human foods. In other words, the apparent “advantage” of maize as a genetically modified food hides the value that the colonizing culture placed on it.
The relationship between economics, politics and food security is examined more deeply in the chapter by Agostina Costantino. This chapter brings us closer to the end of the book through a dialogue with the opening chapter on food security in India. The author reveals the irrelevance of Argentina’s image as the “world’s breadbasket,” given the presence of thousands of undernourished or malnourished people in the country. Costantino shows how structural reforms implemented since the late 1970s—and more intensely since the 1990s—contributed to pushing aside the objective of food security, directing the entire economic structure towards the production of a (small) number of foods for export. In terms of international relations, this chapter offers a discussion of land grabbing by investors and foreign countries, which exacerbates food security and even calls the country’s food sovereignty into question.
Closely related to the previous one, the chapter of Sol Mora deals with the general problem developed by Agostina Costantino, but in two specific case studies of Chinese investments in Argentina: an agri-food project and the building of an irrigation aqueduct. In both cases, it is about thousands of hectares that the Asian country intended to control in Argentina. Mora’s hypothesis is challenging because most studies on land grabbing of national cases tend to focus separately either on the role of nation states, or on the social conflicts that have arisen, or on the interests of companies when setting up in other countries. This work not only addresses the problem comprehensively by including these three actors through the concept of governance, but also includes a protagonist not always considered in these studies: sub-national states, which are ultimately the ones that shape the relations that national governments end up having with other countries. The examples of Sol Mora show the effects that the current policy of relations with China can have on food security and the environment in the Southern Cone.
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The biological constitution of the human being seems to be a perpetual prison or an eternal reminder that we are not only fragile but also intimately connected to nature. Developing bonds of solidarity not only among human beings but also with nature itself is a fundamental question. Along these lines, it is essential to understand the challenges and opportunities found in the context of international relations, in order to shape a political force capable of guaranteeing the HRAF for all people. We cannot accept, two decades into the twenty-first century, that “one in three women of reproductive age globally is still affected by anemia.” Such data reveal the lack of care for our today and tomorrow, as anemia has “significant health and development consequences for both women and their children” (FAO, 2018, p.16). It is necessary to build agrifood systems that solve these types of problems. The further we move in this direction, the closer we come to glimpsing “one Humanity,” not in the distressing sense of the Anthropocene but in the urgent sense of social justice.
The International Agri-Food Studies Network (Rede de Estudos Agroalimentares Internacionais—Redagri) and its collaborators wish everyone happy reading and lively debates!
