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Food is Different
Why We Must Get the WTO out of Agriculture
Food is Different
Why We Must Get the WTO out of Agriculture
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Description
Why does our global food system gives us expensive, unhealthy and bad-tasting food, where we pay more for packaging and long-distance shipping than we do for the food itself? Why do farmers and peasants from around the world lead massive protests each and every time the World Trade Organization meets?
Peter Rosset explains how the runaway free trade policies and neoliberal economics of the WTO, American government and European Union kill farmers, and give us a food system that nobody outside of a small corporate elite wants. This essential guide sets out an alternative vision for agricultural policy, taking it completely out of the WTO's ambit. Food is not just another commodity, to be bought and sold like a microchip, but something which goes to the heart of human livelihood, culture and society.
Table of Contents
Foreword: Farmers Around the World Lose out Under the WTO, by George Naylor
Introduction: Trade versus Development?
1. Trade Negotiations and Trade Liberalization
2. Key Issues, Misconceptions, Disagreements and Alternative Paradigms
3. Dumping and Subsidies: Unravelling the Confusion
4. The Impacts of Liberalized Agricultural Trade
5. Alternatives for a Different Agriculture and Food System
Conclusion - Another Food System is Possible
Special Topics:
How the WTO Rules Agriculture
Government Negotiating Blocs
Where European and American Family Farmers Stand
Where Peasant and Family Farm Organizations Stand
Food from Family Farms Act: a Proposal for the 2007 US Farm Bill
For a Legitimate, Sustainable and Supportive CAP
People's Food Sovereignty Statement
Product details
Published | 29 Feb 2008 |
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Format | Ebook (PDF) |
Edition | 1st |
Extent | 193 |
ISBN | 9781848130647 |
Imprint | Zed Books |
Series | Global Issues |
Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
About the contributors
Reviews
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...Looks at the key issues..Feasible policy proposals are presented concerning dumping, supply management, anti-trust measures, subsidies, and venues for negotiations that could achieve just that.
CAB Abstracts Database
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A clear and accessible account of the impact of trade liberalisation on farming.
Food Ethics
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Rosset explains the market tools put forward by the World Trade Organization regarding agriculture, showing how they function and malfunction. He argues for alternative methods that build up the "food sovereignty" movement. Food is Different covers an essential subject.
Horizons
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Peter Rosset eloquently illustrates that food is the basis of human existence and that it intertwines the lives of farmers, consumers and the environment. Food is Different should be read by all who are willing to build food sovereignty on a local, regional and global level as well as by those who believe the current WTO system is working - it will change their minds.
Andrianna Natsoulas, Food and Water Watch
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The message of the book is that food is not like any other commodity that is traded across borders, but is different beacuse of the way it is produced..
Leisa Magazine Ecological processes at work.
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Food is Different comes at a time where the WTO is being criticed and discredited by both governments and civil society, and it brings to the fore the real alternatives being proposed by social movements all over the world. This is a timely publication that gives voice and expression to those who have none.
Paul Nicholson, European Farmers Coordination (CPE) and La Via Campesina

ONLINE RESOURCES
Bloomsbury Collections
This book is available on Bloomsbury Collections where your library has access.