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| Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System | 
 enlarge | Author: Raj Patel
Publisher: Melville House
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 8590
Media: Paperback
Edition: 398
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 448
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.4 x 1.2
ISBN: 1933633492
Dewey Decimal Number: 338.19
EAN: 9781933633497
ASIN: 1933633492
Publication Date: April 25, 2008
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Product Description
“One of the most dazzling books I have read in a very long time. The product of a brilliant mind and a gift to a world hungering for justice.”?Naomi Klein, author of No Logo and The Shock Doctrine Half the world is malnourished, the other half obese?both symptoms of the corporate food monopoly. To show how a few powerful distributors control the health of the entire world, Raj Patel conducts a global investigation, traveling from the “green deserts” of Brazil and protester-packed streets of South Korea to bankrupt Ugandan coffee farms and barren fields of India. What he uncovers is shocking?the real reasons for famine in Asia and Africa, an epidemic of farmer suicides, and the false choices and conveniences in supermarkets. Yet he also finds hope?in international resistance movements working to create a more democratic, sustainable, and joyful food system. From seed to store to plate, Stuffed and Starved explains the steps to regain control of the global food economy, stop the exploitation of farmers and consumers, and rebalance global sustenance. RAJ PATEL, policy analyst for Food First, a leading food think tank, is a visiting scholar at the UC Berkeley Center for African Studies. He has written for the Los Angeles Times and the Guardian, and though he has worked for the World Bank, WTO, and the UN, he’s also been tear-gassed on four continents protesting them.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 Comprehensive overview of world food system filled with startling stories and data April 9, 2008
58 out of 59 found this review helpful
I've known bits and pieces about how our food gets to us but nothing that lays it out as this book does. Chapters range from what's happening to farmers and farms here in the U.S. and in diverse places like South Africa, India, Korea. Patel then moves on to the middlemen in the food chain, the food companies that exert control on farmers and consumers, and finally spends time on supermarkets, as well as the corporate sculpting of our tastes.
It's an opinionated book - but doesn't try to hide it. Regardless of where you're coming from, the book is so engaging and chockerblock full of information that you're likely to come away with new knowledge, at least. I moved along further in actually changing some of my thinking. Prior to reading this book I understood perhaps intuitively that oligopolistic corporate control over anything is bad for everyone other than the corporation. But Patel, as his Time review said, really did connect the dots in the story from farm to fork, and as a result I have much more specific concerns, many of which will likely influence some choices I make.
Favorites include the chapter on soy - the hidden ingredient I had no idea existed in so much of the food I buy. Stories about the industrial allure of Soy include beguiling tidbits about Henry Ford. I learned that someone created a patent for the supermarket - the patent diagrams (reproduced in the book) are enlightening. Also, stories from farmers around the world - women selling their farm produce outside a new supermarket being built near Durban in South Africa, a farmer in 'green revolution' Punjab, India bemoaning the now complete leaching of his soil and wondering when the 'revolution' will bring him real freedom from his debt. These were valuable lenses into the lives of people I'd likely never meet, given my urban inclinations, but who clearly are connected to me in producing the food I eat.
If you're at all interested in either food or the structure of our world through a case study of the food system, you'll find this a worthwhile read. Whether you end up agreeing with Patel or not, there's enough here that you'll be alternately shocked, amused, entertained and informed.
 A big disappointment May 24, 2008
25 out of 41 found this review helpful
I bought this book with high hopes and was disappointed within 50 pages.
I will share general reasons as well as specific instances.
First, the title is misleading.
The author states that people in developed countries have a poor choice and quality of food. However, you wont find anywhere an explicit and sustained narrative about the conditions that would link the "stuffed" north to the "starved" south or why are poor people in rich countries fat.
If you really want to know the answer to why we are "stuffed and starved" then read "The Omnivore's Dilemma".
I blame "Stuffed and Starved" in being strong in symptoms but very weak in describing the features of the mechanisms (how it happens). If this is what you are looking for, then go for it.
Secondly, we are left with the impression that the Anglo-Saxons (UK and now the US) are the sole culprits in the presumed debacle of the world food system. (Again read "The omnivore's dilemma" for a more comprehensive historical study on today's state of affairs)
This leads me to point three and the main contradiction in this book.
Free-trade and capitalism are made guilty by association, they are borne of the Anglo-Saxon culture which we are told is bad. However, Mr Patel states that what ails the world food system, is the distortion and near monopoly that cartels and single companies may have e.g. corn-syrup producers or supermarkets. So the problem, which is the logical conclusion of the case studies that Raj Patel highlights, is not fair trade and healthy competition, but indeed, the lack of it. Corn subsidies in the US hurt sugar producers in poorer countries because the subsidy prevents the latter from selling their product in the US at a competitive price.
In short Mr Patel needs to chose his side: if competition and trade are bad then he should be happy with the near monopolies of agro-business. If the monopolies are to blame (which Mr Patel states) then a healthy competitive system (devoid of subsidies) should do the trick. The impression is that Mr Patel blames free-trade and monopolies when it suits his rhetoric.
Fourth, the problems highlighted by Mr Patel are old news. Monopolies lead to higher prices and poor quality, chemicals in food are bad for your health, small producers are being overwhelmed by larger producers and distributors.
Now here are the details.
The most interesting insight takes place in the introduction. There are millions of producers and millions of consumers yet, connecting the two are very few intermediaries. These intermediaries, precisely because they are few, have the power to dictate their terms to both producers and consumers.
The English and then the Americans are blamed for all that is going wrong today. Colonialism in general should have been a target of critique. There is no mention of either other colonial powers; France, Spain, Portugal; nor is there mention of the USSR and the communist system and the fact that by the early 1970's the USSR stopped providing demographic data to the U.N.. (This in turn lead French researchers at the CNRS to predict accurately the eventual collapse of the system.) The picture seems completely one-sided against the UK and US.
In fact Mr Patel informs us that the USSR was so short on food that it traded oil for food with the US. Surprisingly, Mr Patel portrays this deal as being shameful to the US.
Mr Patel also overlooks several topics which should have been mentioned given the title. For instance, have we chosen to forsake quality for quantity thus being able to feed more people?
What other system would allow products, say oranges, to be eaten and benefit people, say in northern Europe, whose immediate ecosystem does not support such variety.
What evidence does he have to state that local produce is cheaper than what you find at supermarkets? Economies of scale enable low prices. The Wall Street Journal reported that, in Southern France, tomato paste is cheaper to import from China to Southern France than to buy it there directly. In addition, how much more are people willing to pay for healthier products.
Perhaps this book should be recast as the tragic impact a distorted world food production and distribution system has on local farmers. The evidence Mr Patel gives in that respect is quite comprehensive and heartbreaking.
I will end with Mr Patel's own reflection which I will recast to a grander scale; this maybe a transitory period towards better food.
Wahyd Vannoni
www.vannoni.com
Further reading:
New Yorker Magazine
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2008/05/19/080519crat_atlarge_wilson
required reading June 3, 2008
13 out of 13 found this review helpful
A very digestible read for the consumer that's liable to provoke dyspepsia in the bellies of food giants and governments alike.
In taking a moralistic view of starvation and obesity, our media, governments and many NGOs have condemned those suffering to more of the same. While the institutional causes remain unaddressed - in large part thanks to public sector responsibility being abdicated to private sector interests - we can only expect more headlines about food riots and editorials on farmer suicides, just as diabetes (II) continues apace.
The resounding conclusion is that `free market' policies remain accountable only to shareholders - not to farmers, not to consumers, and certainly not to the governments that unleashed them.
But Stuffed & Starved is as prescriptive as it is diagnostic. By identifying the grassroots organisations that have come to terms with the problems and begun to enact the social changes necessary for remedy, Patel brings to the page a message of hope and understanding with great clarity. To his credit, he is no less objective or critical in examining these social movements (as they struggle to develop) than he is of the corporations, WTO, and World Bank.
If you're interested in a comprehensive overview of what's behind the headlines, of what's causing the paradox of starvation at the same time as an epidemic of obesity, this is the book.
Patel Stuffs Readers, In a Good Way May 13, 2008
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
In his new book, "Stuffed and Starved," Raj Patel hits a nerve, or rather a whole digestive system worth of nerves. Until late, these two hot topics-obesity and the food crisis- were discussed separately. Patel's research shows why and how there are now more obese people than ever before, and more starving people. Patel takes an original view and places the blame not just on the governments, but on their famous trade agreements that we all thought were so fabulous-NAFTA ring a bell? He discusses how the "consumer" market and trade agreements are what have caused an increase in percentage of farmer suicides, food riots, and starving communities throughout the world. The book is a fast read, full of stuff you definitely didn't know. Although perhaps intended for the political or activist type, it's a worthwhile, interesting read for anyone who shops at a supermarket, a Wal-Mart, is thinking of going organic, or is upset about the rising cost of food. Not only does Patel offer a hearty argument for his points, but he offers a 10-step "fix" for us, everyday folk to start taking to help the problem....that, at least is worth the buy/read-in...
The world food crisis explained May 28, 2008
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
The price of food is skyrocketing. There are food riots emerging across the globe. It's a crisis that threatens the stability of some governments. Why is this happening? Raj Patel explains how we got here in this remarkably prophetic book. And he's not afraid to name the bad guys. Patel has deservedly emerged as one of the top experts on this crisis, and he writes with an abundance of passion and wit.
-Kemble Scott, editor, SoMa Literary Review
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