Book review of Olivier De Schutter and Caitlin Y. Cordes (Eds.). Accounting for Hunger: The Right to Food in the Era of Globilisation (2011). Hart Publishing. $100.00 (hardcover)

Schiavoni, Christina

English

ScholarWorks at WMU

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare Volume 39 Issue 3 September Article 16 2012 Review of Accounting for Hunger: The Right to Food in the Era of Globilisation. Olivier De Schutter & Caitlin Y. Cordes, (Eds.). Reviewed by Christina Schiavoni. Christina Schiavoni WhyHunger Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/jssw  Part of the Social Work Commons Recommended Citation Schiavoni, Christina (2012) "Review of Accounting for Hunger: The Right to Food in the Era of Globilisation. Olivier De Schutter & Caitlin Y. Cordes, (Eds.). Reviewed by Christina Schiavoni.," The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare: Vol. 39 : Iss. 3 , Article 16. Available at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/jssw/vol39/iss3/16 This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Social Work at ScholarWorks at WMU. For more information, please contact maira.bundza@wmich.edu. 194 Journal of Sociology & Social WelfareIn addition to reviewing the disturbing events related towar and foreign policy, Greenwald investigates the ways inwhich the telecommunications industry has been manipulatedto invade, unlawfully, telephone and internet commumica-tions; the roles that lobbying and financial contributions haveplayed in influencing the behavior of members of Congressfrom both political parties; the passivity-even the collusion-of the press in investigating official wrong-doing; and, morefamiliarly, the 2008 financial disaster that has harshly affectedso many middle and working class families who have lost jobsand homes, but which has barely affected those who were re-sponsible for it.In a last chapter (5), "American Justice's Second Tier,"Greenwald details how-in contrast to how the rich and pow-erful have evaded justice-those at the bottom of our societyhave been treated increasingly harshly, in many cases impris-oned for long terms for relatively low-level crimes. And hereports that the defense bar is so under-financed and inade-quate that the poor are unable to get justice.With Liberty and Justice for Some is, on the one hand, an easyread; that is, its style is journalistic yet filled with details. Itsimpact is disturbing and, while not at all a sociological text, itsinformation provides a basis for understanding why so manyin our society feel alienated from politics and civic engage-ment more generally.Marguerite Rosenthal, Prof. Emerita, School of Social Work,Salem State UniversityOlivier De Schutter and Caitlin Y. Cordes (Eds.). Accounting forHunger: The Right to Food in the Era of Globilisation (2011).Hart Publishing. $100.00 (hardcover).With increasingly volatile food prices and ever-rising ratesof hunger, there is growing international consensus that ourfood system is in crisis-and that to address the crisis, wemust invest in agriculture. The best way forward, however,is subject to intense debate between radically divergent view-points. In Accounting for Hunger: The Right to Food in the Era ofGlobilisation, Olivier De Schutter, Caitlin Cordes, and the othercontributors take on some of the most contentious issues inBook Reviewsthese debates-free trade, biofuels, food aid, and others-froma refreshing, rarely-heard perspective: that of the right to food.The authors emphasize that if we are serious about endinghunger, we must start from the reality of the hungry. Ofthe approximately one billion people who are hungry, 50%are smallholder farmers living off two hectares of cropland orless; 20% are landless laborers; 10% are pastoralists, fisherfolk,and forest users, and 20% are the urban poor. That means thatroughly 80% of the hungry have livelihoods connected to foodproduction. This paradox is explained by the fact that mostare growing crops not for their own consumption but to besold into markets that are largely outside of their control. Theyare, therefore, net food purchasers, but without fair prices fortheir crops or fair wages for their labor, they cannot purchaseadequate food. They are not hungry because of a lack of food;they are hungry because they are poor.Analyzing policies from the realities of this 80%-theworld's most vulnerable food producers who are living inpoverty-helps explain why so many measures to end hungerhave failed, despite decades of effort. A right-to-food ap-proach, the authors emphasize, looks beyond aggregate mea-sures such as gross domestic product and average annualincome to whether current policies are actually benefiting themost vulnerable and food insecure. Increasing the amount offood a country produces, for instance, will not help those wholack purchasing power to buy that food. The authors point outthat focusing on supply and demand detracts attention fromthe power imbalances that actually drive hunger. Efforts to in-crease yields as a way to boost farmer incomes, for example,distract from the fact that transnational corporations set globalprices, while smallholders continue to have little or no powerover the market.The authors also put a right-to-food lens on the issue oftrade liberalization, an oft-proposed antidote to the hungercrisis. A landless farmworker or indebted peasant who hasalready been pushed outside the margins of the economy inhis or her own country is not going to benefit from trade barri-ers being lifted between countries. As the authors explain,... the expansion of volumes of traded goods is not ananswer to hunger if it leads, not to poverty reduction196 Journal of Sociology & Social Welfareand decreasing inequalities, but to the furthermarginalization of those who are not benefiting fromtrade and may instead be more vulnerable by tradeliberalization. (p. 24)While avoiding ideological discussion of trade liberaliza-tion, the authors emphasize that without accompanying na-tional and international policies to support and protect thosemost vulnerable, trade liberalization is not a solution to hunger.What is most impressive and instructive about this bookis that by employing a right-to-food framework, the authorsare able to move critical issues beyond polarizing debates byfocusing on the needs of the hungry and asking what can bedone to advance their right to food. In addition to trade lib-eralization, the authors approach agribusiness transnationalcorporations (TNCs) in such a manner. They highlight ways inwhich TNCs are undermining the right to food across the foodchain, while also citing the tremendous potential for TNCs toshift their practices in ways which could support the right tofood, from paying their workers livable wages to supportingthe rights of farmers to save seeds.It should be noted that the book is an edited volume withthree chapters by the editors, De Schutter and Cordes, andfive by other contributors. Most of the work referenced here isfrom the chapters written by the editors, by far the strongestin terms of their right-to-food analysis and framing. Some ofthe other chapters, most notably the chapter on biofuels, coverimportant subject matter but fail to adequately address thefundamental issue of how the most vulnerable populationsare impacted. Also, the chapter on "How to Phase Out RichCountry Agricultural Subsidies without Increasing Hunger inthe Developing World" fails to address the fact that small-scalefarmers in the U.S. and Europe are facing many of the samechallenges as small-scale farmers in the Global South and thatsubsidies are simply one component of entirely misguided ag-ricultural commodity policies. These weaker sections of thebook, however, provide an opportunity for the reader to makeuse of the right-to-food framework so effectively laid out inother chapters.Christina Schiavoni, Director, Global Movements Program,WhyHunger

Review of \u3cem\u3eAccounting for Hunger: The Right to Food in the Era of Globilisation.\u3c/em\u3e Olivier De Schutter & Caitlin Y. Cordes, (Eds.). Reviewed by Christina Schiavoni.

https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3695&amp;context=jssw

Review of \u3cem\u3eAccounting for Hunger: The Right to Food in the Era of Globilisation.\u3c/em\u3e Olivier De Schutter & Caitlin Y. Cordes, (Eds.). Reviewed by Christina Schiavoni.

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