The power of food

Abstract

In the developmentalist era, industrialization has simultaneously transformedagriculture and degraded its natural and culturalbase. Food production and consumption embodies thecontradictory aspects of this transformation. Thispaper argues that the crisis of development hasgenerated two basic responses: (1) the attempt toredefine development as a global project, includingharnessing biotechnology to resolve the food securityquestion, and (2) a series of countermovementsattempting to simultaneously reassert the value oflocal, organic foods, and challenge the attempt on thepart of food corporations and national and globalinstitutions to subject the food question to marketsolutions. It is proposed that the power of food liesin its material and symbolic functions of linkingnature, human survival, health, culture and livelihoodas a focus of resistance to corporate takeover of lifeitself. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 2000