GGR329H1 Study Guide - Final Guide: World Food Summit, Crop Yield, Commodity Fetishism
11 May 2018
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GGR329 FINAL EXAM REVIEW – Reading Notes
Chapter 2 (Friedmann)
- There is a social context for all food systems
- The first “world food crisis” was in 1972-1973 (prices for staple crops doubled or tripled)
- “food crises” are marked by dramatic, sudden price rises which have recurred ever since
Food Security – ignited by the first World Food Summit held in Rome in 1974 in response to
the crisis launched these international movements which considered the “right to food”; this was
agreed to by governments in 1948 as a human rights provision
- Provided a backdrop for social movements and institutions focused specifically on
hunger
- Complemented by the farmer-led goal of food sovereignty
- 2011 was the first year that all Canadian political parties (except the Conservatives) has a
food policy addressing food security concerns
- Quality of food and the healthy food movement became important in the 1970’s and
1980’s
- Commodity chains and commodity systems how specific changes in food systems
happen globally and historically
World systems theory – it is argued that capitalism is not something that emerges in any one
country and spreads to others; capitalism emerged on a world-scale because of commodity
relations
Communities of food practice – economic actors, social movement organizations, and public
agencies – working to create a regional, networked, inclusive agri-food economy
Community supported agriculture – initiatives to evaluate risks related to hormones and
genetically modified crops, to food system workers and consumers, and to health systems;
includes certifications for fair-trade and organic products, and new networks of production and
distribution, such as food co-ops, farmers’ markets, etc. – customers buy a farmer’s crops in
advance of the season and are paid in produce throughout the season
Food citizenship – the sense of belonging and participating in the food system through food-
system localization, based on values focused on the community and environmental sustainability
Chapter 9 (Weis)
Commodity fetishism – the tendency, in a capitalist economy, for the range of social and
biophysical relations involved in the production of commodities (including unmeasured or
undervalued costs) to be hidden and largely incomprehensible
Political ecology – a growing field of research on human-environmental relations, environmental
change, and development, combining attention to political economy, environmental science, and
human ecology
Human appropriation of the net primary product (of photosynthesis) – a way of
conceptualizing the scale of human impact on the biosphere, based on annual biomass production
Intercropping – the cultivation of two or more crops in close proximity in order to achieve
complementary biological interactions and enhance the efficiency of resource use (which entails
using crops that do not compete with each other for physical space, nutrients, water, or light),
with the goal of increasing the volume of what can be produced on a given land area
Biodiversity – the range of plant and animal species in a given area and their complex
interactions
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Monoculture – the biological simplification of a farm or landscape to focus on the production of
a single crop, which also typically entails a reduction in genetic diversity within that given crop
type
Genetic enhancement – the yield gains made by crossing varieties within the same species;
instrumental to the rising productivity gains in the second half of the twentieth century
Industrial grain-oilseed-livestock complex – how agricultural systems across much of the
temperate world are dominated
Biophysical overrides – the range of ways that the biological and physical problems created or
exacerbated by the industrialization of agriculture are managed in order to ensure continuing
productivity
Soil mining – a way of describing soil degradation, when the biological and physical materials
of soils are depleted at a greater rate than they are returned,, in which soil is effectively
transformed from a potentially renewable resource to a diminishing one
Pesticide treadmill – the cycle of dependence in which monocultures exacerbate pest problems
Genetic modification – the technological combination of genetic traits between different species
that could not cross in nature (which is why this process is also described as genetic engineering)
Eutrophication – a process in which excess nutrients deposited into freshwater ecosystems and
oceans around coastal riverheads produce algae blooms that deplete oxygen and can devastate
aquatic life
Salinization – a condition caused by dissolved salt in water being left behind and building up in
soils over time, having negative effects on crop yield
Climate change mitigation – the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance
sequestration capacity
Peak oil – human have just past the halfway point in the consumption of global oil reserves
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Chapter 17 (Clark)
Mutagenesis –
- Genetically modifying involves the forcible insertion or alteration of genetic information
in ways that would not occur naturally; can include insertion of new traits, such as for
herbicide resistance; can also be used to silence natural traits, such as the
Transgene – a gene or genetic material that is transferred through the processes of genetic
modification from one organism to another, typically unrelated, organism; once present,
transgenes may then be transferred naturally by conventional plant breeding into new hosts
Canadian biotechnology strategy – a multi-faceted plan beginning in the late 1970’s that
evolved from an industry and academic task force charged with facilitating genetic modification
in Canada
Substantial equivalence – an undefined term that is the key decision threshold in the genetic
modification regulation in Canada; is considered substantially equivalent to non-GM by
comparing levels of selected nutrients and anti-nutrients; once deemed substantially equivalent,
no special testing is required – unmeasured parameters, such as hidden effects of unintended
gene expression, are not acknowledged
Insertion event – the forcible insertion of trans genes into single cells to form entire transgenic
organisms
“lemon effect” – the rejection of GM grains by importing countries contaminates the market for
non-GM and other GM growers
Externalized costs – a cost that is enforced on those who are not party to a transaction; the costs
of GM cropping are born not only by the farmer-grower but by neighbouring farmers,
consumers, the broader society, and the environment
Johnston
- The corporatization of organics has been critiqued for the concentration of ownership and
the ecological consequences of the long distances commodities travel between field and
table
- There is a competing vision of food democracy which strives to organize the production
and consumption of food at a proximate geographic scale while increasing opportunities
for democratically managed cooperation between producers and consumers
- The corporate-organic foodscape has interacted and evolved alongside competing counter
movements of food democracy
- Corporate organics incorporate messages of locally scaled food production, humble
origins, and a commitment to family farms and employees – it is a very complex
foodscape
- Corporate organics is interrelated with commodity fetishism, and manages a relationship
between social movement innovation and market adaptation to produce on trend
- The most successful brands have adopted and fetishized key themes from a vision of food
democracy; their websites are heavily imbued with the imagery of specific places, family
farms and rural landscapes, and personalized narratives (they have become a key
marketing feature, even if they have little relationship to the long-distance commodity
chains and centralized structures that also characterize corporate agribusiness
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Document Summary
There is a social context for all food systems. The first world food crisis was in 1972-1973 (prices for staple crops doubled or tripled) Food crises are marked by dramatic, sudden price rises which have recurred ever since. Provided a backdrop for social movements and institutions focused specifically on hunger. Complemented by the farmer-led goal of food sovereignty. 2011 was the first year that all canadian political parties (except the conservatives) has a food policy addressing food security concerns. Quality of food and the healthy food movement became important in the 1970"s and. Commodity chains and commodity systems how specific changes in food systems happen globally and historically. World systems theory it is argued that capitalism is not something that emerges in any one country and spreads to others; capitalism emerged on a world-scale because of commodity relations. Communities of food practice economic actors, social movement organizations, and public agencies working to create a regional, networked, inclusive agri-food economy.
