Featured Books & eBooks - Food Security
The Third Plate: Field Notes on the Future of Food by ISBN: 9780143127154Publication Date: 2015Chef Dan Barber offers a radical new way of thinking about food that will heal the land and taste good, too. Looking to the detrimental cooking of our past, and the misguided dining of our present, Barber points to a future "third plate": a new form of American eating where good farming and good food intersect. Barber's The Third Plate charts a bright path forward for eaters and chefs alike, daring everyone to imagine a future for our national cuisine that is as sustainable as it is delicious.
The Coming Famine by ISBN: 9780520271234Publication Date: 2010In The Coming Famine, Julian Cribb lays out a vivid picture of impending planetary crisis—a global food shortage that threatens to hit by mid-century—that would dwarf any in our previous experience. Cribb's comprehensive assessment describes a dangerous confluence of shortages--of water, land, energy, technology, and knowledge—combined with the increased demand created by population and economic growth.
Food and Society by ISBN: 9781509501847Publication Date: 2016-12-27This popular and engaging text, now revised in a second edition, offers readers a social perspective on food, food practices, and the modern food system. It engages readers' curiosity by highlighting several paradoxes: how food is both individual and social, reveals both distinction and conformity, and, in the contemporary global era, comes from everywhere but nowhere in particular. With updates and enhancements throughout, the new edition provides an empirically deep, multifaceted, and coherent introduction to this fascinating field. Each chapter begins with a vivid case study, proceeds through a rich discussion of research insights, and ends with discussion questions and suggested resources. Chapter topics include food's role in socialization, identity, health and social change, as well as food marketing and the changing global food system. The new edition gives more focused attention to labor (both paid and unpaid) in all aspects of the food system. In synthesizing insights from diverse fields of social inquiry, the book addresses issues of culture, structure, and social inequality throughout. Written in a lively style, this book will continue to be both accessible and revealing to beginning and intermediate students alike.
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Lawrence, Geoffrey; Kristen Lyons; & Tabatha Wallington. Food Security, Nutrition and Sustainability. (2011) - eBook
Pollan, Michael. In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. (2009) - RA784 .P643
Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History in Four Meals. (2006) - GT2850 .P65
Harper, Charles. Food, Society & Environment. (2003) - TX631.H367
Unsavory Truth: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eat by ISBN: 9781541697119Publication Date: 2018Whenever we turn on the TV, flip a page in a magazine, or glance at a flyer in the grocery store, we are constantly bombarded with nutritional advice. Almond products can boost your memory! Milk helps build up your bones! Cereal is vital part of a balanced breakfast! We count on nutrition science to guide us through the overwhelming choices in our local grocery store and helps us make the best decisions for our health. Except it often doesn't. Many of these studies we rely on to make decisions are not funded by unbiased third parties—they’re actually funded by the companies seeking to buoy their own products...
Corporate Farming by Call Number: HD1714 .C67ISBN: 9781534500495Publication Date: 2017Corporate farms have solved so many of the world's problems, making healthy food accessible and affordable to more people and providing jobs in communities that sorely need them. But do corporations have too much power over food? Do they benefit from unfair tax breaks? Are their profit-driven practices hurting the environment—perhaps irreparably? And what does their success mean for the family farmer?
Concentration & Power in the Food System: Who Controls What We Eat? by ISBN: 9781472581129Publication Date: 2016Due to successive mergers and acquisitions, the U.S. food system has become so concentrated that a mere four firms control 40% or more of the market at nearly every key stage of production. Researchers have identified major problems resulting from these trends, including negative impacts on market dynamics, the environment, human health, and communities. However this study demonstrates that these trends are not inevitable and that numerous enterprises—from microbreweries to seed saving networks—have encouraged the most powerful firms to make small but positive changes.
Who Really Feeds the World?: The Failures of Agribusiness & the Promise of Agroecology by ISBN: 9781623170622Publication Date: 2016Debunking the notion that our current food crisis must be addressed through industrial agriculture and genetic modification, author and activist Vandana Shiva argues that these forces are in fact responsible for the hunger problem in the first place. Who Really Feeds the World? is a powerful manifesto calling for agricultural justice and genuine sustainability.
Foodopoly: The Battle Over the Future of Food & Farming in America by Call Number: HD9005 .H358ISBN: 9781595587909Publication Date: 2012Within this exposé, Wenonah Hauter investigates how agribusiness and food corporations are undermining a healthy food system and how voting with one's fork will not solve the problem. Hauter, who serves as executive director of Food & Water Watch and runs an organic family farm, warns that the local food movement is not enough to solve America's food crisis so long as corporate interests prevent farmers from raising healthy crops and limit the choices people make at the store.
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van Latesteijn, Henk. TransForum Model: Transforming Agro Innovation Toward Sustainable Development. (2011) - eBook
Robin, Marie Monique. World According to Monsanto: Pollution, Corruption, and the Control of the World's Food Supply. (2010) - HD9482.U64 M6613
Clapp, Jennifer & Doris Fuchs. Corporate Power in Global Agrifood Governance. (2009) - eBook
Nestle, Marion. Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health. (2002) - TX360.U6N47
Kimbrell, Andrew (Ed.). Fatal Harvest: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture. (2002) - Oversize S589.75 .F38
Shiva, Vandana. Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply. (2000) - HD9000.5 .S454
Transition to Agro-Ecology by ISBN: 9781524633363Publication Date: 2016Farmer-led social movements are growing and there’s increasing recognition that agroecology and food sovereignty are key solutions for addressing concerns about food security and climate change adaptation. This book highlights the transition to agroecology—which is already happening worldwide—with intriguing case studies, ground-breaking people and projects.
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Carpenter, David & Stewart Lockie. Agriculture, Biodiversity and Markets: Livelihoods and Agroecology in Comparative Perspective. (2010) - eBook
Perfecto, Ivette; John Vandermeer; & Angus Wright. Nature's Matrix: Linking Agriculture, Conservation and Food Sovereignty. (2009) - eBook
Warner, Keith. Agroecology in Action: Extending Alternative Agriculture Through Social Networks. (2007) - eBook
Wojtkowski, Paul. Landscape Agroecology. (2004) eBook
Schroth, G. Agroforestry & Biodiversity Conservation in Tropical Landscapes. (2004) - eBook
We Want Land to Live: Making Political Space for Food Sovereignty by ISBN: 9780820350264Publication Date: 2017First coined by La Via Campesina (a global movement whose name means "the peasant's way"), food sovereignty is a concept that expresses the universal right to food. Amy Trauger uses research combining ethnography, participant observation, field notes, and interviews to help us understand the material and definitional struggles surrounding the de-commodification of food and the transformation of the global food system's political-economic foundations.
Hidden Hunger: Gender & the Politics of Smarter Foods by ISBN: 9780801478598Publication Date: 2013During the 1990s the international food policy community turned its focus to the "hidden hunger" of micronutrient deficiencies, a problem that resulted in two scientific solutions: fortification, the addition of nutrients to processed foods, and bio-fortification, the modification of crops to produce more nutritious yields. With this book, Aya Hirata Kimura tracks how “nutritionism” and its technical focus enhance the power of corporations while restricting public participation in the making of public health and food policy.
Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know by Call Number: HD1415.P12ISBN: 9780195389593Publication Date: 2012In an easy-to-navigate, question-and-answer format, Food Politics carefully examines and explains the most important issues on today's global food landscape, including the politics of chronic hunger, the Malthusian race between food production and population growth, controversies surrounding "green revolution" farming, the politics of obesity, fast food, slow food, organic food, and more.
One Billion Hungry: Can We Feed the World? by Call Number: S494.5.I5 C663ISBN: 9780801451331Publication Date: 2012More than six decades after the technological discoveries that led to the Green Revolution aimed at ending world hunger, regular food shortages, malnutrition, and poverty still plague vast swaths of the world. And with increasing food prices, climate change, resource inequality, and an ever-increasing global population, the future holds further challenges. In One Billion Hungry, Sir Gordon Conway, one of the world's foremost experts on global food needs, explains the many interrelated issues critical to our global food supply from the science of agricultural advances to the politics of food security. He expands the discussion begun in his influential The Doubly Green Revolution: Food for All in the Twenty-First Century, emphasizing the essential combination of increased food production, environmental stability, and poverty reduction necessary to end endemic hunger on our planet.
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Schanbacher, William D. Politics of Food: The Global Conflict Between Food Security and Food Sovereignty. (2010) - eBook
Fisanick, Christina (Ed.). Food. (2010) - HD9000.5 .F547
Otero, Gerardo. Food for the Few: Neoliberal Globalism and Biotechnology in Latin America. (2008) - eBook
Hawthorne, Fran. Inside the FDA: The Business & Politics Behind the Drugs We Take & the Food We Eat. (2005) - eBook
Growing Local: Case Studies on Local Food Supply Chains by ISBN: 9780803254855Publication Date: 2015Many believe that "relocalization" of the food system will provide a range of public benefits, including lower carbon emissions, increased local economic activity, and closer connections between consumers, farmers, and communities. The structure of local food supply chains, however, may not always be capable of generating these perceived benefits. Growing Local reports the findings from a coordinated series of case studies designed to develop a deeper, more nuanced understanding of how local food products reach consumers and how local food supply chains currently compare with mainstream supermarket supply chains.
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Robin, Vicki. Blessing the Hands That Feed Us: What Eating Closer to Home Can Teach Us About Food, Community, and Our Place on Earth. (2014) - HD9007.W2R63