Food and Agriculture (Concepts and Theories)

 

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A River of Waste: The Hazardous Truth about Factory Farms (USA: Don McCorckell, 2009: 91 mins) ["A RIVER OF WASTE exposes a huge health and environmental scandal in our modern industrial system of meat and poultry production. Some scientists have gone so far as to call the condemned current factory farm practices as mini Chernobyls. In the U.S and elsewhere, the meat and poultry industry is dominated by dangerous uses of arsenic, antibiotics, growth hormones and by the dumping of massive amounts of sewage in fragile waterways and environments. The film documents the vast catastrophic impact on the environment and public health as well as focuses on the individual lives damaged and destroyed." Also available as a DVD from BCTC's Library.]

Ayers, Jane. "300,000 Organic Farmers Sue Monsanto in Federal Court." Reader Supported News (February 15, 2012)

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Bardenwerper, Will, Stan Brewer and Tucker Malarkey. "Wild Ecologies: So Go the Salmon, So Go the World." Fiction/Non/Fiction (November 19, 2019) ["In this episode, writers Tucker Malarkey and Will Bardenwerper, as well as rancher, rider, and member of the Oglala Sioux tribe Stan Brewer talk about their connections to the natural world. Malarkey talks about efforts to save wild salmon, their vital role in the ecosystem of the Pacific Northwest, and how relations between the US and Russia on this issue might provide insight on global climate change cooperation. Bardenwerper and Brewer, the first writer-source duo to appear on the show together, discuss Indian relay horse racing, and horses’ importance to the Lakota community."]

Batista, Ysanet, Susan Chin and Karen Washington. "From Farm To Coop To Table: Food Justice in Urban Agriculture." The Laura Flanders Show (December 26, 2019) ["Food — from where it grows, to where it goes, all of it matters to our bodies and our communities. A conversation about how farmers are creating equitable food systems inside cities, from urban agriculture to worker-owned cooperatives."]

Baxter, Joan. "Land Grabbing in Africa." Unwelcome Guests #619 (September 1, 2012)

Bedic, Tamara and Phillip Murray. "Basic Legal Rights for Animals: Activists and Advocates." Law and Disorder Radio (March 16, 2020)

Bell, W. Kamau. "What an Oklahoma rancher wants you to know about America's broken food supply system." CNN (April 24, 2020)

Benen, Steve. "Congress gets a stark reminder on food safety." Washington Monthly (September 29, 2011)

Bittman, Mark. "That Flawed Stanford Study." Opiniator (October 2, 2012)

Boggs, Grace Lee. "Becoming Detroit: Grace Lee Boggs on Reimagining Work, Food, and Community." On Being (July 18, 2013)

Bordessa, Kris. "Michigan Woman Could Get 93 Days in Jail for Planting a Garden." Geek Mom (July 9, 2011)

"Anthony Bourdain from 2011." WTF (June 8, 2018) ["From Episode 233, this is Marc's conversation with Anthony Bourdain, conducted in 2011. Anthony died on June 8, 2018, at age 61."]

Broad, Robin and John Cavanagh. "The Story of Refined White Rice: How a once nutritious grain was transformed into something unhealthy to eat." Yes! (March 28, 2011)

Carrington, Damian. "Huge reduction in meat-eating ‘essential’ to avoid climate breakdown." The Guardian (October 10, 2018)

Chutkan, Robynne. "The Future of Probiotics." The Atlantic (December 12, 2013) ["Hippocrates said that all disease begins in the gut. A gastroenterologist's predictions on how new treatments will begin there, too."]

Conley, Lisa. "Appalachian Food Preservation." University of Kentucky's College of Arts & Sciences Podcast (March 21, 2012)

Daniel, Clete. "The History of the Farm Worker System." Unwelcome Guests #8 (April 30, 2012)

"Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2010." Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion (USDA) (Jan 31, 2011)

Dunn, Rob. "Home Alone, with 200,000 Friends." American Scholar (February 5, 2021) ["As we in the United States approach a full year of spending even more time than usual at home, and away from friends and family, we’re all a little bit lonely. But even though it might feel as if your immediate family and your pets are the only signs of life in your house—you’re not as alone as you might think. The modern American house is a wilderness: thousands of species of insects, bacteria, fungi, and plants lurk in our floorboards, on our counters, and inside our kitchen cabinets—not to mention the microbes that flavor our food itself. The trouble with wilderness, however, is that we always want to tame it. Cleaning, bleaching, sterilizing, and killing the organisms in our houses has had unintended—and dangerous—consequences for our health and the environment. Biologist Rob Dunn, a professor in the department of applied ecology at North Carolina State University, joins us to impart some advice about how to graciously welcome these unbidden guests into our homes."]

"Eight Ways Monsanto Fails at Sustainable Agriculture." Union of Concerned Scientists (January 4, 2012)

Enjeti, Saagar. "Revealed: How Big Soda Smeared Opponents as Racist."  Breaking Points (Posted on Youtube: January 5, 2023) ["Saagar gives his take on new information coming out on how large companies like Coke pushed organizations like the NAACP to smear opponents of their priorities as racist."]

Flores, Fernando, et al. "A special one-hour program on the South Central Farm in Los Angeles – lessons in human rights, immigrant rights, ecological sustainability, and activism." Uprising Radio (June 16, 2006)

Flowers, Margaret and Raymond Offenheiser. "Occupy G8: Peoples’ Summit Confronts World Leaders at Camp David, Urging Action on Poverty, Hunger." Democracy Now (May 18, 2012)

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) [Rome, Italy: "The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations leads international efforts to defeat hunger. Serving both developed and developing countries, FAO acts as a neutral forum where all nations meet as equals to negotiate agreements and debate policy. FAO is also a source of knowledge and information. We help developing countries and countries in transition modernize and improve agriculture, forestry and fisheries practices and ensure good nutrition for all. Since our founding in 1945, we have focused special attention on developing rural areas, home to 70 percent of the world's poor and hungry people."]

"Food for Thought: Challenging Big Food/Media’s Monopoly Over Our Media Culture." A.C.M.E. (2003)

Fortune, Beverly. "Berea farmer advocates for heirloom seeds to help mountain farming." Herald-Leader (September 28, 2017)

Franks, Becca, et al. "The Case Against Octopus Farming." Issues in Science and Technology 35.2 (Winter 2019)  ["... factory farming is a key part of a highly industrialized food system that is both cruel to individual animals and environmentally unsustainable. Despite efforts of animal welfare and environmental groups to redress these problems, they are deeply embedded in the global food systems’ production technologies, corporate profits, and patterns of consumer demand. Decoupling the ethical and environmental consequences of food production from this system is a daunting challenge, and it should lead us to ask whether we want to repeat mistakes already made with terrestrial animals with aquatic animals, especially octopus."]

Giles, David HGB. "Dumpster Diving and Smoothies of Wrath." Food Anthropology (January 1, 2006)

Glanville, Phillipa. "The Dichotomies of Drink: The History of Alcohol 1690 - 1920." The National Archive Podcast Series (September 28, 2006)

Goodman, Amy. "‘Food Terrorism’ Next Door to the Magic Kingdom." TruthDig (June 28, 2011)

The Great African Scandal (BBC: Robert Beckford, 2007: 48 mins) ["Robert Beckford visits Ghana to investigate the hidden costs of rice, chocolate and gold and why, 50 years after independence, a country so rich in ‘natural resources’ is one of the poorest in the world. He discovers child labourers farming cocoa instead of attending school and asks if the activities of multinationals, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund have actually made the country’s problems worse."]

Greenwald, Glenn. "Six Animal Rights Activists Charged With Felonies for Investigation and Rescue That Led to Punishment of a Utah Turkey Farm." The Intercept (May 4, 2018)

Gross, Daniel. "Radical Fast Food Joint Doubles Down on High Wages." The Daily Beast (September 9, 2013)

Gupta, Arun. "Anthony Bourdain (1956 - 2018)." Jacobin (June 11, 2018) ["Anthony Bourdain’s genius was not in the kitchen. His genius was in knowing which side he was on."]

Hammond, Edward. "Food giant Nestlé claims to have invented stomach soothing use of habbat al-barakah (Nigella sativa)." Convention on Biological Diversity (July 2012)

Hari, Johann. "How Goldman Sachs gambled on starving the world's poor - and won." The Independent (July 2, 2010)

Hauter, Wenonah. "Foodopoly: The Battle Over the Future of Food and Farming in America from Monsanto to Wal-Mart." Democracy Now (April 2, 2013)

Hauter, Wenonah and Gregory Jaffe. "The Monsanto Protection Act? A Debate on Controversial New Measure Over Genetically Modified Crops." Democracy Now (April 2, 2013)

"Hemp for Victory." US Department of Agriculture (1942)

Holt-Giménez, Eric. "A Foodie's Guide to Capitalism." The Distillery (Season 1 - ND) ["People are not going hungry because of food scarcity but because of inequality. Introducing global food systems and how they impact farmers and consumers, Eric Holt-Giménez unpacks the intersections of class, gender, and race from the unique vantage point of the food economy."]

---. "Food Rebellions: 7 Steps to Solving the Food Crisis." (Resistance to the trade and “aid” policies that displace farmers and increase hunger.) Yes! (February 13, 2009)

Hopkins, Rob, et al. "The Psychology of Transition: Undoing Millennia of Social Control." Unwelcome Guests #597 (March 31, 2012)

"Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (CCI)." Bill Moyers Journal (April 30, 2010)

Jameison, Dave. "Fast Food CEOs Make 1,000 Times More Than Their Typical Workers: Report." Huffington Post (April 22, 2014)

James, Dennis and Barbara Harvey. "BDS Movement Ignites Amid U.S. Food Co-ops." Law and Disorder Radio (August 15, 2011)

Jayaraman, Saru. "All Work and No Pay." Bill Moyers and Co. (April 4, 2014) ["Did you know the federal minimum wage for millions of restaurant workers is $2.13 an hour? Advocate Saru Jayaraman says that’s not only unfair but unsafe."]

Kalafa, Amy. "Lunch Wars." Radio West (August 23, 2011)

"Keeping Tabs on Monsanto." You Grow Girl (January 21, 2011)

Kingsolver, Barbara. "The Ethics of Eating." On Being (July 15, 2010)

Linkins, Jason. "How Pizza Became A Vegetable Through The Magic Of Influence-Peddling." Huffington Post (November 16, 2011)

Leonard, Christopher. "The Chicken Competition." Guernica (October 1, 2014) ["How poultry companies concentrate wealth and pit farmers against each other in a secretive tournament pay system."]

---. "The Meat Racket." Radio West (March 7, 2014) ["Just a handful of companies raise nearly all the meat consumed in America, and among them, Tyson Foods is king. According to the journalist Christopher Leonard, Tyson wrote the blueprint for modern meat production. He says there’s no better way to understand how our food is produced than to know how the company works. In a new book, Leonard explores how Tyson mastered the economics of factory farming to rise to the top, and how it transformed rural America and the middle class economy in the process."]

Lovera, Patty. "Cargill Meat Recall Heightens Fears Budgets Cuts Will Weaken Oversight, Threaten Public Health." Democracy Now (August 5, 2011)

Magdoff, Fred. "Food as a Commodity." Monthly Review (January 1, 2012)

Matsumoto, Nancy. "How Foodies Can Understand Capitalism and Farm-to-Table Justice." Yes! (April 30, 2018) ["Our food system can be a place for systemic transformation through an alliance between the progressive and radical wings of the food movement."]

Moss, Michael. Hooked: Food, Free Will, and How the Food Giants Exploit Our Addictions. Random House, 2021. ["Everyone knows how hard it can be to maintain a healthy diet. But what if some of the decisions we make about what to eat are beyond our control? Is it possible that food is addictive, like drugs or alcohol? And to what extent does the food industry know, or care, about these vulnerabilities? In Hooked, Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative reporter Michael Moss sets out to answer these questions—and to find the true peril in our food. Moss uses the latest research on addiction to uncover what the scientific and medical communities—as well as food manufacturers—already know: that food, in some cases, is even more addictive than alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs. Our bodies are hardwired for sweets, so food giants have developed fifty-six types of sugar to add to their products, creating in us the expectation that everything should be cloying; we’ve evolved to prefer fast, convenient meals, hence our modern-day preference for ready-to-eat foods. Moss goes on to show how the processed food industry—including major companies like Nestlé, Mars, and Kellogg’s—has tried not only to evade this troubling discovery about the addictiveness of food but to actually exploit it. For instance, in response to recent dieting trends, food manufacturers have simply turned junk food into junk diets, filling grocery stores with “diet” foods that are hardly distinguishable from the products that got us into trouble in the first place. As obesity rates continue to climb, manufacturers are now claiming to add ingredients that can effortlessly cure our compulsive eating habits. A gripping account of the legal battles, insidious marketing campaigns, and cutting-edge food science that have brought us to our current public health crisis, Hooked lays out all that the food industry is doing to exploit and deepen our addictions, and shows us why what we eat has never mattered more."]

Nestle, Marion. "Food and Politics." Conversations with History (March 20, 2017) ["Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Marion Nestle Goddard Professor in the Department of Nutrition at New York University. Professor Nestle reflects on the evolution of her thinking on the interplay between nutrition studies and the politics of food. She discusses the environment of the food industry emphasizing its dilemma of producing too much food in an environment in which profits are paramount and the competition with other food producers is intense. She analyzes the arsenal of tools at its service—advertising and lobbying and talks about the role of food activism in creating a structure of choice in which health, the environment and social justice are determining factors in what is produced and what we eat. Finally, she identifies the role of government in entrenching the status quo and the possibilities of it assuming a different kind of role. Finally, she offers advice to students preparing for the future."]

Nestle, Marion, et al. "Let's Ask Marion: What You Need to Know about the Politics of Food, Nutrition, and Health (University of California Press, 2020)." New Books in Food (January 13, 2021) ["Marion Nestle describes her new book as “a small, quick and dirty reader for the general audience” summarizing some of her biggest and most influential works. Let’s Ask Marion: What You Need to Know About the Politics of Food, Nutrition, and Health published September 2020 by University of California Press, was written in conversation with Kerry Trueman, a blogger and friend. Trueman’s questions served as prompts to organize Nestle’s 800-1000 word summaries in approachable and engaging prose. Readers familiar with Nestle’s groundbreaking Food Politics will recognize many of the ideas and information, but this new pocket-sized and affordable volume serves as an introduction for undergraduate students or readers new to Food Studies. However, Nestle does cover some new material in her explanation of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, especially the campaign for Zero Hunger. Nestle also summarizes how nutrition advice has changed in the last few years by thinking about food in categories ranging from unprocessed (corn on the cob) to ultraprocessed (Nacho Cheese tortilla chips). This reevaluation makes it easier to identify foods that are acceptable to eat without excessive focus on micronutrients. In the conversation, Nestle addresses the ethics of marketing food to children, food as a human right and access in the Covid era, the possibility of a National Food Policy Agency, the politics of food banks, and the promise of regenerative agricultural practices. Nestle concludes by talking about the pleasures of food and eating and how to establish a “loving relationship” with food that doesn’t include fear, guilt, or anxiety about nutrition. Marion Nestle is the Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, Emerita, at New York University, and the author of books about food politics, most recently Unsavory Truth."]

"ORGANIC FARMERS AND SEED SELLERS SUE MONSANTO TO PROTECT THEMSELVES FROM PATENTS ON GENETICALLY MODIFIED SEED: Preemptive Action Seeks Ruling That Would Prohibit Monsanto From Suing Organic Farmers and Seed Growers If Contaminated By Roundup Ready Seed." Public Patent Foundation (March 29, 2011)

Parenti, Michael. "Racism and the Ideology of Slavery." Unwelcome Guests #8 (April 29, 2000)

Patel, Raj. "As Hunger Soars Across Nation, U.S. Trade & Foreign Policy Is Also Causing Hunger Across the Globe." Democracy Now (November 24, 2020)  ["As the U.S. enters the holiday season, millions of people across the country are struggling to find enough to eat, with the hunger relief group Feeding America warning that some 54 million U.S. residents currently face food insecurity amid a massive public health and economic crisis. Food insecurity in the U.S. has intensified after the expiration of federal assistance programs in the CARES Act, and the United Nations World Food Programme predicts acute hunger could affect 270 million people worldwide by the end of 2020 — an 82% increase since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. We speak with author and filmmaker Raj Patel, host of the food politics podcast “The Secret Ingredient,” who says hunger was already at alarming levels in the U.S. before the pandemic, and it’s only gotten worse. “The long story here is the continuing war on the American working class,” Patel says."]

Potter, Will. "FBI Says Activists Who Investigate Factory Farms Can Be Prosecuted as Terrorists." Green is the New Red (December 20, 2011)

Robin, Marie-Monique. The World According to Monsanto: Pollution, Corruption, and the Control of the World's Food Supply. Trans. George Holoch. NY: The New Press, 2010.

Ryan, Christopher and Cacilda Jethá. "You Are What You Eat." Excerpted from Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality. Harper Collins, 2010: 20-21.

Schapiro, Mark. "Seeds of Resistance: The Fight to Save Our Food Supply." Townsend Center for the Humanities (October 23, 2019) ["The fate of the food supply has slipped into a handful of the world’s largest companies, with more than half of commercial seed varieties owned by three agri-chemical companies. In Seeds of Resistance (Skyhorse, 2018), Mark Schapiro (School of Journalism, UC Berkeley) examines what this corporate stranglehold is doing to our daily diet, from the explosion of genetically modified foods to the rapid disappearance of plant varieties to the elimination of independent farmers who have long been the bedrock of our food supply."]

Scialabba, George. "Back to the Land: Wendell Berry in the Path of Modernity." The Baffler (January 2020)

Seafood Watch [California: "The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program helps consumers and businesses make choices for healthy oceans. Our recommendations indicate which seafood items are "Best Choices," "Good Alternatives," and which ones you should "Avoid." Seafood Watch raises consumer awareness through our pocket guides, website, mobile applications and outreach efforts. We encourage restaurants, distributors and seafood purveyors to purchase from sustainable sources. Seafood Watch recommendations are science-based, peer reviewed, and use ecosystem-based criteria. Since 1999, we've distributed tens of millions of pocket guides, our iPhone application has been downloaded more than 240,000 times, and we have close to 200 partners across North America, including the two largest food service companies in the U.S.]

Sherman, Scott. "The Brawl Over Fair Trade Coffee." The Nation (September 10, 2012)

Shiva, Vandana. "Everything I Need to Know I Learned in the Forest." AlterNet (December 10, 2012)

---. "Prop 37, GMOs, Food Sovereignty, and More." Uprising Radio (October 31, 2012)

---.Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply. Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2000: 5-20.

Sturr, Chris. "The legal situation and working conditions of farmworkers in New York state." Unwelcome Guests #8 (April 30, 2012)

Taylor, Meredith. "What Are People Eating? Photo Series of a Week’s Worth of Groceries for Families Around the World." Fully M (May 21, 2013)

Taylor, Sunaura. "Humane Meat? No Such Thing." Yes! (March 27, 2011)

Warner, Melanie. "Pandora’s Lunchbox: Pulling Back the Curtain On How Processed Food Took Over the American Meal." Democracy Now (March 1, 2013)

Werbe, Peter. "Green Scare Crackdown and Monsanto Political Prisoner Marie Mason." Law and Disorder Radio (August 12, 2013)

Wilson, Bee (read by Ruth Barnes). "Yes, Bacon Really is Killing Us." Audio Long Reads (December 25, 2018) ["Decades’ worth of research proves that chemicals used to make bacon do cause cancer. So how did the meat industry convince us it was safe?"]

Wilson, Jake. "Trash And Treasure: The Gleaners And I Senses of Cinema #23 (2002)

The World According to Monsanto (France/Canada/Germany: Marie-Monique Robin, 2008: 108 mins)