Essay on Global Markets, Represented Through Food

One of the benefits of a global market would be more specialization. Global markets would be able to use the best products and services from qualified parts of the world at a decreased cost. With more specialized products on the market; the consumer would have more options and choices at their disposal. In short term and long term will result in greater products for the consumer and it would be less expensive for the businesses.

Food is one of the many factors that determine a population. The use of big, domesticated animals helped in the production of food and while Eurasia had 13 of the 14 main species, the Americas only had one (llamas and apachas). In addition to having most of the main animal species, the geographic location of Eurasia (west to east) had helped in the expansion of the domesticating of animals and plants because of the similar environment and climate where in the Americas (north to south), the climate and environment made it hard to move the animals and plants for domestication. Already in the lead with having the most species and their location, domestic animals in Eurasia provided labor; plowing and manure which helped produced faster and more crops. In the Americas though, the llama/apacha could not be used for labor. The rate of food production In the Americas was a much more painful and slow process because it was picked and planted by hand while Eurasia had machinery and animals to help increase food production. For the production of plant food crops, both Eurasia and the Americas had widespread agriculture but Eurasia had more farmers and land so they could tend to the farms, whereas the Americas had limited land (due to environment and barrier issues) and more hunter-gatherers. Because of their easier and faster labor system, the

Jose Bové explains, “Over 90 percent of food is produced where people live. So, we don’t understand – and nobody can explain to us – why we need to have free trade for food” (136). It does not mean that Bové and farmers are against trade, but the priority for them is to feed, “Their own families, also the local markets, and then the national markets” (P135). I agree with Bové, because locally grown food is safer, fresh, and tastes better. Instead, imported food could be contaminated with pesticides or other hazardous materials. In addition, there is no reason to buy expensive imported food when enough products are locally gown and are

Jennifer Ayres exposes the necessity for moral and theological considerations of the food system in her book Good Food, although she warns us that the analysis of the global food system is enough to throw anyone into despair. Ayres provides us with an analysis of the global food system by evaluating the key players. She breaks her analysis up into several parts by looking at the effects the global food system has on people, communities, the environment, and finishes with an exploration into the ways in which the global food system has shaped our political policies. She shows us that whether we are consumers, farmers, laborers, or legislators, we all play a role in the global food system and “food demands our attention” (Ayres, 2013, p. 13).

It has been claimed in class that this treatment results from the nature of capitalism as an economic system, not merely from the doings of “bad people”. Maltreatment of workers, animals, and the environment are depicted in the film “FOOD, INC”. Capitalism also known as “The Free Enterprise System” and “The Market Economy” is a mode of production under which social classes are determined by ownership or control of the means of production. A mode of production is a system by which material production in society is organized. Under capitalism individual rights are emphasized, everything used except human labor is privately owned, and income is based on marketplace competition. In regards to food, food has

The U.S. has always been an importer of commodities that cannot be cultivated here such as bananas, mangos, cocoa and coffee. However, the U.S. has begun to import products that Americans are used to growing themselves. According to Phillip Abbot, a professor of agricultural economics at Purdue University, “the problem is that other nations have successfully grabbed the markets U.S. farmers were counting on. Exports of the U.S. 's biggest commodities such as corn, soybeans and wheat have been flat for a decade as other nations boost production. At the same time, imports of pricier items like fruits, vegetables, processed foods and some meats are surging. The largest challenge for American farmers is that agricultural products can be

Food insecurity is an ongoing issue all over the world; as of 2012 1 billion people are suffering from starvation and malnutrition. (Sasson, 2012, pg.1, paragraph 1) Why has food insecurity become such a problem not just locally, but globally? Olivier de Schutter, special rapporteur of the United Nations on the right to food says, “If most poor countries are still very vulnerable it is because their food security depends too much on food imports whose process are increasingly high an volatile.” (Sasson, 2012, pg. 3, Hunger: A Global Shame, paragraph 4)

for fruit and vegetable import (Expert 2). This claim is consistent with the findings of Altieri (2005).

Brown (1995) claims that most of the increase in demand for food is due to inflated incomes and a notably higher standard of living, as opposed to solely population growth (pg. 1). That is not to say that population is irrelevant, as there are 13 million people added to the population every year in the country (Brown, 1996, pg. 14). He also argues that there has been a shift from grain-based diets to livestock, seafood, fruit and vegetables (pg. 17). (ADD ONTO THIS)

We live in an age in which we have come to expect everything to be instantaneously at our fingertips. We live in an age of instant coffee, instant tea, and even instant mashed potatoes. We can walk down the street at 5 in the morning and get a gallon of milk or even a weeks worth of groceries at our discretion. Even though it is great that food is now readily available at all times, this convenience comes at a price, for both the producer and the consumer. Farmers are cheated out of money and are slaves to big business, workers and animals are mistreated. And, because food now comes at a low cost, it has become cheaper quality and therefore potentially dangerous to the consumer’s health. These problems surrounding the ethics and the

Our nation’s modern industrial farming has become more than only feeding people; it has become a way for the food industry to make more money as human population continues to grow. The food industry has transformed not only how people eat, but also has had negative effect on our climate as a result of factory farming as illustrated by Anna Lappe in “The Climate Crisis at the End of Our Fork”. Jonathan Safran Foer in his book Eating Animals, illustrates the effects factory farming has had on animals meant for human consumption. Furthermore, Foer asks many questions to the reader on what will it take for us to change our ways before we say enough is enough. The questions individuals need to be asking themselves are: how do we deal with the problem of factory farming, and what can people do to help solve these issues? Namit Arora in the article On Eating Animals, as well as Michael Pollan in his book The Omnivore’s Dilemma, both address some of the issues that animals face once they hit the kill floor. Eric Schlosser in Fast Food Nation, also writes on the topic of animal abuse, and what goes unseen within the food industry as well as Bernard Rollin and Robert Desch in their article Farm Factories, both demonstrate what is wrong today with factory farming. The food industry today has impacted all facets of farming practices: from our Earth’s climate to the abuse animals endure, and the loss of old world agricultural farming

Countless times in recent history draughts, disasters and wars have disabled structures supplying large populations with adequate resources. Scarcity of live essential goods reached well beyond demographic borders during the Second World War, leaving not only directly involved nations short of food [3]. The deficit of food affected millions of people all over the globe overnight, lasting for

In light of this, I would like to explore research frontiers in the area of the challenges of managing food and farm businesses in a global setting of the 21st Century. In our society beleaguered by agricultural problems that ranges from economic to environmental problems such as weather and global warming, issues concerning trade and management of agricultural enterprises has been the topic of debate for the past decade. Many developing/poor countries who earn their living from agriculture continuously suffer from poverty and hunger as a result of the increasing pressures on the world's resource base. Policymakers are gripped with finding solutions to problems such as structural and technological constraints, inappropriate domestic policies and an unfavourable external economic environment. As a result, the growth of these economies has been slow, undernourishment has been increasing and the marginalization of these countries in the global economy has continued. This trend has created problems for developing countries over the past decade. Economic and financial

Figure 2 shows the exports of cereals (tons) for Canada, the EU, Northern Africa, Southern Africa, USA and then for the whole world, between year 1990 and 2010. This graph intends to reveal the huge amounts traded on international markets. From the world’s graph can be observed the 50% increase in the exports of cereals over the last 20 years, although the individual exported quantities for the selected regions and countries differ extremely. For instance, the US has exported approximately 20 times the exports of Northern Africa. As a conclusion, the data shows that the greatest share of total exported cereals has been traded by the major economies like the EU, the US and Canada. These large economies have thought for a long period of time

Nonetheless, the real prices of certain commodities such as lamb, tobacco and beef have increased over time due to increasing world average income, which encourages world demand. Interestingly, developing countries, which form the predominant exporters of primary commodities, earn lower relative prices over time, for instance, palm oil arrives primarily from Indonesia and Malaysia and raw sugar arrives mostly from Brazil and Thailand. Contrariwise, the world suppliers of lamb are the United Kingdom, Spain and Australia and, moreover, 14% of world bovine meat arrives from the United States (Simoes, 2013). Therefore, it can be argued that greater advantages are granted to suppliers in developed countries than those in developing countries by trade liberalisation.