What is Food System

A set of processes that produce agricultural commodities on firms, transform these commodities into food in the marketing sector, and sell the food to consumers in order to satisfy nutrition needs. Today the world food system is dominated by a few major corporate players who enjoy immense power over producers, consumers, national policy-makers and international institutions of global governance and also over the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO. When governments are forced to take a backseat through policies enforced by the organizations such as the WTO, private companies step in and fill the gap. Trade liberalization forces poor countries to remove their import barriers, leaving them vulnerable to ‘dumping’: the process by which commodities that are subsidized in the Global North are off-loaded in large quantities into countries in the Global South, with the target to destroy local sources of food production and distribution, including farmers’ livelihoods. It is not surprising that the last 20 years or more have shown NAFTA to be the key criminal in the systematic destruction of the Mexican people’s all they belong: their standard of living, wealth, livelihoods and economies Following the implementation of a neoliberal doctrine, Indonesia in 1992 opened its doors to food imports, allowing cheap (in other words, heavily subsidized) American soya to flood their market. This destroyed national production of Soya-based tofu and tempeh— known there as ‘meat of the poor’, and today 60 per cent of the soya consumed in Indonesia is imported ( Shiva, 2017 , p. 97). In Mexico now some of the largest food corporations from the Unites States enjoy a significant presence. In large-and medium- sized cities, major supermarkets, discount and convenience stores capture over 55 per cent of the market. The story of Wal-Mart in Mexico is well known since their first venture in 1991 ( www.Walmartstores.com ). In rural places and smaller towns, the food manufacturers have marketed their products through the traditional road side outlets known as “ Tiendas ” ( Hawkes, 2006 , p. 4). As a result this planet is facing a deep and growing crisis. The planet’s well being, people’s health, and societies’ stability are severely threatened by an industrial, globalized agriculture, primarily driven by profit making. Instead, an inefficient, wasteful and non-sustainable mode of food production is pushing the planet, its ecosystems, and its diverse species to the verge of destruction. Food, whose primary purpose is to provide nourishment, has emerged as the leading cause of some of the biggest health problems in the world today: nearly one billion people suffer from hunger and malnutrition, two billions suffer from diseases like obesity and diabetes, and countless suffer from terminal diseases, including cancer, caused by the poisons in our food ( Robin, 2004 ).So instead of remaining a source of nourishment, food has been transformed into a commodity. Since 2007, we have before us 51 food riots in 37 countries including Tunisia, South Africa, Cameroon and India (Adams, 2014 AU41: The in-text citation "Adams, 2014" is not in the reference list. Please correct the citation, add the reference to the list, or delete the citation. ). Today, coming up with an alternative has become imperative for the survival of people like us. Food systems can provide affordable healthy diets that are sustainable and inclusive, and become a powerful driving force towards ending hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in all its forms, for all.

Food and Nutrition Security: A Global Perspective

Asim K. Karmakar (Netaji Subhas Open University, India) and Sebak Kumar Jana (Vidyasagar University, India)