Book Review

Review of Robert Gottlieb and AnupamaJoshi’s Food Justice

Carol B. Thompson

Analyzing local, national, and international

organizing for food justice, this book exemplifies themeaning and results of participatory action research(PAR), for food justice, a component of environmentaljustice, can only be understood through direct engage-ment. The study demonstrates iterative participatory ac-tion research, for without planting the seeds, literally inthe ground within our communities, and engaging inequitable distribution, there is no food justice.

Food justice calls for relationships of equity in producing,processing, distributing, and consuming food to replace thecorporate hierarchy of mistreatment of farmers, farmworkers, and farm animals, which also ignores consumerand environmental health. As the authors state, ‘‘food jus-tice has the capacity to reorient the food movement in [two]ways—to prioritize the need to address inequities whileseeking to change the system as a whole’’ (p. 7). Because thefood justice movement comprises all aspects of food from‘‘farm to fork,’’ it integrates readily into other social justicemovements, such as fair housing or environmental justice,to foster a broad, dynamic social change agenda.

Working toward food justice reconnects the intimatelink between food and culture, for without sustainingculture, we lose our food. In contrast to the manufacturedfat/sugar/salt (that some of us now call ‘‘doof,’’ foodspelled backwards) overflowing our grocery store shelvesand freezers, diverse cultures cultivate biodiverse foodsfor greater nutrition. They breed and name the new seeds,and if the native name for a seed or plant is lost as alanguage dies, so are the site-specific plants lost. There is ahigh correlation between loss of language and loss ofplant varieties, and sometimes, whole species. Food is notsimply something purchased from a vending machine,but it represents heritage and spirituality, defining familyand community.

This central importance of culture is one lesson the foodjustice movement brings to the environmental justice

movement, in that local ways and manners are not easilymade universal nor codified. Another lesson is the im-portance of local communities for the success of cam-paigns; collective actions involving hard day-to-dayorganizing work bring change, not individualisticachievements or pronouncements. The metaphor ofplanting again helps us to understand: Collective work incultivating diverse crops in a field is much more efficientand successful than individual endeavor, as all the orga-nized (overwhelming female) smallholder farmers acrossthe globe keep showing us by growing 70–80 percent ofthe world’s food. Outsiders can talk or chart ‘‘food jus-tice’’; only local, collective hard work grows it.

The authors are thorough in covering the scope andcomplexity of food justice, analyzing each aspect of the‘‘unjust food system’’ in the first half of the book, withchapters on producing, accessing, and consuming food,including discussion of school lunches and the food des-erts in the inner cities. As they state, ‘‘Where, how andwhat food is sold, the rise and locations of fast foodchains, the supermarket chains’ abandonment of inner-city.communities, the correlation of food deserts withpoor food choices, and the conditions of workers in thefood market and restaurant industries have all becomekey food justice concerns’’ (p. 58). They are careful to givebrief historical contexts to each component in the foodsystem to show that current exploitation of labor, animals,and consumers (zero nutrition for high cost) have beendeveloped over decades, following the logic of consoli-dating markets for higher profits.

The second section of the book is equally comprehen-sive in analyzing the various roots and branches of foodjustice alternatives. Key to all the alternatives is ‘‘foodsovereignty,’’ a concept that now replaces ‘‘food security’’across the global food movement. Food sovereignty rosefrom the struggles of smallholder, peasant farmers—many of whom lost their lives to armies and death squadsworking for the interests of large landholders—to estab-lish agroecological alternatives to industrial cash crops(e.g., coffee in Guatemala, sugar in Brazil). These peas-ants, highly creative and brave as well as dirt poor, showus how to take back production of nutritious food for ourfamilies, our communities. They define food sovereignty

Robert Gottlieb and Anupama Joshi, Food Justice. Cambridge,MA: MIT Press, 2010, 304 pp., $16.95 (paperback), $29.00 (hard-cover).

Dr. Thompson is a professor of political economy at NorthernArizona University in Flagstaff, AZ.

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICEVolume 6, Number 5, 2013ª Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.DOI: 10.1089/env.2012.0021

189

as ‘‘the right of each nation to maintain and develop itsown capacity to produce its basic foods, respecting cul-tural and productive capacity,’’ as well as the ‘‘right ofpeoples to define their agricultural and food policy’’ (p.116). La Via campesina, originating in the Managua De-claration of 1992 among farm organizations from CentralAmerica, the Caribbean, Europe, Canada, and the UnitedStates, remains a global leader in redefining how to pro-duce diverse nutritious food as a human right. Successfulalternatives, varying with the terrain and political land-scapes, contribute to the production component of thefood justice movement.

Equally important for the United States are questions of‘‘new food routes’’ (chapter 7), diminishing by thousandsof miles how far our food travels. The authors also discusshow changing our consumption back to savoring food,prepared with enticing local flavors, will also transformour health and our conviviality. We do not need to gulpdown manufactured fat/sugar/salt, for we can multi-taskwhile savoring, by teaching each other, debating ideas,and organizing. Several of the case stories demonstratehow sharing food connects people to create new ways topromote food justice. Eating becomes an organizing act.

The authors help us to understand that the food justicemovement is not an event but a process, with many falsestarts and quick demises, as in any movement. Organizedaround production, processing, distribution, and con-sumption of basic food, however, it offers a place for anyperson on the planet. Anyone can sit at the table and offerhis/her ideas and skills to overcome the exploitation,‘‘globesity,’’ and environmental destruction of industrialagriculture. Everyone ‘‘votes’’ several times a day, not justonce every two years, with his/her food dollar aboutwhat is acceptable, not only in terms of nutrition but oflabor relations and most important, in advancing for eachand every one of us the human right to food.

While analyzing well the difficulties in local organiz-ing, the book is disappointing in its optimism about theObama Administration. The First Lady’s organic gardenchanges nothing of executive policy in the U.S. Depart-ment of Agriculture, which endlessly repeats the mantrathat U.S. industrial agriculture will save the world fromstarvation during climate change. Obama policies closelyfollow a century of U.S. agricultural policy of subsidizingbig chemical corporations (e.g., Monsanto) and the graincartels. While discussing at length the problems of theFarm Bill, the book’s argument is still favorable aboutnational policy changes. The authors’ discussion of manylocal initiatives for change is much better documentedthan any wishful thinking about U.S. Food and DrugAdministration or U.S. Environmental Protection Agencyregulations for safe food or for green and humane feedlots for animals.

It is disappointing to note that farmers’ rights are notcentral to the discussion of food sovereignty, especiallywhen referring to international alternatives. For foodsovereignty to be realized, farmers’ rights to exchange,save, propagate, and store any seed must be sustained.The International Treaty for Plant Genetic Resources forFood and Agriculture (ITPGRFA-2004) recognizes the roleof farmers across millennia in cultivating food biodiver-sity by enshrining this right in international law. Farmersare constant seed breeders, experimenting with newcross-breeds, sharing with neighbors to test a new varietyin a different micro-climate. The patenting of seeds in theUnited States tries to abrogate this farmers’ right, re-moving the very creativity which gives human suste-nance. The United States refuses to ratify the ITPGRFA.However, across the globe, it is heralded as equal tofood sovereignty in importance to transforming the in-dustrial food system. Farmers’ rights are central to foodjustice.

It is not an exaggeration to suggest that this bookshould be read by anyone interested in food, for it doc-uments well how rich we are in creating alternatives tothe unjust food system. It is also highly recommended tohigh school and university students, no matter what thesubject, because the food justice movement relates to allsubjects, from physics and biology to social sciences tohumanities. It would be excellent to provoke discussionsamong community organizers about taking back controlover local foods. The book demonstrates how the foodmovement could readily meet the challenge of feedingthousands for weeks in the Occupy movement in variouscities around the USA during 2011. The food justicemovement already exists, organized by the 99%. Thedocumented successes are hopeful and perhaps we can allshare in that hope, for the food justice movement is ex-posing and challenging the industrial food cartels in theirfrenzy to feed Wall Street profits, not any humans.

Food justice teaches that food is not a commodity forfinancial speculation, but rather, a basic human right.This book will give fresh ideas to all food move-ment organizers—who are winning the processes (notevent) of cultivating multiple, diverse, alternative foodsystems.

Address correspondence to:Carol B. Thompson

Politics and International AffairsNorthern Arizona University

P.O. Box 15036Flagstaff, AZ 86011

E-mail: carol.thompson@nau.edu

190 THOMPSON