Food is Different: Why We Must Get the WTO Out of Agriculture

Global Issues Series

by Peter M. Rosset

Why does our global food system gives us expensive, unhealthy and bad-tasting food, where we pay more for packaging and long-distance shipping than we do for the food itself? Why do farmers and peasants from around the world lead massive protests each and every time the World Trade Organization meets?

Peter Rosset explains how the runaway free trade policies and neoliberal economics of the WTO, American government and European Union kill farmers, and give us a food system that nobody outside of a small corporate elite wants. This essential guide sets out an alternative vision for agricultural policy, taking it completely out of the WTO's ambit. Food is not just another commodity, to be bought and sold like a microchip, but something which goes to the heart of human livelihood, culture and society.

163 pages, Paperback

First published July 9, 2006

Reviews

[Brian · Rating 2 out of 5]

A quick read of historical interest. The approach is journalistic, topical, and dated rather than analytic and long-term, which I found disappointing. The thumbnail summary of the origins of the food sovereignty helped fill in some gaps for me, making it worth the read, but a dozen years too late. It reads more like a half-dozen pamphlets or set of lecture notes rather than a coherent program. Obviously dated with events overtaking it.

[Syaltout · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a good book!