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Much of the food we eat takes an interesting journey to get to our plates. The supply chain that brings us our food is often indirect; the path between producers and consumers can be circuitous, with many people and stops in between. In this industrial food system, it\u2019s rare to think about the small farmer in Africa or elsewhere that may have grown the plant from which a particular food originates. Foods that are readily available in the developing world are often unattainable to those small farmers- sometimes the very products they are cultivating. How often does one stop to wonder about <\/span>who<\/span><\/i> gets to consume certain foods, and <\/span>who<\/span><\/i> does not? What are the various processes that decide these patterns of consumption? Some foods that are ubiquitous in American culture- coffee, chocolate, bananas- often begin in the developing world, grown by people whose livelihoods and diets are governed by policies established by wealthy nations.<\/span><\/p>\n In <\/span>The Real Cost of Cheap Food<\/span><\/i>,<\/span> Michael Carolan cites an economic bias that has arisen in trade practices. Originally thought to free peasant farmers from labor-intensive agricultural toil, trade liberalization and industrialization of agriculture would mobilize \u201can unproductive farm sector,\u201d and give them greater access to city and factory jobs, \u201cwhere the real wealth is said to be generated.\u201d (26) Carolan identifies this as \u201curban bias,\u201d which has impoverished the developing world, making them \u201cfood insecure, economically fragile and heavily dependent upon major grain-exporting nations.\u201d (27) The urban bias of affluent countries has led them to divest in agricultural development in developing countries, \u00a0isolating small farmers in the global South and put them at an economic disadvantage to the global North. Though Americans love to consume, they must consider the sacrifices made- economically, physically, emotionally- by farmers to cultivate and provide these foods. In fair trade practices, small farmers can make a higher percentage of profit from the food they\u2019ve grown, but American consumption and economic practices must be reformed as well, if the US <\/span>really<\/span><\/i> cares about the quality of life and future of rural farmers.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Much of the food we eat takes an interesting journey to get to our plates. The supply chain that brings us our food is often indirect; the path between producers and consumers can be circuitous, with many people and stops in between. In this industrial food system, it\u2019s rare to think about the small farmer in Africa or elsewhere that… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[144,103,141,20,90,188,189,69,154,190,110],"class_list":["post-439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contemplative-practices","tag-economic-policy","tag-fair-trade","tag-food-chain","tag-food-policy","tag-food-system","tag-global-north","tag-global-south","tag-hunger","tag-political-economy","tag-rural-farmers","tag-smallholder-farming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385w18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385w18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385w18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385w18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385w18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=439"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385w18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":441,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385w18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439\/revisions\/441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385w18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385w18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385w18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}