Waubonsee Community College

Foodopoly, the battle over the future of food and farming in America, Wenonah Hauter

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 341-342) and index

illustrations

index present

non fiction

Foodopoly

bibliography

778419476

Wenonah Hauter

the battle over the future of food and farming in America

Wenonah Hauter owns an organic family farm that provides healthy vegetables to hundreds of families as part of the growing nationwide Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) movement. Yet, as one of the nation's leading healthy food advocates, Hauter believes that the local food movement is not enough to solve America's food crisis and the public health debacle it has created. In Foodopoly, she takes aim at what she sees as the real culprit: the control of food production by a handful of large corporations -- backed by political clout -- that prevents farmers from raising healthy crops and limits the choices that people can make in the grocery store. Blending history, reporting, and a deep understanding of American faming and food production, Foodopoly is an account of the business behind the meat, vegetables, grains, and milk that most Americans eat every day. Hauter also pulls the curtain back from the little-understood but vital realm of agricultural policy, showing how it has been hijacked by lobbyists, driving out independent farmers and food processors in favor of the likes of Cargill, Tyson, Kraft, and ConAgra. Foodopoly demonstrates how the impacts ripple far and wide, from economic stagnation in rural communities at home to famines overseas. In the end, Hauter argues that solving this crisis will require a complete structural shift -- a change that is about politics, not just personal choice

Part I. Farm and Food Policy Run Amok. Get those boys off the farm! -- Part II. Consolidating Every Link in the Food Chain. The junk food pushers ; Walmarting the food chain. -- Part III. The Produce and Organics Industries: Putting Profits Before People. The Green Giant doesn't live in California anymore ; Organic food: The paradox. -- Part IV. Deregulating Food Safety. Poisoning people ; Animals on drugs. -- Part V. The Story of Factory Farms. Cowboys versus meatpackers: The last roundup ; Hogging the profits ; Modern-day serfs ; Milking the system. -- Part VI. Corporate Control of the Gene Pool: The Theft of Life. Life for sale: The birth of life science companies ; David versus Goliath ; The future of food: Science fiction or nature? -- Part VII. Building the Political Power to Challenge the Foodopoly. Eat and act your politics ; The way forward

Battle over the future of food and farming in America