Free
trade’s expansion into the realm of food and agriculture has given residents of
the Global North access to a greater range of food at lower costs than ever
before. As with most commodities since free trade was implemented globally
during the 1980s and 1990s, food has been globalised. However since the 2008
global financial crisis critiques of this prevailing economic system have
become more prominent. The wisdom of free trade economics is being questioned
at an unprecedented level, with many seeing it as increasingly evident that the
people of the Global South are being exploited for the benefit of those in rich
nations. With the financial crisis came a food price crisis, which led to the
number of people not receiving adequate nutrition reaching a level not seen in
decades, with one in seven people going hungry worldwide.
Paradoxically,
more food is being produced than ever, and the burden of hunger is tragically
placed in developing countries. In this guest post, Angus Macleod analyses whether this crisis, and general
malnourishment in the developing world, can be considered a result of the trade
liberalisation policies which dominate global economics, and if so, how viable food
sovereignty, the main alternative to this system, can be.
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