The Fifth Ministerial Meeting of the World Trade Organization came to a dramatic close in Cancún, Mexico: a small farmer from South Korea, Hyung-Kae Lee stabbed himself to death on the gates surrounding the conference venue and hotels. The image of Lee gesturing angrily towards his fellow protestors, with a sign hanging from his neck that read -- The WTO Kills Farmers! -- has become one of the enduring symbols of anti-free trade protest. This protest marks an explicit rejection of the increased commodification and globalization of agricultural production, knowledge, and nature. As we have entered into what Harriet Friedmann and Phillip McMichael (1989) call the Fourth World Food Regime, in which consumers across the globe are connected to commodity chains in agricultural products as diverse as beef, lettuce, and soybeans, the connection to the basic processes of food production have become increasingly tenuous.

In this section of the seminar, we will analyze the production and consumption of food at multiple scales: the scale of the body (what we eat and how the nature of our food reflects the way we prioritize cost, taste, beauty, politics, animal rights, etc.); the household scale (the economics of class embedded in what households produce and consume); the regional scale (development and counter-development strategies of food security and sovereignty); and the global scale (the global food system). Specifically, we will incorporate all of these scales into an analysis of the following subjects: the globalization of agriculture and rapid development of Global Agro-Commodity Chains; ongoing free trade negotiations in agriculture (both at the regional and at the world scale); post-colonial trade relations in agriculture (particularly Bananas and coffee); food-related illnesses and obsessions; the rise of contract farming; gender, employment and exploitation on the farm and at the bottom of globalized commodity chains in food and feed; the spread of alternatives to “food security,” including demands for organic products, fair trade, and agro-ecology.

Case Studies and Comparative Projects: In this section, the focus on Brazil, India, China, Hungary, South Africa, the United States, and France will provide the seminar with a perspective on three different producer groups: Newly Agriculturalizing Countries (Brazil, India, and China); developed agro-industrial economies (the US and France); and developing countries with agricultural sectors in transition (South Africa and Hungary).

In this section, we also hope to bring together fields such as public policy, environmental sciences, public health, geography, anthropology, sociology and history. Potential local speakers and participants in this section include: Peter Coclanis (History, UNC Chapel Hill); Pia McDonald (Public Health, UNC); Paul Rhode (Anthropology, UNC); Karla Slocum (Anthropology, UNC); John Florin (Geography, UNC); and Robert Healy (Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke); Michael Schulman (Socology, NCSU); Ronald Wimberley (Sociology, NCSU); and Thomas Whitmore (Geography, UNC).

Theme leader:
Peter Coclanis, Albert R. Newsome Professor of History and Associate Provost for International Affairs, UNC Chapel Hill