Global Food Politics
The author asserts that the corporate & international organization efforts at liberalization of the agrifood business is undermining the small farmers in the Third World countries that must import food from the West. Regulatory agencies, such as the emerging World Trade Organization (WTO), are developing the potential to strengthen the industrialized world's power & limit the growth of Third World citizens. As the US has sought the potential market for food exports to the Pacific Asian countries, the 1994 agreement of the Uruguay Round, OECD projections predicted the decline in prices from local Third World corn producers by 20% by the year 2000, which would cut the income of 500,000 peasant households. According to Watkins, this agreement requires "developing countries to open their food markets in the name of free market principles, while allowing the US & the EU to protect their farm systems & subsidize exports" (1996). The author traces the history & developments of the Western domination of the agriculture markets including detrimental effects of the green revolution, agro-colonialism & agro-industrialism, the formation of GATT, TNCS, & world-agricultural restructuring. L. A. Hoffman