Читать книгу The Atlas of Food - Erik Millstone - Страница 6

Foreword

We live at a time when issues about how food is produced, marketed, and consumed are matters of unprecedented personal as well as public interest. And why not? Food influences the lives of every person on Earth. On the personal side, everyone eats, and what we eat – in quantity and quality – greatly affects our health. On the public side, food has extraordinary economic importance. In the United States alone, the food industry encompasses about 2 million farms and nearly 600,000 food processing, wholesale, retail, and service companies. Together, these components of the nation’s food system generate more than a trillion dollars in sales each year, account for about 12 percent of the Gross National Product, and employ about 17 percent of the workforce. Anything this big deserves serious attention on its own, but the US food industry does not exist in isolation. We imported about $80 billion worth of agricultural products and seafood in 2007, and we exported nearly as much. The American food system is inextricably linked to the global food economy. The interconnectedness of the world’s food systems can be illustrated by matters as seemingly diverse as the pet food recalls of 2007 and by rising food prices. The pet food incident began with a few sick cats but soon developed into an international crisis in food safety and trade relations. Toxic ingredients had been produced in China, shipped to the United States and Canada, incorporated into hundreds of brands of pet foods, and recycled into feed for pigs, chickens, and fish intended for the human food supply. Some of the adulterated food and feed was exported to countries abroad. Today’s national and international food systems are so interwoven that food intended for pets, farm animals, or people cannot be kept separate. A problem with food in one country must be expected to have international repercussions. The recent rise in food prices also has profound global dimensions. Its multiple causes may appear many steps removed from supermarket shopping carts: increasing demands for meat and cooking oils among populations in developing countries and, therefore, for feed grains and oil seeds; Middle East conflicts leading to reductions in the supply of fuel oil, thereby increasing the costs of fertilizer and transportation; and American incentives for Midwestern farmers to grow corn to produce ethanol rather than feed. Throughout history, food shortages have threatened the stability of governments. Today, they pose a threat to world security. These interconnections are complex and the “big picture” is often hard to fathom. That is why The Atlas of Food is such an invaluable resource. Here, in one place, beautifully illustrated, is the global food system available to anyone at the mere turn of a page. The Atlas maps provide rich material. Millstone, Lang and colleagues make the prodigious amount of research that went into creating them look easy. The maps tell the story at a glance. This Atlas is a generous gift to the world community of people who care about food in any of its dimensions, from farming to advocacy. We owe it a great round of applause. Marion Nestle Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University and author of Food Politics, Safe Food, and What to Eat.