Reclaiming Food Security by Michael S Carolan

Reclaiming Food Security by Michael S Carolan

In this challenging work, the author argues that the goal of any food system should not simply be to provide the cheapest calories possible. A secure food system is one that affords people and nations - in both the present and future - the capabilities to prosper and lead long, happy, and healthy lives. For a variety of reasons, food security has come to be synonymous with cheap calorie security. On this measure, the last fifty years have been a remarkable success. But the author shows that these cheap calories have also come at great cost, to the environment, individual and societal well-being, human health, and the food sovereignty of nations.

"Never again should we use the phrase ‘food security’ – in the classroom, in the literature, or at the dinner table – without invoking Carolan’s meaning in his aptly titled Reclaiming Food Security: not just simply meeting calorie needs but fostering well-being in current and future generations"– Christine M. Porter, Assistant Professor of Public Health and Food Dignity Project Director, University of Wyoming

"Carolan challenges the prevailing assumptions about food security and, in so doing, recovers the true spirit of the term by reconnecting it to human welfare. Rich in detail, broad in scope, and thoroughly engaging to read. Genuinely refreshing scholarship" – Colin Sage, University College Cork, Republic of Ireland

"A brilliant, bold and path breaking intervention into world food politics. This easy to read book changes how we must think about and work on food security. The conceptual and analytic tool of the Food and Human Security Index compellingly brings social sense back into the food security debate. A powerful, empirically grounded, thought experiment directed at enacting different human and food futures." – Richard Le Heron, University of Auckland

"Carolan questions current assumptions, especially the agro-industrial and food systems based on providing the cheapest calories possible, with devastating effects on the environment, small holders and health. He argues that a secure food system enables people both present and future to prosper and lead long, happy and healthy lives." – David Lorimer, Network Review

"(Reclaiming Food Security) provides an excellent introduction for both undergraduate and graduate students to a more critical approach to ‘food security’. For educators the creative use of statistics is great classroom material and serves as a good entry point into the more complicated and sometimes contradictory relationships present in contemporary food systems. Most importantly, the FHSI introduced in this volume provides a strong foundation—and can be seen as a versatile thinking tool—for a reorientation of ‘food security’ into a direction that is more responsive to human and environmental needs than has previously been the case." – Justa Hopma, Agriculture and Human Values, Aberystwyth University

Michael Carolan is a Professor at Colorado State University, USA, and Chair of its Department of Sociology. Some of his recent books include The Real Cost of Cheap Food (Routledge), The Sociology of Food and Agriculture (Routledge), and Society and the Environment: Pragmatic Solutions to Ecological Issues (Westview Press).

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780415816960
ISBN 10	0415816963
Title	Reclaiming Food Security
Author	Michael S Carolan
Series	Earthscan Food And Agriculture
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Taylor & Francis Ltd
Year published	2013-04-10
Number of pages	216
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.