The Locavore's Dilemma (36 page)

53
That they are now denigrated as “sprawl” doesn't change the fact that they are as old as the first cities and, as such, much more ancient than racial problems, modern tax policies and the automobile.

54
For a more detailed examination of these issues, see Robert Bruegmann. 2006.
Sprawl, A Compact History.
University of Chicago Press.

55
Eric Jaffe. 2011. “If the World Lived Like New Yorkers, We'd All Fit Into Texas.”
The Infrastructurist
July 22.
http://www.infrastructurist.com/2011/07/22/if-the-world-lived-like-new-yorkers-wed-all-fit-into-texas/
.

1
World Health Organization,
Glossary—
Food Security
http://www.who.int/trade/glossary/story028/en/
For a broader discussion of the concept since its emergence in the early 1980s, see Simon Maxwell and Rachel Slater. 2003. “Food Policy Old and New.”
Development Policy Review
21 (5-6): 531–553. Much relevant and freely accessible material on the topic can be found on the Global Food Security website (U.K. Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council)
http://www.foodsecurity.ac.uk/
.

2
Peter Garnsey. 1988.
Famine and Food Supply in the Graeco-Roman World: Responses to Risk and Crisis
. Cambridge University Press, p. 6 defines food shortages as a “short-term reduction in the amount of available foodstuffs, as indicated by rising food prices, popular discontent, hunger, in the worst cases bordering on starvation” and a famine as a “critical shortage of essential foodstuffs leading through hunger to starvation and a substantially increased mortality rate.” More general treatments of the issue include Robert W. Fogel. 2004.
The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700–2100: Europe, America, and the Third World
. Cambridge University Press; Brian Murton. 2000. “Famine.” In Kenneth F. Kiple and Kriemhild Coneè Ornelas.
The Cambridge World History of Food
. Cambridge University Press, pp. 1411–1427; and Cormac Ó Gráda. 2009.
Famine. A Short History.
Princeton University Press.

3
For a more detailed portrait of current hunger in underdeveloped economies, see the Global Hunger Index of the International Food Policy Research Institute
http://www.ifpri.org/publication/2010-global-hunger-index
.

4
For a concise survey of the issue, see Jere. R. Berhman, Harold Alderman and John Hoddinott. “Malnutrition and Hunger.” In BjørnLomborg (ed.) 2004.
Global Crises, Global Solutions
. Cambridge University Press, pp. 363-420. The worldwide number of undernourished people is based on diverse statistical aggregates and, unavoidably, the underlying methodology has been the subject of various criticisms. For a discussion of some of these problems, see Derek Headey. 2011. “Was the Global Food Crisis Really a Crisis? Simulation Vs Self-Reporting.”
Vox
(June 6)
http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/6615
.

5
As of this writing, major food price spikes occurred in 2008 and late 2010. It is probably fair to say that the former was primarily driven by very high oil prices that were made worse by policy decisions such as food export bans and the latter by high fuel prices and bad weather in the U.S., Australia, Russia and China. The
New York Times
now devotes a portion of its website to the issue
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/f/food_prices/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier
.

6
See, among others the
Declaration NGO Forum Rome Summit +5
http://www.viacampesina.org/main_en/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=418
; Josh Brem-Wilson. 2010 The Reformed Committee on World Food Security. A Briefing Paper for Civil Society (Section 1)
http://www.foodsovereignty.org/Portals/0/documenti%20sito/Home/News/reformed%20CFS_english.pdf
; and the websites of organizations such as
La Via Campesina
http://viacampesina.org/en/
and the
International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty
http://www.foodsovereignty.org/
.

7
See, among others, Peter Rosset. 2008. “Food Sovereignty and the Contemporary Food Crisis.”
Development
51 (4): 460–463.

8
Standard statements to this effect are found in Oakland Institute. 2008.
The Food Crisis and Latin America
, Policy Brief
http://media.oaklandinstitute.org/content/food-crisis-and-latin-america
; and Frederic Mousseau. 2010.
The High Food Price Challenge: A Review of Responses to Combat Hunger
. Oakland Institute
http://media.oaklandinstitute.org/sites/oaklandinstitute.org/files/high_food_prices_web_final.pdf
.

9
Brian Murton. 2000. “Famine.” In Kenneth F. Kiple and Kriemhild Coneè Ornelas.
The Cambridge World History of Food
. Cambridge University Press, p. 1412.

10
Of these factors, drought is generally thought to have been the most significant historically. See Cormac Ó Gráda. 2009.
Famine. A Short History.
Princeton University Press, pp.14–15.

11
Vaclav Smil. 2002.
China's Past, China's Future.
Routledge, p.72.

12
Frank Dikköter. 2010.
Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958–62
. Bloomsbury Publishing.

13
One such instance is described in chapter 5 of the Hebrew Bible's
Book of Nehemiah
. Various translations of the book can be found at
http://www.early-jewishwritings.com/nehemiah.html
.

14
George Dodd. 1856.
The Food of London: A sketch of the chief varieties, sources of supply, probable quantities, modes of arrival, processes of manufacture, suspected adulteration, and machinery of distribution, of the food for a community of two millions and a half 
. Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, p. 27.
http://books.google.ca/books?id=w1UZAAAAYAAJ&source=gbs_navlinks_s
.

15
William Wilson Hunter. 1871.
The Annals of Rural Bengal, fourth edition
. Smith, Elder and Co
http://books.google.ca/books?id=yEoOAAAAQAAJ&dq=relatedOCLC19227940&source=gbs_navlinks_s
:;.

16
Cormac Ó Gráda. 2009.
Famine. A Short History.
Princeton University Press, pp. 157 and 219.

17
Global Food Markets Group. 2010.
The 2007/08 Agricultural Price Spikes: Causes and Policy Implications.
DEFRA, pp. 14 and 90
http://archive.defra.gov.uk/foodfarm/food/pdf/ag-price100105.pdf
.

18
Accounts of such migrations can be found in, among other places, William Wilson Hunter. 1871.
The Annals of Rural Bengal, fourth edition
. Smith, Elder and Co, p. 55
http://books.google.ca/books?id=yEoOAAAAQAAJ&dq=related:OCLC19227940&source=gbs_navlinks_s
; and Peter Garnsey. 1988.
Famine and Food Supply in the Graeco-Roman World: Responses to Risk and Crisis
. Cambridge University Press.

19
Louis Torfs. 1839.
Fastes des calamités publiques survenues dans les Pays-Bas et particulièrement en Belgique, depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu'à nos jours.
Casterman, p. 209
http://books.google.com/books?id=W1ZbAAAAQAAJ&hl=fr&source=gbs_navlinks_s
.

20
Aristotle. 350 BCE.
Meteorology
Book II, Part 4
http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/meteorology.2.ii.html
.

21
Saint Gregory of Nazianzus App. 382 AD. “On St. Basil the Great, Bishop of Caesarea” (translated by Leo P. McCauley, SJ), pp. 27-99. Reprint in 2004/1953
The Fathers of the Church: Saint Gregory of Nazianzus and Saint-Ambrose, Funeral Orations.
The Catholic University Press of America, p. 57.

22
Benjamin Franklin. 1774. “Principles of Trade.” Reprint in Jared Sparks (ed.) 1836.
The Works of Benjamin Franklin, volume 2
. Hilliard, Gray and Company: 383-409, p. 407
http://books.google.ca/books?id=IvE_AAAAYAAJ&source=gbs_navlinks_s
.

23
Christian Wolmar. 2010.
Blood, Iron & Gold. How the Railroads Transformed the World.
PublicAffairs, p. 224.

24
For a complementary discussion of some of the issues raised in this section, see Thomas R. DeGregori. 2003. “The Anti-Monoculture Mania.”
Butterflies and Wheels
(July 12)
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2003/the-anti-monoculture-mania/
.

25
George W. Norton, Jeffrey Alwang and William A. Masters. 2010.
Economics of Agricultural Development. World Food Systems and Resource Use, Second Edition.
Routledge, p. 139.

26
Rachel Carson. 2002/1962.
Silent Spring (40th anniversary edition)
. Houghton Mifflin Company, p. 10.

27
William A. Haviland and Gary Crawford. 2009.
Human Evolution and Prehistory
, Second Canadian edition, Nelson Education Ltd, pp. 315–316.

28
James Whorton. 1974.
Before Silent Spring. Pesticides and Public Health in Pre-DDT America
. Princeton University Press, p. 6.

29
Thomas R. DeGregori. 2003. “The Anti-Monoculture Mania.”
Butterflies and Wheels
(July 12)
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2003/the-anti-monoculture-mania/
.

30
Randy C. Ploetz. 2005. “Panama Disease: An Old Nemesis Rears Its Ugly Head. Part 1.The Beginnings of the Banana Export Trades.”
APS
-
Plant Health Progress
(August)
http://www.apsnet.org/publications/apsnetfeatures/Pages/PanamaDiseasePart1.aspx
; and Adi B. Damania. 2008. “History, Achievements, and Current Status of Genetic Resources Conservation.”
Agronomy Journal
100: 9–21. Whether or not the taste of Gros Michel was incomparably superior to Cavendish as if often claimed by opponents of monocultures is not something we are able to ascertain..

31
Jock Galloway. 2000. “Sugar.” In Kenneth F. Kiple and Kriemhild Coneè Ornelas. 2000.
The Cambridge World History of Food
. Cambridge University Press
http://www.cambridge.org/us/books/kiple/sugar.htm
; and Adi B. Damania. 2008. “History, Achievements, and Current Status of Genetic Resources Conservation.”
Agronomy Journal
100: 9–21.

32
Jeffrey Granett, M. Andrew Walker, Laszlo Kocsis and Amir D. Omer. 2001. “Biology and Management of Grape Phylloxera.”
Annual Review of Entomology
41: 387–412.

33
For a personal account of the research that resulted in this solution, see Charlie Martinson. 2008 “Looking Back at Nearly Fifty Years at Iowa State.”
Essays on the College of Agriculture's History
, Iowa State University
http://www.ag.iastate.edu/coa150/martinson.php
.

34
Adi B. Damania. 2008. “History, Achievements, and Current Status of Genetic Resources Conservation.”
Agronomy Journal
100: 9–21.

35
Adi B. Damania. 2008. “History, Achievements, and Current Status of Genetic Resources Conservation.”
Agronomy Journal
100: 9–21.

36
For an overview that illustrates in much detail how severe these diseases were a century ago, see United States Department of Agriculture (USDA, Bureau of Animal Industry). 1916.
Special Report on Diseases of Cattle, revised edition.
Government Printing Office
http://www.archive.org/details/specialreportond04unit
.

37
See, among others, Joint FAO/IAEA. 2005.
History of Battle against Rinderpest
http://www-naweb.iaea.org/nafa/aph/stories/2005-rinderpest-history.html
and the
FAO Global Rinderpest Eradication Programme
http://www.fao.org/ag/againfo/programmes/en/grep/home.html
.

38
Alonzo Dorus Melvin and John R. Mohler. 1915. “Foot and Mouth Disease.”
Bulletin of the United States Live Stock Sanitary Association
Live Stock World
http://www.archive.org/details/footandmouthdise00melv
.

39
Thomas Robert Malthus. 1798.
An Essay on the Principle of Population as It Affects the Future Improvement of Society, with Remarks on the Speculations of Mr. Godwin, M. Condorcet, and Other Writers
. J. Johnson
http://www.econlib.org/library/Malthus/malPop.html
.

40
Malthus is often unfairly portrayed in social science textbooks as essentially absolving economic systems, political structures and wealthy elites for the faith of the poor. See, for instance, Paul Robbins, John Hintz and Sarah A. Moore. 2010.
Environment and Society: A Critical Introduction.
Wiley-Blackwell, p. 15. For a more nuanced yet accessible discussion of the issue, see Morgan D. Rose. 2002. “In Defense of Malthus.”
Library of Economics and Liberty—Teacher's Corner
http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/Teachers/defendmalthus.html
.

41
Kenneth Smith. 1952. “Some Observations on Modern Malthusianism.”
Population Studies
6 (1): 92–105.

42
Alfred Marshall. 1920/1890. Principles of Economics, McMillan & Co., Ltd, Book IV, Chapter 10
http://www.econlib.org/library/Marshall/marP24.html#Bk.IV,Ch.X
.

43
K. M. de Silva. 1981.
A History of Sri Lanka, Volume 1
. C Hurst & Company, chapter 21
http://books.google.ca/books?id=dByI_qil26YC&source=gbs_navlinks_s
.

44
Frederic Mousseau. 2010.
The High Food Price Challenge: A Review of Responses to Combat Hunger
. Oakland Institute, p. 11
http://media.oaklandinsti-tute.org/sites/oaklandinstitute.org/files/high_food_prices_web_final.pdf
.

45
One of us even wrote an academic paper on the absurdity of doing so. See Samuli Leppälä and Pierre Desrochers. 2010. “The Division of Labor Needs Not Imply Regional Specialization.”
Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
74 (1–2): 137–147.