Over the past few decades, public goods, such as water, education and health – the pillars of human rights – have increasingly been transformed into tradable commodities. Food, of course, has been traded for centuries, yet the recent failure in market regulation has led to its full commodification. As a result, it has contributed to the dispossession of productive resources. This affects peasant communities, damages the environment and changes our diets for the worse. The weak market regulatory framework has generated an ever-increasing gap between what is considered legal and what is actually sustainable and coherent with human rights. This year's 'Right to Food and Nutrition Watch' published by Global Network for the Right to Food and Nutrition explores the impacts of dematerialization, digitalization and financialization on our food systems. It discusses how these processes are altering the conception of the food market, and how food consumption habits within urban centers and beyond are being affected. It explores how targets of political action are shifting in the pursuit of food sovereignty, and interrogates how the fulfillment of the human right to adequate food and nutrition will be addressed.October 31, 2018 | Global Network for the Right to Food and Nutrition
When Food Becomes Immaterial
Confronting the Digital Age
Over the past few decades, public goods, such as water, education and health – the pillars of human rights – have increasingly been transformed into tradable commodities. Food, of course, has been traded for centuries, yet the recent failure in market regulation has led to its full commodification. As a result, it has contributed to the dispossession of productive resources. This affects peasant communities, damages the environment and changes our diets for the worse. The weak market regulatory framework has generated an ever-increasing gap between what is considered legal and what is actually sustainable and coherent with human rights.
Further to this, three intertwined dynamics – dematerialization, digitalization and financialization – are now altering the nature of both tradable goods and the markets where they are exchanged. Clearly, our food systems are at an important crossroads. There is now widespread recognition of the failure of the agro-industrial food system even by the World Economic Forum, and other actors who previously promoted the Green Revolution. Despite their recent damnations, these same organizations and actors now claim to have a new 'solution', known as The Fourth Industrial Revolution. This so-called 'innovative thinking' proposes a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres. This presents a new narrative which all of us must engage in to confront the threats that lie ahead.
