New and Expanded Essays
from a Special Issue of Monthly Review
HUNGRY FOR PROFIT
The Agribusiness Threat
to Farmers, Food, and the Environment
edited by
Fred Magdoff, John Bellamy Foster
and Frederick H. Buttel
“This is a timely and useful book
… packed with thoughtful ideas and challenging analyses…. The
editors’ overview is excellent, characterized by clarity and force …
the editors have done an excellent job in the selection of articles and/or the
assignment of topics. They have packed a great deal into what is really quite a
short and tightly edited manuscript.”
— LABOUR LE TRAVAIL
“A strong and timely collection
… a compelling, historically oriented survey of the political economy of
the state-supported corporate takeover of world food production.”
—
CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY
The agribusiness/food sector is the second most profitable industry in the
United States — following pharmaceuticals — with annual sales over
$400 billion. Contributing to its profitability are the breathtaking strides in
biotechnology coupled with the growing concentration of ownership and control
by food’s largest corporations. Everything, from decisions on which foods
are produced, to how they are processed, distributed, and marketed is,
remarkably, dictated by a select few giants wielding enormous power. More and
more farmers are forced to adopt new technologies and strategies with
consequences potentially harmful to the environment, our health, and the
quality of our lives. The role played by trade institutions like the World
Trade Organization, serves only to make matters worse.
Through it all, the paradox of capitalist agriculture persists: ever-greater
numbers remain hungry and malnourished despite an increase in world food
supplies and the perpetuation of food overproduction.
Hungry for Profit presents a historical analysis and an incisive
overview of the issues and debates surrounding the global commodification of
agriculture. Contributors address the growing public concern over food safety
and controversial developments in agricultural biotechnology including
genetically engineered foods. Hungry for Profit also examines the extent
to which our environmental, social, and economic problems are intertwined with
the structure of global agriculture as it now exists.
Hungry for Profit demystifies the reasons why hunger proliferates in
the midst of plenty and points the way toward sustainable solutions. Perhaps
most important, it highlights the ways in which farmers, farmworkers,
environmental and sustainable agriculture groups — as well as consumers
— are engaged in the struggle to create a just and environmentally sound
food system which, its editors argue, cannot be separated from a just and
environmentally sound society.
Contents &
Contributors
Introduction
FRED MAGDOFF, JOHN BELLAMY FOSTER,
& FREDERICK H. BUTTEL
The Agrarian Origins of Capitalism
by ELLEN MEIKSINS WOOD
Liebig, Marx, and the Depletion of Soil Fertility:
Relevance for Today's Agriculture
JOHN BELLAMY FOSTER & FRED MAGDOFF
Concentration of Ownership and Control in
Agriculture
by WILLIAM D. HEFFERNAN
Ecological Impacts of Industrial Agriculture
and the Possibilities for Sustainable Farming
by MIGUEL A. ALTIERI
The Maturing of Capitalist Agriculture:
Farmer as Proletarian
by R.C. LEWONTIN
New Agricultural Biotechnologies:
The Struggle for Democratic Choice
by GERAD MIDDENDORF, MIKE SKLADNY,
ELIZABETH RANSOM, & LAWRENCE BUSCH
Global Food Politics
by PHILIP McMICHAEL
The Great Global Enclosure of Our Times:
Peasants and the Agrarian Question
at the Beginning of the Twenty-First Century
by FARSHAD ARAGHI
Organizing U.S. Farmworkers:
A Continuous Struggle
by LINDA C. MAJKA & THEO J. MAJKA
Rebuilding Local Food Systems
from the Grassroots Up
by ELIZABETH HENDERSON
Want Amid Plenty:
From Hunger to Inequality
by JANET POPPENDIECK
Cuba: A Successful Case Study
of Sustainable Agriculture
by PETER M. ROSSET
The Importance of Land Reform
in the Reconstruction of China
by WILLIAM HINTON
About the Editors
FRED MAGDOFF is
professor of plant and soil science at the University of Vermont and the author
of Building Soils for Better Crops (1993).
JOHN BELLAMY FOSTER
is associate professor of sociology at the University of Oregon. He is coeditor
of Monthly Review and Organization and Environment and the author
of The Vulnerable Planet (1999) and
Marx's Ecology (2000) and coeditor of Capitalism
and the Information Age (1998), and In Defense of History (1996).
FREDERICK BUTTEL is
professor of rural sociology and environmental studies at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison and the author or editor of several books, including
Environment and Modernity (1999).
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