Questions to Consider While Reading

What is land? What is agriculture? Do you agree with Wendell Berry that eating is always an ‘agricultural act’?

Describe some different types of agricultural system. What were the consequences of the emergence of agriculture in ancient times?

What are the features of modern industrial agriculture? What factors shaped its emergence?

Readings

Please read any TWO of the following items:

Barry, Wendall, ‘The Pleasures of Eating’, What Are People For? Essays (Berkeley, 2010).

Li, T., ‘What is Land? Assembling a Resource for Global Investment’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 39:4 (2014), 589-602.*
Mazoyer, Marcel, and Laurence Roudart, A History of World Agriculture: from the Neolithic Age to the Present (New York, 2014), Introduction.
McMahon, Paul, Feeding Frenzy: the New Politics of Food (London, 2013), chapter 1: ‘A Brief History of Food’.

Meers, John, 'Agriculture', Oxford Handbook of World History, ed. Jerry Bentley (Oxford, 2011).*

* Sign in to the Warwick Library catalogue to read the electronic version.

To Lean More

Bates Robert H., Markets and States in Tropical Africa: The Political Basis of Agricultural Policy (Berkeley, 2005), chapter 1.

Friedmann, Harriet, 'Food Politics: New Dangers, New Possibilities', Food and Agrarian Orders in the World-Economy, ed. Philip McMichael (Wesport, 1995).

Friedmann, Harriet, ‘Circles of Growing and Eating: The Political Ecology of Food and Agriculture’, Food in Global History, ed. Raymond Grew (Boulder, 1999).

McMahon, Paul, Feeding Frenzy: the New Politics of Food (London, 2013), chapter 9: ‘Land Grabs’

Mazoyer, Marcel, and Laurence Roudart, ‘Sustainability of Agricultures and Globalisation’, Sustainability of the Farming Systems: Global Issues, Modelling Approaches and Policy Implications Sustainability of the Farming Systems: Global Issues, Modelling Approaches and Policy Implications, eds. Adriana Cristoiu, Tomas Ratinger, Sergio Gomez y Paloma (Seville, 2007).

Patel, Raj, and Jason Moore, 'Cheap Food', A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things: A Guide to Capitalism, Nature and the Future of the Planet, Verson (London, 2018).

Practical exercise: windowsill horticulture

Continue to care for your plant. Consider documenting its progress in your commonplace book. What, if anything, have you learned about food production through the combination of readings and direct experience?