Food Security and International Relations

People are often surprised to learn that although the current global levels of food production are sufficient to feed all of humanity, the problems of undernourishment increase year by year in many countries. Economic growth, while important, is not a guarantee for reducing hunger. The intensification of income concentration worldwide, in the face of the persistence of millions of hungry families, demonstrates that economic interest is not guided by the needs of humanity. Moreover, the problem of food no longer refers to the lack of food alone. Many people are still unaware that our diets are not simply choices of taste and tradition but the result of international dynamics driven by geopolitical factors, the trajectory of capitalism, and other ulterior forces.

The authors deepen the link between international relations and food security by exploring the humanitarian and ethical importance of a solution to the problem of hunger; the role of the state as a strategically relevant actor in achieving food security; and the nature of the problem of food security in a world in which the rationale guiding food production and distribution is a capitalist one.

“This book makes several innovative contributions. The first is to highlight the topic of sovereignty and food security in the context of International Relations theory, which has so far been neglected in the discipline. A second innovation is to include the concept of Anthropocene and, in the book, to anticipate the global drama of the Coronavirus. The book also crucially discusses the problem of hunger when the absolute number of malnourished people increased to almost 11% of the world population.”

"As we seek to overcome conflicts, pandemics, and protectionism, it becomes central to the very survival of humanity to solve the debate about food security in the context of international relations. More than tackling a current topic, this book contributes an original reflection to the question of how we can tackle the issue of hunger with the creation of global public policies that can only be devised through the cooperation of a variety of relevant actors."—Janina Onuki, Director of the International Relations Institute, USP (Sao Pablo, Brazil)""—Marcos Costa Lima, Professor of the Graduate Program on Political Science at Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE – Brazil)

Thiago Lima is Adjunct Professor at the Department of International Relations of the Federal University of Paraiba (UFPB), Brazil. He has been coordinating the Research Group on Hunger and International Relations (FomeRI) at UFPB since 2012.Agostina Costantino is Professor of economics of the National University of the South in Bahía Blanca, Argentina, and a researcher at CONICET (National Council of Scientific and Technical Research) at IIESS (Institute of Research and Social Studies of the South). She specializes in research on natural resources and development and Latin American political economy.

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