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n an era marked by unprecedented global challenges, few issues resonate as profoundly as the quest for food security. The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the grain shortage that followed showcased the grave vulnerability of existing systems. The imperative of ensuring that everyone, everywhere has access to safe, sufficient, and nutritious food looms large on the global stage. This month’s book bundle presents a curated selection of books that delve into food security, examining it from multiple angles, and offering insights, strategies, and solutions.

From the intricacies of international trade policies to the sustainability of food systems, and from the impacts of geopolitical conflicts to the strategic place of food, these books provide a comprehensive understanding of the challenges and opportunities in the realm of global food security.

Whether you are a policymaker, researcher, student, or simply a concerned global citizen, this collection provides valuable resources for understanding, navigating, and contributing to the discourse on global food security.

Food Security: Availability, Income and Productivity is a pertinent book that explores the pressing issue of global food security as our world population continues to grow. The author focuses on three key conditions necessary to achieve food security: food availability, adequate incomes, and increased agricultural productivity.

The book draws insights from history and contemporary contexts to thoroughly examine these conditions. It takes a close look at the obstacles preventing consistent food availability and discusses how to overcome these challenges. It also delves into the importance of ensuring sufficient incomes, highlighting programs like food stamps and food banks. Furthermore, the book provides valuable insights into the factors driving enhanced agricultural productivity.

Food Security caters to a broad audience, including agricultural experts, policymakers, and NGOs working in food aid. It’s also a valuable resource for students studying agriculture and public policy. The book not only informs but also encourages critical thinking about the complex task of feeding a projected nine billion people by 2050.

In a world where food scarcity is becoming increasingly worrisome, this book offers essential insights into the intricate web of food security. It provides a well-reasoned analysis that will contribute to ongoing discussions and efforts aimed at ensuring a sustainable food future for everyone.

William A. Kerr, Food Security: Availability, Income and Productivity (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2023) ISBN: 978 1 03531 270 2, 234 pages

Shadow Negotiators: How UN Organizations Shape the Rules of World Trade for Food Security by Matias E. Margulis is a groundbreaking exploration of the influence exerted by United Nations (UN) organizations within the World Trade Organization (WTO) despite their absence from the formal negotiation table. Margulis introduces the concept of “shadow negotiators,” illustrating how UN bodies strategically engage in political actions to shape multilateral trade negotiations.

The book’s primary focus is on the contentious issue of agricultural trade liberalization. It provides a detailed analysis of interventions by four UN organizations: the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP), the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), and the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food (SRRTF).

Margulis unveils the innovative strategies these UN entities employ to influence global trade regulations. Importantly, he emphasizes that their motivation isn’t rooted in competition with the WTO or ideological opposition to trade liberalization. Instead, it stems from their concern that certain trade rules could negatively impact global food security, running counter to their core mission of addressing world hunger and safeguarding the right to food.

Shadow Negotiators is a meticulously researched work that offers fresh insights into the often-unseen dynamics of international trade. It’s essential reading for those interested in the intersection of trade policy and global welfare, making a valuable contribution to the field of international relations and trade studies.

Matias E. Margulis, Shadow Negotiators: How UN Organizations Shape the Rules of World Trade for Food Security (Stanford University Press, 2023) ISBN: 9781503633520, 292 pages

Universal Food Security: How to End Hunger While Protecting the Planet by Glenn Denning explores the path towards a world where hunger and malnutrition are eradicated, and everyone can access healthy and abundant food for a productive life. The book emphasizes the need to transform our food systems, focusing on sustainability and environmental restoration, from production to distribution.

Denning, drawing from his extensive experience in over fifty countries, offers a practical guide to making healthy diets accessible to all while ensuring sustainability. He identifies key priorities, including sustainable agriculture intensification, robust market infrastructure, responsible postharvest practices, promoting healthy eating, and establishing social safety nets. The book underscores the pivotal role of practitioner-leaders in driving this transformation, highlighting the importance of education and development in instigating change.

But beyond the roadmap, Denning reminds us that the engine driving this transformation is practitioner-leadership, underscored by education and development. This book stands as a testament to the potential for meaningful change when individuals and institutions commit to reshaping our world, making universal food security not merely a dream but a tangible and sustainable reality.

Glenn Denning, Universal Food Security: How to End Hunger While Protecting the Planet (Columbia University Press, 2023) ISBN: 9780231197618, 448 pages

The Russia-Ukraine Conflict and Global Food Security explores the global food security implications of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, which occurred during a period of already high food prices due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The book highlights the importance of the Black Sea region for global food production and Russia’s role in supplying natural gas and fertilizers.

The potential disruption of trade in this region posed a significant threat, with the potential to raise food prices and worsen poverty and hunger in vulnerable countries. The conflict primarily impacted trade in cereals and vegetable oils, fertilizer exports, and energy costs, potentially pushing millions into hunger and poverty.

The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) responded swiftly by providing information and policy advice. They established a blog series and online resources to disseminate critical information rapidly. This book compiles these blog posts, offering an overview of the crisis’s progression, international responses, and lessons for ensuring food security in the wake of disruptions.

This book provides essential insights into a rapidly evolving crisis with far-reaching implications for global food security, making it valuable for policymakers and researchers.

Joseph W. Glauber, Ed. and David Laborde Debucquet. Ed., The Russia-Ukraine Conflict and Global Food Security (IFPRI, 2023) ISBN: 9780896294394, 196 pages

Bread and Autocracy: Food, Politics, and Security in Putin’s Russia offers a compelling analysis of the pivotal role food has played in Russian politics from the 1917 Revolution to the present under Putin’s leadership. The authors, Janetta Azarieva, Yitzhak M. Brudny, and Eugene Finkel, argue that Russia’s transition from a grain importer to a global food exporter was a deliberate, long-term strategy aimed at enhancing national security and regime stability. This focus on food self-sufficiency sets Russia apart from other autocracies, as it prioritizes domestic food production over imports, highlighting its significance in maintaining autocratic rule.

The book’s relevance is heightened in today’s world, where food issues are once again at the forefront of global concerns and nations are emphasizing self-reliance. Bread and Autocracy provides a timely and comprehensive exploration of Russia’s unique approach to food politics, shedding light on its implications for both domestic and international affairs. It is a valuable read for those seeking a deeper understanding of Russia’s distinctive stance on food and its impact on political power. The book will be available in hardcover on September 1, 2023.

Janetta Azarieva, Yitzhak M. Brudny, and Eugene Finkel, Bread and Autocracy: Food, Politics, and Security in Putin’s Russia (Oxford University Press, 2023) ISBN: 9780197684368, 525 pages

The saying “Money makes the world go round” takes a more powerful meaning in a globalized capitalist economy. But what happens when the ones at the very top of the money chain are corrupted? In this month’s book bundle, we share with you three books that explore the influence of the rich and powerful, discuss how the world really goes round, and expose the staggering cases of how corruption hides itself often in plain sight with its effects rippling into the depth of systems, societies, and the lives of each one of us.

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he COVID19 pandemic revealed to many an eye-opening trend of wealth centralization: the rich are getting richer, and governments around the world are hardly able to protect those who are most vulnerable from the detrimental economic and social effects of a crisis. Who is the culprit?

The New York Times‘s award-winning global economics journalist Peter S. Goodman presents a page-turning exposé of the global billionaire class, the “Davos Man,” and its hostile takeover of the world. Davos Man documents billionaires’ exploitation of the COVID19 pandemic, which turned “taxpayer-financed bailout packages into corporate welfare schemes.” This global billionaire class instrumentalized its power to conceal the truth by hiring lobbyists, PR managers, and journalists in media.

Furthermore, Goodman uncovers the concealed impacts of their oligarchic control reaching into every branch of society and modern life, from wages to housing, healthcare to everyday products and taxation. He argues that their systematic plunder ultimately destabilized democracy by widening wealth inequality, leaving governing systems vulnerable, and triggering the rise of anti-democratic nationalism. He provides the answer to the problem of wider context: how did the liberal democratic order become a breeding ground for the right-wing hate?

Goodman not only provides a vividly written description of the realm of the ultra-rich but more importantly the realities of those who are dissipated by their appropriation all around the world including accounts from a blue-collar worker in Buenos Aires, a Bangladeshi migrant in Qatar, a doctor in Seattle during the COVID19 pandemic, an African immigrant in Sweden, a textile manufacturer in Italy, and an Amazon warehouse employee in New York City. Davos Man is a must-read for those concerned about inequality, economic justice, the resilience of societies, democracy, and the great challenges of our time.

Peter S. Goodman, Davos Man: How the Billionaires Devoured the World (Custom House 2022) ISBN: 9780063078314, 472 pages

The anonymous leak of the Panama Papers in 2016 revealed millions of financial and legal documents that show how ultra-high-net-worth individuals hide their money using complex webs of offshore vehicles. How were these structures set and who plays a role?

Spiderweb Capitalism uncovers the shadow economy and the mechanics behind the illicit movement of wealth across borders through the invisible, complex networks of lawyers, accountants, company secretaries, and fixers.

Sociologist Kimberly Kay Hoang traveled the globe to follow the money through a web-like supersystem and conducted hundreds of in-depth interviews with these ultra-high-net-worth individuals, private wealth managers, fund managers, entrepreneurs, C-suite executives, bankers, auditors, and other financial professionals to find an answer.

Hoang reveals the strategies behind spiderweb capitalism and examines the moral dilemmas of making money in legal, financial, and political gray zones as she traces the flow of capital from offshore funds in places like the Cayman Islands, Samoa, and Panama to special-purpose vehicles and holding companies in Singapore and Hong Kong and risky markets in Vietnam and Myanmar. How are these smaller markets interconnected in a broader system of global capitalism?

Spiderweb Capitalism sheds critical light on how global elites capitalize on risky frontier markets.  Hoang argues that spiderweb capitalism explains the rapid rise of foreign capital in risky markets with low levels of trust and cooperation. Economic growth in such markets is a consequence of tightly embedded relations between the economic elite and political elites that result in a variety of corruptions.

Contrary to the “economic mantra that development can only occur in economies with a strong rule of law,” Spiderweb Capitalism shows a paradox of global economic growth sustained through states where the line separating the legal from the corrupt is not always clear. Hoang’s research further reveals that old paradigms like First World/Third World and Global North/Global South are no longer useful for framing the global economy.

Spiderweb Capitalism is a unique and worthwhile read, not only uncovering the dynamics of a global system of corruption but also the sociological backgrounds of playing in the grey.

Kimberly Kay Hoang, Spiderweb Capitalism: How Global Elites Exploit Frontier Markets (Princeton University Press 2022) ISBN: 9780691229119, 288 pages

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n Philanthrocapitalism and the Erosion of Democracy, activist Dr. Vandana Shiva compiles essays and articles from more than 20 authors and organizations to show how ruthless capitalistic exploitation branded as philanthropic altruism forges a direct path to global destruction. According to David Orr, philanthrocapitalists are those who “promise to solve hunger, disease, poverty, and a rapidly destabilizing climate often by selling us more of the same things that made them very rich,” which oftentimes ignores the root causes and inequities.

How do global capitalists wield philanthropy to monopolize and privatize land use, food production, and the public health sector effectively? Through various initiatives, suborganizations, development schemes, and funding mechanisms. The book points out that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s empire, in particular, is an intricate network of power and influence solidified by targeted and well-financed PR campaigns to shape public opinion in pursuit of profit and market expansion.

Philanthrocapitalism and the Erosion of Democracy criticizes the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and similar organizations’ many privileged relationships with private companies, governments, and the World Health Organization that allow them exclusively to set the global agenda on health. The book argues that simplified solutions based on technical and scientific developments introduced by these organizations are often narrow in scope and remain insufficient in solving complex problems. Furthermore, they corrode the integrity of democratic institutions guised under a banner of future-oriented innovation.

Philanthrocapitalism and the Erosion of Democracy reveals the destructive power of overly capitalistic systems that enable mass human suffering and environmental catastrophe via the entanglement of private investment and public policy, and aims to bring forward democratic discussions about transparency, accountability, and inclusivity.

Vandana Shiva, Philanthrocapitalism and the Erosion of Democracy: A Global Citizen’s Report on the Corporate Control of Technology, Health, and Agriculture (Synergetic Press 2022) ISBN: 9780907791911, 240 pages