The importance of framing in schurman and munros fighting for the future food

India has now pushed the U. Rather, they urge an analysis of corporate power in three dimensions: Each of the books discussed in this essay sheds important light on crucial food-related concerns, and, more importantly, has things to say about what might be done to address them.

Again, national agricultural development interests can suffer from transboundary anti-GM activism. From what was a small group of activists in the s chapter 3 reports a boom in the s, mainly in North America. Modern high-yielding agriculture can take pressure off the conversion of natural vegetation and its biodiversity.

Schurman, Rachel, and William A. Although the authors have all the details at their fingertips they have not examined the glaringly obvious: Activists, by contrast, saw intellectual property protection as inimical to promoting the public good and as a violation of one of their most deeply held values, that is, that life itself should not be subject to private property relations.

The first chapter describes the events leading up to the initial protests. Tellingly, but understated in this book, direct investment in foreign agriculture expanded, with multinational corporations consolidating the seed industry and establishing affiliates around the world.

Following this logic, Africa, the Centre of Origin of sorghum, would be prohibited from developing GM sorghum.

Around this time Losey published his paper linking deaths of iconic monarch butterflies to Bt pollen. What this first chapter fails to do is to establish the unique nature of biotechnology to these early protestors. The authors also seem to fail to see the significance of what they report: Most imports to Europe from Africa are from crops that are, as yet, not GM, for example, green vegetables, cut flowers and a wide range of plantation crops tea, coffee, cacao.

The question is asked as to why a biotechnological revolution in seed unleashed a storm of protest. With what moral justification can foreign activists influence the decisions of African leaders, farmers, and consumers that are so vital to African food security.

Reed suggests, though, that the move- ment throughout its history has missed important opportunities to be even more effective, largely by focusing too much on the technical aspects of organic production to the relative exclusion of the political work needed to establish organics as a broad-based social alternative to the mainstream food system.

Some of this found its way to partner activists in Europe and in developing countries. I dispute this threat on two grounds. Chapter 4 — on the struggle over biotechnology in Europe — is depressing.

In contrast, the main intent of the Cartagena Protocol is a specific focus on transboundary movements — that is, mainly agricultural trade of GMOs.

There were cases on unapproved GM maize being found in human food prepared from corn and potatoes. The book has a final Conclusion. Farmers always treated me with courtesy and kindness. These activists are major players in UN environmental meetings discussing a range of new Treaties.

The authors also seem to fail to see the significance of what they report: While Schurman and Munro missed the economic significance of this export of US technology directly to competitors, the anti-GM activists in North America certainly had not and this was to lead to their intense demonization of Monsanto in subsequent years.

But foreign friends of local activists can harm national interests. This was part of a global network of genebanks of exceptional value to Third World agriculture, feeding samples to public-sector plant breeders to produced Green Revolution varieties.

Fighting for the Future of Food tells the story of how a small group of social activists, working together across tables, continents, and the Internet, took on the biotech industry and achieved stunning success. Rachel Schurman and William A.

Munro detail how the anti-biotech movement managed to alter public perceptions about GMOs and close markets to such products. Fighting for the Future of Food. by Rachel Schurman,William A.

Munro. Social Movements, Protest and Contention (Book 35) Thanks for Sharing! You submitted the following rating and review. We'll publish them on our site once we've reviewed them. Social Forces Advance Access published June 27, Book Review Fighting for the Future of Food: Activists versus Agribusiness in the Struggle Over Biotechnology By Rachel Schurman and William A.

Munro University of Minnesota Press.pages. $ cloth, $ paper. Aug 05,  · "With Fighting for the Future of Food, Schurman and Munro deliver an empirically and theoretically revealing, politically dedicated and very readable account of one of the biggest protest movements of today." -Social Movement Studies/5(10).

Ultimately, say Schurman and Munro, while anti-biotech activists have opened up important space for the consideration of alternatives to a blanket industrialization of global agriculture, the strident and deeply polarized nature of the food biotechnology debate is now operating to the detriment of opportunities for development of a more just and sustainable agricultural future.

Fighting for the Future of Food: Activists versus Agribusiness in the Struggle Over Biotechnology By Rachel Schurman and William A. Munro University of Minnesota Press.

The importance of framing in schurman and munros fighting for the future food