PHA-Exchange> Food and Globalisation - Case studies wanted for Global Health Watch

[claudio at hcmc.netnam.vn]

from Bridget Lloyd <bridget at hst.org.za> -----

Case studies and human interest stories on "Food and Globalisation"

The Global Health Watch provides an alternative assessment of the gross
inequalities in health worldwide, "watches" the institutions of global
health and development governance, and makes recommendations for new
approaches to some of the most intractable health problems in the world
today. 

We would like your assistance and input in writing and sourcing human
interest stories written in a simple narrative style. Where it is not
possible to integrate stories submitted within chapters, we will put them on
the web site. We would like both positive and negative stories, successes
and failures, etc.

The "Food and Globalisation" chapter framework summary is below. 

More information on GHW can be found on www.ghwatch.org
<http://www.ghwatch.org/> . Information on this and other case can be found
on http://www.phmovement.org/ghwatch/ and the GHW website
http://www.ghwatch.org/call_case_studies.php. 

Please submit case studies to ghw at hst.org.za <mailto:ghw%40hst.org.za> . 

Thanks!
Bridget

FOOD AND GLOBALIZATION

Food is integral to our health. It is also part of our culture; it helps
define who we are as individuals, communities and societies. Yet in the
process of global market integration, it has become a commodity, a commodity
like any other, traded around the world like oil or steel, the importance of
its production reduced to a factor of economic profit or loss. But food is
not like steel or oil. And treating it like a commodity is affecting the
health of people around the world.

This chapter will examine how the processes driving the integration of
global food markets - specifically trade, foreign investment and the growth
of transnational food companies - affects our health. It focuses on the
growing phenomenon of diet-related chronic diseases and their associated
risk factors of overweight/obesity, hypertension and high cholesterol. It
also looks at under-nutrition and food safety.

We are calling for case studies and human interest stories to demonstrate
this and are particularly interested in:

-          Personal experiences of how the quality, prices, availability and
safety of foods consumed are being affected by trade and the transnational
food companies; 

-          In your country, does the availability of food imports undermine
domestic production in a way that threatens food security?

 -          Experiences of the effects of globalization on under nutrition.
Does it play a role in the persistence of under-nutrition or are there cases
when it has helped alleviate under-nutrition?

 -          Have the diets of local communities changed? Is this because of
the low price of imported food and the availability of nutrient poor food
high in fats, sweeteners and processed foods?

 -          Experiences of food-borne disease as a result of food
contaminated with microbiological and chemical hazards or unconventional
agents.



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