Stuffed and Starved

RAJ PATEL is an award-winning writer, activist and academic. He has degrees from Oxford, the LSE and Cornell, has worked for the World Bank and WTO, and protested against them around the world. He's currently a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley's Center for African Studies, an Honorary Research Fellow at the School of Development Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and a fellow at The Institute for Food and Development Policy, also known as Food First. He is currently an IATP Food and Community Fellow. He has testified about the causes of the global food crisis to the US House Financial Services Committee and is an Advisor to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. In addition to numerous scholarly publications, he regularly writes for the Guardian, and has contributed to the LA Times, NYTimes.com, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Mail on Sunday, and the Observer. His first book was Stuffed and Starved: From Farm to Fork, The Hidden Battle for the World Food System and his latest, The Value of Nothing, is a New York Times best-seller.

"Compelling. At first glance, Raj is another depressing voice in the chorus. But in traveling the world researching the book, he also found hope in international social movements working to create more democratic, sustainable, and joyful food systems." --Mark Bittman, "New York Times" "For anyone attempting to make sense of the world food crisis, or understand the links between U.S. farm policy and the ability of the world's poor to feed themselves, "Stuffed and Starved" is indispensable." --Michael Pollan, author of "The Omnivore's Dilemma

"""Stuffed and Starved" remains a brilliant didactic account of the powerful interests (dis)organizing our food systems, and why, when food is an object of profit, there are no "modern" solutions to "modern" problems such as endemic hunger, ill-health and environmental degradation...Raj Patel's unique sensibility and intelligence in evaluating grassroots alternatives provide a road map to understanding and changing the world through re-centering food as a cultural anchor rather than a product, especially at this moment of environmental uncertainty." --Philip David McMichael, author of "Development and Social Change" "One of the most dazzling books I have read in a very long time. The product of a brilliant mind and a gift to a world hungering for justice." --Naomi Klein, author of "No Logo" "Patel's broad treatment helps the layman connect the dots, as well as hear the voices of those who occupy the lower rungs of the global food chain." --"Time Magazine" "A blistering indictment of the policies of multinational agribusiness conglomerates and charges that their drive for profit at any cost has left the developing world starving while wealthy countries like the United States are experiencing epidemic obesity rates and related health problems." --"Newsweek" "For Patel, it is a short step from Western consumers 'engorged and intoxicated' with cheap processed food to Me