Labor and the Food System
As you learned this week, there is a disjunction between the relatively low prices consumers pay for food in the global north, and the conditions under which people in the global south labor to bring us that food.
We’re exploring this disjuncture in this week’s materials, focusing specifically on what Lorr refers to as the “bottom of the commodity chain.” In a minimum of two single-spaced pages, please respond to the following questions:
First, what is a commodity chain, and how does this conceptual device help us to better understand the social relations that undergird our food system?
Second, compare and contrast the experiences of workers in the Thai shrimp industry with those in fruit and vegetable production in the United States. What similarities and differences do you see in their experiences?
Third, while this week’s materials focused on two different sets of workers in two different countries, their experiences cannot be explained in national terms alone.
How might you apply what you’ve learned thus far in the course about the development of the modern food system to explain the global economic factors shaping labor exploitation in Thailand and the United States?
Finally, who do you think bears responsibility for the plight of the workers in the global south, and why?