March 29, 2022 Recording – Global Food Security and the Ukraine Crisis

Event Summary:

Corporate concentration has become a dominant feature of the modern industrial food system. In nearly all stages of global food supply chains, from farm inputs, to production, to trade, to food processing and food retail, a common pattern is that just a handful of transnational firms tend to dominate markets and wield significant power. What does this concentrated power mean for food security and food system sustainability, especially for the world’s poorest people and countries?

This talk examines the implications of concentrated corporate power in the global food system in the context of the current climate and COVID crises, and the current war in Ukraine, and maps out potential policy options to rein in corporate power in the sector.

Jennifer Clapp is a Canada Research Chair in Global Food Security and Sustainability and Professor in the School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability at the University of Waterloo. She has published widely on the global governance of problems that arise at the intersection of the global economy, food security and food systems, and the natural environment. Her recent books include Food, 3rd Edition (Polity, 2020), Speculative Harvests: Financialization, Food, and Agriculture (with S. Ryan Isakson, Fernwood Press, 2018), and Hunger in the Balance: The New Politics of International Food Aid (Cornell University Press, 2012. Jennifer is the Vice-Chair of the High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition of the UN Committee on World Food Security and a member of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems.

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