How can starving people also be obese?

Why does everything have soy in it?

How do petrochemicals and biofuels control the price of food?

It's a perverse fact of modern life: There are more starving people in the world than ever before (800 million) while there are also more people overweight (1 billion).

To find out how we got to this point and what we can do about it, Raj Patel launched a comprehensive investigation into the global food network. It took him from the colossal supermarkets of California to India's wrecked paddy–fields and Africa's bankrupt coffee farms, while along the way he ate genetically engineered soy beans and dodged flying objects in the protestor–packed streets of South Korea.

What he found was shocking, from the false choices given us by supermarkets to a global epidemic of farmer suicides, and real reasons for famine in Asia and Africa.

Yet he also found great cause for hope—in international resistance movements working to create a more democratic, sustainable and joyful food system. Going beyond ethical consumerism, Patel explains, from seed to store to plate, the steps to regain control of the global food economy, stop the exploitation of both farmers and consumers, and rebalance global sustenance.

拉吉‧帕特爾（Raj Patel）

出生於倫敦，牛津大學哲學、政治學、經濟學學士，倫敦經濟學院碩士，並於康乃爾大學獲得發展社會學博士學位。曾經為世界銀行工作，在WTO實習，為聯合國提供諮詢。現在反而參與國際社會運動，包括1999年在WTO西雅圖會議的抗爭行動，並投身於論述與批評，以土地改革政策來檢視前述三大國際組織。2002-2004年他擔任「食物優先學會」的政策分析員，了解到土地抗爭的意義；在此之前，曾自願參與於辛巴威成立的「東南非洲貿易、資訊和談判中心」，同時完成其博士研究。

目前受聘為糧食與發展研究所研究員、南非夸祖魯-納塔爾大學發展學研究院研究員，也是加州大學柏克萊分校非洲研究中心的訪問學者。