New Graduate Level Courses Related to Food on Offer Fall 2013

[Sally Smyth]

Hi Folks,

There are a few new graduate level courses related to food on offer this Fall. Please see below the descriptions of 3 of them. Two of the instructors, Saru Jayaraman and Olivier De Schutter are Visiting Scholars with the Berkeley Food Institute. The third, Kathryn De Master is a new Professor in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management.

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290-11(3) Special Topics in Public Policy 

Saru Jayaraman

Topic: Food Systems Policy

This course will discuss a wide range of policy debates relating to the food system, 

including: corporate consolidation of farmland and meat, poultry, and dairy processing; 

labor conditions in the food system; food insecurity and access to healthy food in lowincome communities; and transparency with regard to food labeling. The course will in 

particular examine how corporate consolidation throughout the food system has impacted 

each of these issues and many more, and how policy instruments and regulatory levers can 

be used to change the way the U.S. food system operates. Students will be exposed to very 

current local, state, and federal policy campaigns and to real-world policy experts engaged 

in these campaigns.

Special Note: This course is open mainly to GSPP and joint-degree GSPP students, but a

small number of graduate students from other departments will be admitted to the extent 

there is room. If you are a non-GSPP graduate student, please contact the instructor during 

the first week of classes & attend class.

CCN: 77397 Class: Lec Section #: 011 Time: W 3-6 Location: 250 GSPP

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Political Economy of Hunger

Olivier De Schutter

The seminar will meet at 335 GSPP on Monday and Wednesday mornings, from 8 to 10 am, between 4 September and 18 September (5 sessions) and between 28 October and 20 November (though no session onNov. 11th - Veterans' Day) (7 sessions).

Description

Why are over one billion people hungry in a world in which increases in agricultural production have consistently outstripped demographic growth ? The objective of the seminar is to understand how governments have sought to combat hunger and malnutrition ; why they have so dramatically failed ; and how law and governance are relevant to what can be done about this. The seminar shall build on the issues addressed in the mandate of the lecturer as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food, and it will be closely connected to contemporary discussions at international level (see www.srfood.org). We will discuss a range of topics linked in particular to the impacts of globalization on the right to food, including international trade, investment in agriculture, the role of transnational corporations in the agrifood sector, and intellectual property rights in agriculture ; we will also address the threat of climate change to food security and the debate on the shift to sustainable agriculture ; as well as the role of institutional mechanisms aimed at protecting the right to adequate food and the recent reform of global governance of food security. While the focus will be on hunger and undernourishment in developing countries, the seminar will also address the impacts on the South of policies in the North (in the areas of agriculture, intellectual property rights, trade and investment, and food aid). 

The seminar shall be of interest to students working on the links between law and development and on the challenge posed to governance by economic globalization ; it can also be seen as a case study on the challenges facing the implementation of a particular human right, the right to adequate food ; finally, it will provide an entry point into the United Nations system and into the relationships between the United Nations agencies and other organizations such as the World Trade Organization or the international financial institutions. Many of the topics addressed are highly politicized and polemical. The seminar will serve to confront diverse viewpoints, and it will seek to provide the students with the tools he or she needs to form his or her own opinion. Although the approach combines law and economics, as the aim of the seminar is to understand the legal and institutional factors in the political economy of food systems, no background in economics is required, and none of the readings suggested use formalized language.

The seminar will be organized in order to combine a genealogical approach (asking where hunger comes from, beginning in the postcolonial era of the 1960s) with an analytical approach (decomposing the food system from producer to end consumer through commodity buyers, food processors and retailers, and examining the role of institutions and governance in combating hunger and malnutrition).  It is divided in 12 units, each unit corresponding to 2 hours.

CCN: 77400 Class Type: Lec Section #: 012 Time: MW 8-10 Location: 355 GSPP

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Sustenance and Sovereignty:

The Sociology of Agriculture and Food Systems

Autumn semester, 2013

ESPM 270~4 credits

Wednesdays, 12:00 p.m.-3:00 p.m. [NOTE: Kathy would like people to know that she will accommodate students who are taking the Jayaraman class (above) if necessary.]

Instructor: Kathryn Teigen De Master, Ph.D.

Contact: Kathryn....@berkeley.edu, cell/text: 401.808.9824

Office: 116 Giannini Hall, UC-Berkeley

Office Hours: TBA

Course Description:

This graduate seminar explores the sociology of agriculture and food systems, addressing key

theories and topics in the field. We begin with the antecedents of the sociology of

agriculture, including foundational classical agrarian theories and some investigations into

the distinct but related field of peasant studies. We then proceed to an overview of the field,

from its emergence to present day, before delving into a series of topical foci and analyses.

This course is most appropriate for graduate students of agriculture and food systems

who have some background in agro-food systems studies as well as social science

(particularly sociology, political ecology, and human/cultural geography). It is also

recommended for students preparing for oral exams in the sociology and political

ecology of agriculture; additional reading lists and meetings will be available for those

students engaged in exam preparation.