The Foreign Service Journal, March 2014

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MARCH 2014 59 and Washington, D.C., and currently works in the State Department’s Office of Civil Rights. Food for Thought Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know Robert Paarlberg, Oxford University Press, 2013, Kindle Edition/$8.44, 260 pages. Feeding Frenzy: The New Politics of Food Paul McMahon, Profile Books, 2013, Kindle Edition/$9.99, 314 pages. Reviewed by James Patterson A working knowledge of agricultural policy is more critical than ever for all members of the Foreign Service—not just those serving with the Foreign Agricul- tural Service—as U.S. trade negotiators debate these contentious and complex issues with our global trading partners. Fortunately, two new books offer helpful background and advice, while steering clear of overly technical economic and scientific language. Paul McMahon, an adviser to the Prince of Wales’ International Sustainabil- ity Unit, offers a somewhat Eurocentric view of food issues in Feeding Frenzy: The New Politics of Food , while Robert Paarl- berg’s measured tone makes Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know highly accessible in content and structure. Refreshingly, neither author adheres to a rigid philosophical orthodoxy. For exam- ple, both support production and trade of foods derived from genetically modified organisms, but acknowledge strong objec- tions to GMOs frommany quarters. Likewise, in analyzing the dramatic series of global food price spikes between 2007 and 2012, which they identify as factors in the Arab Spring uprisings, they concur on the main considerations involved. However, Paarlberg is more suc- cinct in his explanation, while McMahon cites classical economics. The authors also clash over large-scale farming. Some nongovernmental orga- nizations and activists doubt the world’s capacity to feed a population projected to reach nine billion by 2050 with what they believe is non-sustainable large-scale production. But Paarlberg dismisses such concerns, citing U.S. technological prow-