Food Production through the Lens of Deborah Brandt

“Deborah Brandt explores the rising consumers alongside the food production. She carefully explains through the production of how a tomato is produced and how the capitalism and sexism affects it. The question that Brandt asks us in the beginning of the book is, where does our food come from. She also gives us an insight in the tomato history from where it started and to where it is now. We usually never think of the food that is in our plate, where does it come from, how long has it travelled, etc.

Brandt explains the complicated process of production, consumption and along with it globalization of food.

A lot of focus on this book is to the gendered differences especially in this industry and other factors that play into the globalization of tomatoes like technology, biodiversity, labour and many more. She is convinced that globalization has made the process of getting food to our table is unfair.

The chapter that interested me the most in the book is the second chapter, which suggests that nature and gender are socially constructed and capitalism has exploited both and also, the workers associated in the process. Brandt expresses this framework as though it is objectifying nature and lets us understand the relationship between humans and nature.

Brandt provides all this information through a first hand experience, that she conducted by observing the production and interviewing people. She goes to an extent of where she even manages the women working in the production to take pictures of what happens inside after permission is denied because she wants to uncover information about corporations who are exploiting people and affecting their families and livelihoods forever. She wanted to humanize the production for the ones who are most oppressed by it. How she interviewed the people and made a study case of three women may help people empathize who would never think about it when reading this but she needs to get through the various aspects of capitalism as well.”

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