Food Security as a Neoliberal Discourse

As an essential for human life, food has also been one of the key commodities in capitalist economies. Food has played a very important role during the primitive accumulation process in earlier phases of capitalism; it has been a key instrument of “development” in nation building phases of many emerging states; it has been fundamental in the transfer of rural surplus labour to the dominant domestic and international ruling classes; and it has been vital for the reproduction of labour. For all these reasons, food provisioning has been one of the key concerns of the state in capitalist societies. Increasing segments of the population became alienated from the means of production and lost skills to provide for their own subsistence they became dependent on availability and accessibility of food through market and non-market mechanisms. This made food provisioning a key function of the state. This function included maintenance of the proper conditions of the accumulation process, legitimation of modern market practices of access to food and se- curing political stability.