ABSTRACT
Commodification leads to food insecurity as it privileges cheap calories over nutrition while market concentration empowers corporate multinationals and disempowers growers and eaters. Food regime theory, as presented in this chapter, provides a useful lens through which to view how these macroeconomic forces suppress the voice of consumers globally and impact on diets, health and livelihoods, especially in Mexico. It is argued that the dynamics of the dominant, corporate food regime have enabled multinationals such as Bayer-Monsanto, whose chequered history is detailed at length, to undermine democracy and profit from the commodification of food and nature. Along with the development and aggressive use of harmful biotechnologies, it is shown that multinationals like Bayer-Monsanto have employed a range of emotionally-powerful discourses which frame the world as being food-scarce and The Company as the noble saviour which, in turn, helps to justify its behaviour to politicians and the general public.
