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CHAPTER 1 Globalization, Development, Food Security, and the Emergence of a Global Food Regime “Globalization” is a contested term. For many scholars, activists, and local and international farmers, this term is synonymous with words such as “opportunity,” the chance to move out of poverty and to bring their children a better life. For others, this term symbolizes oppression, the way of international superpowers to continue to exploit people living in poverty and people of color. In general, scholars correctly will argue that “globaliza- tion” is not a new term. We have been globalizing since the dawn of time, but it has just transformed into different iterations. This is true, but in terms of the global food system, this is too ambiguous. We are at a point today where globalization has almost reached its pinnacle of exploitation. As Marx and Engels infamously quoted in the final, prescient words of the Commu- nist Manifesto, “The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible over- throw of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Working men of all countries, unite!”1 While the Communist Manifesto was meant as a pamphlet to invigorate fellow workers and warn of a future revolution, its words still ring true to- day for many global populations. In many ways the fruition of this revo- lution has not come to light, but this does not dilute the potency of Marx’s and Engels’s words. Even if not directly the most important docu- ment for many global farmers, it remains a driving force in their demands and hopes. Whether implicitly or explicitly, global farmers are those who often live in poverty, living difficult lives that remain unseen and unrec- ognized by much of the industrialized, affluent world.