Chapter 4 Questions and

Answersby:Madelaine SaundersPauline Barkin

The Road to Nutrition Planning (pg. 123-126)

Questions:

1. What was the importance of PIA/PNAN?2. What did these projects create?3. What conditions must be analyzed to

understand Colombia's good and nutrition policy?

The Road to Nutrition Planning (pg. 123-126)

Answers:1. generated government interest in food and

nutrition (top pf page 124)2. a public space for discussing the nutrition

problem within the confines of science3. must consider the political and economic

conditions of the Colombian countryside

Bottom of pg 124

“The rationale for the projects on malnutrition and work capacity, also in vogue during the 1970’s – was that governments would be more inclined to act vigorously if it could be proven scientifically that malnutrition led to impaired mental development in children and decreased work capacity in adults.”

The Political Economy of Food and Nutrition, 1950-1972 (pg. 126-131)

Questions:1. Name one of the most striking features of

agrarian change - what was the result?2. How was the green revolution related to this?3. Describe the industrialization strategy based on

cheap food and its relevance4. What has happened to the peasants in terms of

disarticulation and disincentives?5. How is the discursive nature of capital evident?

The Political Economy of Food and Nutrition, 1950-1972 (pg. 126-131)

Answers:1. Cash crops/capitalist crops - green revolution and lowering of

peasant standards - "industrialization strategy of cheap food"2. green revolution pushed cash crops and was result of the shift to

agricultural modernization3. cheap food depends on cheap labor - exploitation of peasants -

modern sector coexists with "backwards" traditional sector4. domestic consumption (food for peasants) decreases and then

peasants didn't want to produce cheap food with cheap labor5. pg 130 last paragraph - talks about representations etc.

The Colombian National Food and Nutrition Plan (pg.131-135)

Questions:1. What was one of the positive outcomes of

the Coordinating Group?2. What were the two main parts of the

National Food and Drug Plan? 3. How were they implemented?

The Colombian National Food and Nutrition Plan (pg.131-135)

Answers:1. actually identified the skewed income

distribution of the country as the single major factor responsible for malnutrition

2. PAN - landless and semi-proletarianDRI - small to medium size peasants - repercussions? assumptions?

3. PAN/DRI pg 135 first paragraph

Programs to Increase the Availability of Foods/Improve the Biological Utilization of Food (pg. 135-136)

Questions:1. Summarize each paragraph

Programs to Increase the Availability of Foods/Improve the Biological Utilization of Food (pg. 135-136)

Answers:1. Class answers

Nutrition and Health Education Programs/The Integrated Rural Development Program (pg. 136-138)

Questions:1. Why did nutritional programs focus on certain groups? 2. What does this say about the perception of certain

groups?3. What organization was behind this?4. Was PAN effective?5. Was DRI much different?6. How did DRI pigeonhole/identify people?

Nutrition and Health Education Programs/The Integrated Rural Development Program (pg. 136-138)

Answers:1. Able to categorize people and therefore measure them2. The groups targeted already had no power so they

could be defined easily 3. World Bank4. No - why?5. No - but around longer - why?6. According to the amount of land they owned and

amount of income from farm sources - how was this good/bad?

Production Component / Dispersion of Power / Social Program / Infrastructure Component (pg. 138-142)

1. What did the DRI anticipate?2. What did the DRI planners do in response to

their predictions? 3. What do you think some of the unintended

consequences of this could be? (including those that didn't happen)

4. Summarize the Social Program Component5. How do you think the participatory

component could be improved? (pg 141)

Production Component / Dispersion of Power / Social Program / Infrastructure Component (pg. 138-142)

1. As farmers became more tired to the market their financial risks would increase (top of 139)

2. They sought to control these risks by providing credit and technical assistance to marketing peasant associations.

3. Discussion4. Educational/Health Programs to elevate living

standards5. Discussion

Quote Read (pgs 138-142)

"As we will see. DRI planners have moved from the straightforward evaluation of exercises of earlier years regarding the performance of the program....to more ambitious self reflection on the nature and rationality of the strategy. "142

142-146

"DRI was not only about DRI farmers; it also concerned the creation of semi proletarians and proletarians, the articulation of peasant production with commercial agriculture and the agrarian sector as a whole with the rest of the economy, with the rest of the economy, particularly the foreign-exchange-generating sector." (mid 145)

Compare this to our discussions on economies and to both Rist and Escobar.

How does Foucault's Panopticon relate?

Pg 145

• What does Escobar argue about bureaucratic control

• do you agree/disagree and why?

Section 146-149

Explain: "The fact that politicians saw in PAN an

imported technocratic perspective" is not srprising it was, despite the role of national planers, in the design of the plan" (mid 147)

Section 146-149

• Politically, DRI seeks to improve peasant living and production conditions without touching the terribly skewed land tenure systems still existing in the country; or to put it in the context of the World Bank discourse, the problem is thought to be characterized by exclusion from markets and state policy, not by exploitation within the market and state, as Fajardo believes is the case. (Bottom – Middle pg 150)

• What do you think? How do you know who if Escobar or Fajardo is right?

Section 149-153“Not only do conventional evaluations fall into “the

indecency of speaking for others” by necessarily abstracting from the local reality through use of a social science framework, but the choice of interpretative framework is largely arbitrary. For knowledge to be useful, it must start with the peasants’ self-understanding and then proceed to build a system of communication involving peasants, DRI functionaries, and researchers.”(Middle 152)

How could/ how likely is it that this would be accomplished?

What does this mean to you after reading the chapter?

“No aspect of development appears to be as straight forwared as hunger. When people are hungry, is not the the provision of food the logical answer? (Pg 103) “

Comment on pg 134 (upper middle)

"...The PAN/DRI national group carried out a "regionalization exercise" which aimed at identifying the poorest 30 percent in the country...so that a cutoff point could be drawn separting the 30 percent poorest to benefit directly from the government's social programs."

How does this relate to our readings?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd2t5tb6iwQ

TED Talks!

• http://www.ted.com/talks/jamie_oliver.html