This paper intends to reveal the importance of food production, distribution, and consumption to human and environmental history in the modern period. It begins by exploring how technology and migration created new planets and new global markets that changed what and how people ate. It shows how nutritional science emerged, and came to have an important impact on government and international policies, and on global foodways. In the twentieth century, the changing global order was embodied in new International and Non-governmental organizations. We explore how access to food, and the commodities and tools needed to grow it locally become core concerns of international and non-governmental organizations, and how food was used as a means to wage – and to prevent – -global and regional wars. We conclude by assessing the impact of entitlement theories and the right to food for the global struggle against famine in international relations. We also consider the environmental implications of modern methods of food production and consumption for our shared planetary future.
