Ask the Panel: Food Security
Resolved: Just governments ought to ensure food security for their citizens.
To help you prepare for the year’s home stretch, our three panelists will help you navigate the March-April topic by answering any question asked. For this edition, panelist answers will be direct replies within the comment section. Here are the bio’s for our three panelists:
Monica Amestoy
Monica debated for Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy in La Cañada, CA. She helped start the debate team and was the first person to attend TOC from her school. As a junior, she reached octafinals of the NDCA championships. As a senior, she made it to quarterfinals of the Victory Briefs Tournament, earned top speaker at the Cal Berkeley Invitational and the Damien Invitational and reached bid rounds at Valley, Apple Valley, Alta, College Prep, Stanford and Berkeley. Monica also competed at the Hockaday and Lexington Round Robins. In college, she debates for the University of Utah where she has reached three final rounds of NPDA style parli debate.
Bob Overing
Bob is an assistant coach for his alma mater Loyola High School in Los Angeles and currently debates for the USC Trojan Debate Squad. As a competitor, Bob earned 11 TOC bids in one season and took 1st or 2nd at Golden Desert, Harker, Meadows, Blake, Stanford, and the TOC; in college, he cleared at CEDA and qualified to the NDT. He has coached winners of Berkeley, CPS (twice), Kandi King, and USC as well as a TOC finalist and quarterfinalist. His students have earned 32 TOC bids in the past two years.
Lawrence Zhou
Lawrence debated for Bartlesville HS in Oklahoma graduating in 2014. In high school, he was a three-time state finalist and two-time state champion, placed 6th at the NFL National Tournament his junior year, and was the NSDA National Champion his senior year. He also qualified to the National Tournament all four years of high school in LD, public forum, and congress. He now attends the University of Oklahoma where he is a member of the OU Ethics Bowl Team and debates on the OU policy team.
Post your questions about the topic below!
28 Comments
Do you think that this topic is very similar to the living wage topic in that they’re both premised on the same thing? In your opinion, which frameworks will be frequently used?
I think it’s similar to the living wage topic in that both are cases of assistance to those in need, but there are some important differences:
1) Living wage is a requirement on employers, but ensuring food security is likely to mean a government policy regarding food production or a more direct welfare policy such as food stamps. This makes a difference for the types of counterplans the neg can go for and NCs. For instance, an argument about state paternalism applies much more on the March/April topic than living wage.
2) Food security is much more likely to have international effects since it’s an internationally traded good. Food prices in different countries are interrelated, such that U.S. policy, for instance, will have great impacts in other parts of the world. Living wage is a more strictly domestic topic. This affects what impact scenarios are likely to be read.
3) I think March/April will be more impact-focused and less solvency-focused. Living wage debates often turn on whether the living wage is effective at reducing poverty. I don’t think that same level of in-depth economic analysis will be played out on the March/April topic. Given all the richness of the advantage and disadvantage ground relative to living wage, I think more debaters will go that route.
Frameworks
1) Definitely consequentialist frameworks. No question there.
2) The aff might try some Kantian or Rawlsian frameworks to escape negative disadvantages. The Kant aff would say that governments have an imperfect duty to provide for their citizens. A Rawlsian aff would say we should care about the least well-off. That makes a lot of big-stick negative impacts irrelevant.
3) Negs will have to go for some type of autonomy or libertarian strategy if they want a framework-heavy position.
So, I don’t think they are that similar. In addition to what Bob has mentioned, I think that there is just a major difference in how they will be debated. The living wage topic had strong philosophical and empirical clash rooted at the heart of the topic. This topic is clearly extremely affirmative biased in terms of the literature, which is going to force negatives to adopt positions that aren’t rooted at the heart of the topic. However, I see that they do have some similarities. They are both about helping those in need, they focus on what obligations the government has to its citizens, and they are a question of whether or not the government should, in some way, interfere with the market.
As for frameworks, I think util will be the most common one by far. It gives affirmative’s access to tons of poverty and other advantage areas, and allows negatives to run their crazy disadvantages. Negs will probably be libertarian. I also think negatives, even in more traditional regions, will also adopt more critical leaning frameworks. A former teammate of mine did very well in a traditional area running a negative argument about how food security has historically led to the exploitation of lesser developed countries, which is a soft critique of colonialism and capitalism.
Is it extra or effects topical to specify a mechanism of achieving food security in the 1AC? for example “Governments will turn to GMO’s for food security”
I wrote about this in the brief in the section called “Aff Topicality” I believe. If there were more circuit-style tournaments on this topic, I would expect to see a lot of T debates on the issue.
If those mechanisms aren’t topical, it’s because they’re effects topical. The neg could argue that they lead to food security, but do not inherently guarantee it.
On the other hand, those mechanisms would be topical on a definition of “ensure” that allows for government policies that increase food production. Search “ensure” AND “food security” and see what comes up: You’ll get a bunch of literature using the phrase “ensure food security” in the context of all these various mechanisms, which you can use to justify your plan.
what would be good lay negs on this topic? it seems near impossible to negate without ks or other offs.
To be completely honest, there aren’t many (or any at all). The first, and most obvious, lay negative position would be some sort of libertarian argument. It could either be phrased as “the free market does it best” or “government intervention is immoral.” There are other variations of this type of argument and is probably the most stock negative case on this topic. While not a great option for negatives, I think if negatives also have great case answers and have this NC fairly well frontlined out, then it could potentially be a solid lay strategy, especially if you spread the 1AR thin. The other thing to remember about lay debate is that it’s often more about the presentation than the content. While completely wild K ideas will probably not fly in a lay circuit (like don’t read D&G or anything like that), softer Ks phrased and presented properly can certainly work. If affirmatives re-entrench the current food regime, which is currently capitalist, you can write a negative case that is essentially a cap K, but phrase it so it sounds like a lay negative case, and you might be able to get away with it. For example, instead of having a role of the ballot that is like “the role of the ballot is to reject capitalism”, or something like that, you could have a standard of “protecting individual autonomy” or something like that and explain why capitalism has led to gross violations of individual autonomy, such as taking away small farmer’s rights. I’ve certainly run somewhat critical positions in Oklahoma (among the layest of the lays) but phrased them to sound like traditional cases and gotten away with it.
I like Lawrence’s idea of a soft K on the neg. Certainly interesting and can get you impacts that outweigh a lot of the affs. An intuitive impact/ideology that judges can latch onto seems helpful.
Another general thing you can do is try to stick the aff to specific examples that you can refute. Creating an effective strawman is a good way to make a vague and general topic more debateable, especially when you think your side is less persuasive on face. For instance, I’d try to pin down the aff to an example such as food stamps. Then, I could read a paternalism/liberty-based negative about welfare. Alternatively, you could say the aff is ag subsidies and then claim they interfere with the free market and crowd out small farmers.
I wouldn’t be afraid to read a heavy DA and a short CP on this topic because I think its a lot easier to find specific issues with the implementation of the aff rather than trying to negate the resolution as a general principal. For example you could read a DA (and you can obviously structure arguments differently depending on the judge is) about the industrial farming that would be required to increase food production. I think a lot of different kinds of judges would be down to hear reasons about why factory farming on a mass scale would be bad. That paired with a community garden or urban farming counter plan would be a solid NC strategy. Negs should really check out vertical gardening and other types of CPs that can be implemented by communities and are more efficient than the aff because it solves better for food desserts which will be a big solvency deficit for the aff on this topic. I also think you could read a CRT (Critical Race Theory) negative in front of most judges. I would check out Robert Bullard and Major Carter. They both have stuff on food and environmental racism.
How do you feel about the interpretation that affirming means creating a legally enforceable right to food? The other possible interpretations are that any government has the duty to guarantee that none of its citizens are food insecure, which seems immediately false as per ‘ought-implies-can’, or else some sort of object-fiat which is super vague and probably isn’t grounded in any topic literature (I don’t think writes about how it would be good or bad for food to spring out of nowhere and distribute itself to feed everyone).
I did see some of the lit on a ‘legally enforceable right to food.’ It’s probably too narrow of an interp – there’s got to be more to this topic than just that one mechanism, right? You could find some cards, but I think you lose on an overlimiting/ground argument.
Like I said above, “ensure” is the tricky part. Does that mean the aff isn’t topical if it doesn’t provide food for every citizen? A lot of articles/books I saw used “ensure” in the context of food security to mean an policies that increase food production. Does that mean it’s the best interpretation? Maybe not, but it’s definitely better than the one’s with the radical fiat / ought-implies-can problems you cited.
To further off of what Bob has said, I don’t think the aff has to prove that EVERY citizen gets food or else they aren’t topical. I don’t really think that’s how the word ensure is used in common language. For example, if the statement was “My mother ought to ensure that I do not hurt myself” and I accidently trip once and injure myself, I don’t think that renders the statement false. Yes, I hurt myself, but I don’t think that it denies that “My mother ought to ensure that I do not hurt myself” is false; at best it means my mother failed to uphold that obligation in one instance. This is especially true of the literature concerning food security. A lot of literature surrounding food security using the word ensure doesn’t use the word ensure as “make sure no one ever is hungry”, but instead use it to describe policies that improve existing food policies. So I don’t see why the aff can’t defend an interpretation that doesn’t rely on a legally enforceable right to food. That being said, a legally enforceable right to food has decent groundings in the literature, especially those that argue for a right to food in the context of human rights.
I am struggling to find good articles for my negative case. I also can’t seem to pick a good value or criterion. Do you guys have any ideas?
Hi there. It is kind of tough to make a traditional negative case on this topic. I just uploaded the .Doc version of the briefs on our camp site, so that will probably help.
Here are some ideas off the top of my head:
a) value: justice, criterion: equality and argue that ensuring food security privileges some people over others (e.g. arguments that agricultural subsidies or other ag policies disproportionately benefit people in the farming industry or that welfare policies like food stamps benefit the poor more than others)
b) value: morality, criterion: utilitarianism and argue that ensuring food security actually harms the poor through disincentives on lifting one’s self out of poverty, dependency, etc.
c) value: governmental obligations, criterion: maintaining a minarchist state and argue that too much government intervention is an infringement on individuals’ political autonomy. Ensuring food security is an example of such an intervention. Similarly, any neg about the free market and autonomy would work.
In terms of value and criterion, my coach always instructed us (in terms of traditional/lay cases) to pick the criterion after you’ve decided what the thesis of your case is. It would make no sense, for example, to have a criterion of utilitarianism/maximizing expected well being if all of your offense is more about respecting individual rights than deciding a body count. For this reason, I always (when writing lay case) picked the criterion only after I had figured out what the offense was going to be. That way, you can better tailor your criterion to suit the arguments at hand best. For example, say I originally wanted a negative case that says that food security disrespects individual property rights and that was going to be my criterion, but then I found out that my offense was more about individual autonomy than individual property rights. By picking the criterion after you’ve figured out what you want to say in the negative case as a whole, you can avoid these problems and pick the best criterion for your case.
And all of Bob’s suggestions would work well in traditional circuits if won well. I’ll add one of my own. Value: Morality. Criterion: Minimizing Exploitation (something along those lines). All of the offense would be about how food security has led to larger countries dominating smaller ones for food, and larger corporations exploiting small farmers for increased agriculture.
Hi. For the aff case, would you recommend arguing implementation? For countries in Africa or a country like North Korea, food security doesn’t seem feasible. However, leaving it as fiat would probably be misinterpreted by judges (The judges in my region are very lay.)
My other idea was to define a just government as a government that actively protects citizens, limiting the argument to countries with the financial resources to implement food security (g-20 countries, etc.) Do you think this is a good idea?
I have the evidence to justify that a government’s justness should be determined by its overall action and not its “morality,” so that a government that doesn’t protect its citizens is unjust regardless of the reason, but I’m not sure if a lay judge will buy this point.
If you have mostly lay judges, I would not argue that specific countries ought to do something. Something about specifying a particular country doesn’t sit well with lay judges. You should just claim to defend the resolution as a general principle or a broad rule. So, no, for lay judges, I would not recommend arguing implementation. That being said, pointing to specific examples is always persuasive and shows you know your stuff, so don’t be afraid to list off examples in CX. I would just not recommend defending implementation in the way you suggest in the 1AC.
Thanks for responding. So does the aff case need to explain how food security would be implemented at all?
Similarly, considering how hard lay neg arguments are for this topic, wouldn’t an attack on the feasibility of food security be the easiest position to defend for neg? Or would that be non-topical if the aff doesn’t bring up a plan?
For lay judges, I don’t really think so. It’s more about the general principle/ideal. If you have more advanced judges, you might want to since the ability of the aff to solve food insecurity will be a more major point for more circuity judges.
I think negs should probably attack the ability of the aff to solve no matter what. Even if they don’t read a plan, you can make general claims about the aff being unable to solve.
I’m in a grey sort of semi-progressive/semi-traditional circuit, and I’m a novice. I know the above answers have talked about neg positions, but I was trying to look for something not repugnant to lay judges (eg. Nietzche, etc.) and being able to outweigh aff’s util “x million lives saved”. I’m currently running biodiversity–>extinction (super shaky) and corruption, but I’m definitely considering adding one of those soft K’s. Anything a bit harder (or progressive) you would recommend for a circuit like mine?
I am personally a huge fan of soft K negs on this topic, so that’s still my suggestion. Bob’s ideas above were also great neg ideas for more traditional circuits, like the libertarianism neg and some of the other ideas. If it’s a semi-progressive circuit, running some of the arguments in the PDI evidence packet wouldn’t be a bad idea at all. There are a good amount of interesting negative arguments in there.
Another interesting approach would be something like: The resolution says ” for their citizens”. I’m not sure how much lit there is on this, but one could hypothetically argue that notions of citizenship are racist, exclusionary, etc. You could also say that food security should be for everyone, not just citizens-possible counterplan?
You might be able to win that the discourse of citizenship is bad, but it doesn’t seem like a food security for everyone counterplan would be competitive/legitimate because it would be plan-plus, i.e. the entirety of the aff plan PLUS a plank about food security for everyone.
Just curious, whats wrong with that? Is it like a PIC? Im confused.
A PIC is a CP that excludes some part of the plan. If that part of the plan is bad and the PIC is therefore better, then that’s a reason not to do the plan. But a CP that includes the entirety of the plan can’t be a reason not to do the plan.
There are two types of PICs: plan-plus and plan-minus. Plan-plus means the CP does the entirety of the plan with some part added (e.g. presumed consent plus economic incentives to donate). Plan-minus is a CP that is the entirety of the plan except for some part of it (e.g. presumed consent for everybody except those with known religious objections).
Typically, plan-plus is not a viable debate strategy because it’s easily permable. A counterplan wants to compete on net benefits, i.e. there is some disad that the CP avoids but the aff does not. However, in this case, the problem with the aff is that it doesn’t do enough, and the CP does more. That makes the perm the best option because there’s nothing wrong with the aff itself, just that it isn’t inclusive of the added part of the counterplan. The perm adds that part to the aff and thus the CP is no longer net beneficial.
Just curious, whats wrong with that? Is it like a PIC? Im confused.