As the fallout from the Seattle meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) continues, John Madeley explores some key questions about the free trade that it advocates:

Will free trade in food help or hinder the abolition of world hunger?
Who benefits first? The poor? Or the transnational corporations?
Will free trade help Third World farmers find new international markets?
How can countries - North and South, rich and poor - protect their farmers?
How can self-sufficiency in food production be achieved?

His book exposes the contradiction between Western governments' rhetoric about reducing world poverty and the drive to yet more trade liberalization.