The USDA has released its data for hunger in the United States, and the numbers aren’t good.
Beyond the Label
Photo: G Online
I often get asked whether I think fair trade is a bad idea, and my response is usually “it’s much better to buy fair trade than to buy unfair trade- but if you care about farmers, ask them what they want”. In general, I’m not favourably inclined toward green consumerism.
Food Sovereignty – but with details
I know I bang on a lot about food sovereignty on this blog, but it’s not all hot air. I’ve just guest edited a section of The Journal of Peasant Studies (really the most hard-hitting academic journal of its kind) and was lucky enough to pull together some excellent papers and interviews. Although the JPS can get dry in parts, the section I edited was the Grassroots Voices bit, which is intended as a forum and resource for activists. And they’ve decided to make it available free (as opposed to the $100+ individual subscription rate).
All Borlaug’s Children
Last night, I had the chance to be on a panel with Brahm Ahmadi, Vini Bhansali and a new friend, Jeff Conant.
Do Nothing Now!
Well, it has only been two years, but in Internet time, that’s almost a generation. Which is why, soon, StuffedAndStarved.org will be taken out behind the sheds, patted on the head, and put out of its all-too-2006 misery.
Women in the Global Economy
Variants of this quote have been cropping up a great deal recently:
It is not acceptable for women to constitute
70 per cent of the world’s 1.3 billion absolute poor. Nor is it acceptable for
women to work two-thirds of the world’s working hours, but earn only one-tenth
of the world’s income and own less than one-tenth of the world’s property.
Monsanto’s Government
From the Pesticide Action Network and the national Family Farm Coalition, here’s a last-minute heads up on key positions in the US Dept of Agriculture about to be filled by agribusiness insiders. Click here to find out more (and to sign a petition), the text of which is below the fold…
The Food Industry’s Dirty Secrets, City University, London
City University, London, Room A130, College Building, (entrance on St John’s Street). More info here.
The Centre for Investigative Journalism would like to invite you to a discussion about the shocking realities of the global food industry with Raj Patel and Professor Timothy Lang.
Continue reading “The Food Industry’s Dirty Secrets, City University, London”
Bristol Festival of Ideas
The Value of Nothing
In association with The Converging World
2 December 2009, 18.00-19.00
The 3rd Floor, Bush House, 72 Prince Street, Bristol BS1 4QD
Raj Patel is one of the leading radical voices of our time. A writer, activist and academic, he is currently a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley, and an Honorary Research Fellow at the School of Development Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. He has worked previously for the World Bank, interned at the WTO, consulted for the UN, and protested against his former employers. He follows his first book, Stuffed and Starved: Markets, Power and the Hidden Battle for the World Food System, with The Value of Nothing. Credit has crunched, debt has turned toxic, the gears of the world economy have ground to a halt. It’s now clear that the market doesn’t only get it wrong about sub-prime mortgages, it gets it wrong about everything.
London School of Economics Public Lecture
6.30-8pm Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House, London School of Economics. More info here.
“Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.” Credit has crunched, debt has turned toxic, the gears of the world economy have ground to a halt. It’s now clear that the market doesn’t only get it wrong about sub-prime mortgages; it gets it wrong about everything. We need to ask again one of the most fundamental questions a society ever addresses: why do things cost what they do?
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