The Indian government has done all kinds of things in the name of modernisation. To get food rations and social grants, for instance, Indians have to submit to a state of the art biometric scanning system. When farmworkers fingertips are rubbed away through manual labour, they render themselves unidentifiable to machines, and are denied benefits. Witness, progress.
Continue reading “#ResignModi”How do you change someone’s mind about the most important thing in the world?
About a decade ago, I started working on a film project called Generation Food, with an amazing group of activists and film makers. Today, I’m very pleased to share the first fruits of that project: The Ants & The Grasshopper. It’s premiering at the Mountainfilm festival later this month, with more opportunities to see it coming later this year. But for now, here’s the trailer.
Continue reading “How do you change someone’s mind about the most important thing in the world?”Food Injustice: As American as Apple Pie
The good people at The Guardian just published this piece. Do check out the others by the excellent Nina Lakhani.
Continue reading “Food Injustice: As American as Apple Pie”Against Philanthropy
I was lucky enough to have the chance to talk with Rupa Marya and Anna Lappé at the 2021 Oxford Real Farming Conference. Here’s our take on philanthropy, and what’s wrong with it.
Continue reading “Against Philanthropy”For Immediate Release: Family Food Producers And Anti-Hunger Advocates Urge Support For Local Supply Chains In Next Stimulus Bill
NB – Reposted here since it doesn’t seem to be available online elsewhere yet.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 20, 2020
A Green New Deal for Agriculture
Here’s a piece run by Jacobin, written by Jim Goodman and me, on the history of the New Deal, and how it matters for rural America today. Agriculture policy in the original New Deal sprang from a heady mix of class struggle and uneasy alliances. The Green New Deal will have to stitch together a different coalition that can challenge the dominant mode of agriculture and create a more just food system.
Continue reading “A Green New Deal for Agriculture”The New Columbus
Here in the US, it’s “Columbus day”, a federally recognized holiday. Jason W Moore and I take a dim view of Columbus. We’re sympathetic with the move to rename today “Indigenous peoples day” but, if that doesn’t suit, we’ve got an alternative suggestion…
Land struggles are God’s way of teaching racists geography…
… and history and current affairs. Here’s a recent article I wrote for The Guardian.
Continue reading “Land struggles are God’s way of teaching racists geography…”
Chicken, for Christ’s sake
Below, an adaptation of part of A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things, written with Jason W Moore, published in The Guardian. If you’ve read the book, do look out for the post-publication addendum of the story of Oklahoma-based Christian Alcoholics and Addicts in Recovery. CAAIR was set up by chicken executives so that survivors of the opioid epidemic might pray by day and work on the understaffed night-shift at slaughterhouses. Do read the full story, as researched by the Center for Investigative Reporting. And, meantime, here’s the excerpt as published in the Long Reads series at the Guardian.
Terrorism for trolls: A note from Austin
