Beyond Environmental Sustainability – Pursuing Social Justice in the Food System

Just now I was working on an application for a teaching job on Sustainable Development and reflecting on how often we conflate “sustainability” with “environmentalism”. Yes, of course protecting the environment is important, especially in an activity so dependent on ecosystems as agriculture, but just as important is the second pillar of sustainability – the … Continue reading Beyond Environmental Sustainability – Pursuing Social Justice in the Food System

The Seed Empires of Today

(via cornucopia.org; click through for a larger image/to zoom in) This is really scary to me. Within my economics background (and despite the fact that I don’t always agree with all the axioms we learn there), such a concentration of any particular industry is generally seen as bad news. “Oligopolies” (a situation where a small … Continue reading The Seed Empires of Today

"Science ≠ Production, and Production ≠ Food Security" – A Message to the World Food Prize

You guys. This is one of these speeches where I just want to yell “hear, hear!” after every single sentence – and it is all the more remarkable where Dr. M Jahi Chappell, the director of agroecology and agricultural policy for the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, made this speech: at the World Food … Continue reading "Science ≠ Production, and Production ≠ Food Security" – A Message to the World Food Prize