This article summarizes the ideas that Vanda Shiva exposes in her book: Who Really Feeds the World?
The food we eat and the food systems we build, have the potential to bring us closer or further away from Mother Earth. For millennia, small hold farmers – who for the most are women, have been working with nature, with care, respect and wisdom, in reciprocity. They have evolved a system that creates nutritious, healthy, diverse and tasteful food, cultural identity, food security, and dignity; while regenerating natural resources for generations to come. Food in this system, is the embodiment of the interrelational nature of the web of life. Food is life.
On the contrary, the industrial food system, in the hands of a few large corporations, produces commodities: something to be traded and made into profit. This is a system working against nature. It is characterized by land grabs, deforestation, large monocultures, agrochemicals, seeds manipulation, fossil fuels, and water, energy and inputs intensity.
The industrial paradigm justifies itself with the false promise of ending hunger, by the means of producing cheap food at scale. However most of its output is not food for human consumption, but biofuels and animal feed which are more profitable. The food produced lacks in nutrition properties. The prices are kept artificially low with subsidies that hide the high input costs (patented seeds, agrochemicals and energy), and do not reflect the negative externalities caused (environmental and social harm).
Furthermore trade agreements, unfair competition (subsidies) and high input costs, push farmers in the Global South to indebtment, and to shift production towards “cash crops” for export (palm oil, coffee, cacao, tea, tobacco..) instead of growing their own food. Global trade also creates inefficiencies that lead to a substantial amount of food being wasted. Ultimately, the industrial paradigm is undermining the very basis of food security. Therefore it cannot be a solution for feeding the world and supporting rural farmers livelihood.
In fact, it is estimated that 70% of the food produced comes from small farms using less than 30% of the world’s arable land. Conversely, a handful of corporations use 70% of the world’s arable land to produce commodities for profit, and a relatively small amount of food with little diversity and poorer nutrition properties, at the expense of being responsible for much of the world’s soil and waters pollution, and climate change.
What really ensures food security for the world at large is a food system, that in most rural communities around the world is shaped by women, producing at small scale, mostly for self-consumption and only small fraction for market sale or international trade, where seeds are freely kept and shared, where seed varieties offer nutrition, taste and resilience, with organic solutions for fertilizers and natural solutions for pests control, and where natural resources are regenerated.
With our food choices we are not only impacting our own wellbeing, the future of food security, and the livelihoods of the farmers who produce our food, but also the wellbeing of the web of life. In this way, with our food choices, we are coming closer or further away from Mother Earth. Our daily food choices matter.
We can choose to buy fresh and organic foods, to buy from local farmers, to avoid food waste at home, and to embrace a vegan diet that is better for the planet and deters animal cruelty. With our food choices we have the opportunity to honor the living soil, the pollinators, the seeds, the biodiversity, the water, the sun, the farmers’ care and knowledge, and the wisdom that allows this web of life to work together to generously support our existence.
Article by Verónica Lassus
Bibliography:
Shiva, V. (2016). Who Really Feeds the World? The Failures of Agribusiness and the Promise of Agroecology. North Atlantic Books.