Who Really Feeds the World?

July 11, 2016
Shiva (Soil Not Oil), noted environmental activist and physicist, relays the emphatic message that "industrial globalized agriculture driven by greed and profits" direly threatens the wellbeing of Earth and all its inhabitants, and that "ecological and just alternatives have become an imperative." Shiva's "agroecological" manifesto identifies several distressing social and environmental trends stemming from industrialized agricultural practices, including the rampancy of malnutrition and food-based diseases, critical endangerment of pollinators such as bees, pollution of Earth's water and atmosphere by industrial farms, displacement and impoverishment of small-scale farmers, and privatization of seeds. Into this ominous commentary Shiva incorporates feminist thought, arguing that "when women control the food system, everyone gets their fair share to eat," as well as warnings against the prevalence of genetically modified monocultures that threaten the biodiversity necessary to sustain a healthy planet. While this urgent critique of "agribusiness" seems unlikely to persuade those readers not already in agreement with its author, it takes a productively interdisciplinary approach to the modern-day food crisis and plots a tentative route toward "a food and agricultural system that is at peace with the Earth."