Why Does Food Cost More?
As Patel noted, there has not been much talk in the current election debates about food-related issues. “It’s incumbent on people who care about these things to demand from their candidates a very strong view on pollution, on the environment, on corporate concentration of power and a shift towards more agro-ecological farming.”
That shift in agriculture is the main recommendation of the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development, a three-year collaborative initiative between the U.N., the World Bank, WHO, and many others, that just issued a report.
“Their conclusions were that you can’t feed the planet through industrial agriculture,” said Patel. “The kind of agriculture that is dominant in the U.S. is responsible for destroying the planet, not feeding it. We have to shift away from that, and it will only happen if people demand that it happen. We’ve seen the demand made gently on climate change. We need the same sort of thing on agriculture.”
Raj Patel speaks at 7 p.m. Thursday, May 1, in the BSS Forum, Room 162, on the HSU campus. For more information call 826-3142. For more on Patel’s book, go to stuffedandstarved.org.
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Organic Gardening Seminar
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