Soy is much more than tofu or tempeh. It's a global commodity crop: the driving force of animal agriculture and a hidden fuel of growing importance for our cars.
To mark 50 episodes on the podcast, I share my own evolving thoughts on food. I reflect on the state of agriculture and on what sustainability might mean in the food movement today.
My experience over the last half decade engaging with the food movement has been that debates are all too often reduced to soundbites on social media. Complex arguments are reduced to 280 characters on Twitter, angry posts on Facebook, and rants on YouTube. We're talking past each other. That's unhelpful.
By sharing my thoughts, I hope to encourage more honest, open and nuanced discussions with whoever is listening.
In this episode, I briefly discuss:
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Guilt and shame are deeply present in our relationship with food. How do we harness these emotions for good?
When it comes to eating animals, can guilt and shame positively influence our behaviour or those of corporations to reduce our environmental foodprint?
We are joined by Dr. Jennifer Jacquet - Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Studies at NYU. Jennifer does interdisciplinary research on globalized environmental problems, including the wildlife trade, fisheries, and climate change. She is the author of the book "Is Shame Necessary? New Uses for an Old Tool" and the co-author of a recent study exploring the climate responsibilities of industrial meat and dairy producers.
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What is the future of protein, and of animal agriculture? Can we raise animals sustainably or should we move beyond meat?
To feed a growing world population, we need protein. For many, protein means meat. As our reliance on animal products grows, so does its destructive impact on the natural world. Mass deforestation, biodiversity loss, and significant greenhouse gas emissions of livestock put our dietary habits into the spotlight.
In this panel discussion, I am joined by Nathalie Rolland (Cellulaire Agriculture France & ProVeg), Andrew deCoriolis (Farm Forward) and Patrick Holden (Sustainable Food Trust).
We discuss:
This episode is a recording of the live webinar “Protein in the 21st Century”, organised by The SASI Co., a global sustainability agency.
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Everything begins with a seed. Seeds are both a story of loss and a story of hope in our food system.
On the one hand, we are rapidly losing seed diversity, and with it, perhaps the single best weapon agriculture has to withstand an increasingly volatile climate. When we lose biodiversity, we lose our ability to be resilient. What (or who) is causing this loss?
On the other, seeds are central to resistance and hope. From seed saving, sharing and storing to embracing indigenous farming practices and knowledge, seeds are central to food justice and resilience of our food system to a changing climate.
"Every seed is both a simple pocketful of genes, and a multi-multi-dimensional and complex “packetful” of stories’. - Mark Schapiro
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Mark Schapiro is an award-winning investigative journalist specializing in the environment. His most recent book, Seeds of Resistance: The Fight to Save Our Food Supply, investigates the search for seeds to respond to climate disruptions, the battle with agri-chemical companies to control them, and the global movement underway to save them.
Previous books include CARBON SHOCK: A Tale of Risk & Calculus on the Frontlines of the Disrupted Global Economy, an investigation into the hidden costs and consequences of climate change; and EXPOSED: the Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What’s at Stake for American Power, on the public health and economic impacts of the U.S. retreat from toxic chemical protections. He is also a Lecturer at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, and conducts trainings in science and environmental journalism in the United States, Europe and the Middle East.
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2019 was the year of climate strikes. Animal rights activists, emboldened by a new wave of mass civil disobedience, are determined to end industrial animal agriculture.
Millions of ordinary people took to the streets in 2019. They put their bodies on the line, engaging in mass civil disobedience to demand climate action.
In an era where food is produced in factory farms with an immeasurable scale of suffering and destruction, what role should animal rights activists play in the transition towards a just food system?
In this episode, we talk with Jeff Sebo (New York University), Nico Stubler (Direct Action Everywhere) and Kerri Waters (Animal Rebellion) about the history, strategies and actions of animal rights activists.
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Jeff Sebo is the Director of the Animal Studies M.A. Program at New York University. He teaches Animal Studies and Environmental Studies and works primarily in moral, social, and political philosophy with an emphasis on bioethics, animal ethics, and environmental ethics. He is the co-author of Animals, and the Environment: An ethical approach and author of the forthcoming book Why Animals Matter for Climate Change.
Nico Stubler is an animal rights activist and organiser with the New York chapter of Direct Action Everywhere. He is passionate about animal liberation, decolonialism, racial and gender equity, and the natural world and through his activism is committed to tear down institutionalized oppression and structural inequity and organizing to replace these systems with just and sustainable alternatives.
Kerri Waters is an animal rights activist and the editorial coordinator, soon to be political strategy coordinator of Animal Rebellion. She is also a freelance translator and English language teacher.
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To transcend infighting in the food movement, finding our common ground is as important as targeting our common enemy.
The food movement is amazingly diverse. From personal health and animal rights to protecting worker’s rights and precious ecosystems, our why’s for wanting to radically transform our food system widely differ. So do our tactics and our strategies.
That diversity may just be the food movement's greatest strength, yet it also risks being its biggest weakness.
Infighting is as invasive as it is destructive. The ‘circling fire squad’ - where people with common enemies choose to shoot one another instead - is deeply counterproductive.
To transcend infighting, finding our common ground is as important as targeting our common enemy.
Tom Newmark - co-founder of The Carbon Underground - sees an answer in Regenerative Agriculture - and a focus on soil as our common ground.
Tom and I discuss:
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The continued expansion of industrial-scale chemical-intensive agriculture around the world relies on one central powerful myth: only industrial agriculture can feed the world.
Timothy A. Wise - author of Eating Tomorrow - joins us to discuss why, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, governments continue to invest in a model of farming that is devouring the natural resources on which future food production depends. By choosing the path of industrial agriculture today, we are, quite literally, “eating our collective tomorrows”.
Tim and I discuss:
Timothy A. Wise directs the Land and Food Rights Program at Small Planet Institute. He is a Research Fellow in the Globalization Program at Tufts University’s Global Development and Environment Institute. With a background as an economic journalist and an international development practitioner, Wise’s research and writing have covered U.S. farm policies, trade and agricultural development, agricultural biodiversity, food prices and biofuels, and Mexico’s maize economy under the threat of genetically modified maize. He is also the former Executive Director of Grassroots International and a writer and editor at Dollars & Sensemagazine, and co-author of Confronting Globalization: Economic Integration and Popular Resistance in Mexico,The Promise and the Perils of Agricultural Trade Liberalization: Lessons from Latin America, and A Survey of Sustainable Development: Social and Economic Dimensions.
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We are on the cusp of a post-antibiotic era. The golden age of miracle drugs may be coming to an end.
To understand why, award-winning author Maryn McKenna joins us on the show to discuss the long intertwined history of antibiotics and industrial animal agriculture.
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Maryn McKenna is an independent journalist who specializes in public health, global health and food policy. She is a columnist for WIRED, a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of Human Health at Emory University. Her latest book “BIg Chicken: The Incredible Story of How Antibiotics Created Modern Agriculture and Changed the Way the World Eats” (also published internationally under the title Plucked) received the 2018 Science in Society Award and was named a best book of 2017 by Amazon, Smithsonian, Science News, Wired, Civil Eats and other publications. She writes for The New York Times Magazine, National Geographic, Mother Jones, Newsweek, NPR, Smithsonian,S cientific American, Slate, The Atlantic, Nature, and The Guardian, among other publications.
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Four grain trading giants - collectively known as the ABCDs - dominate international grain trade in our global food system. Knowing who they are and what they do is vital to understand the whys and hows of our modern food supply.
A key branch of ABCD power and influence are their financial subsidiaries. Financialisation in the food system today has widespread and alarming implications. Local food movements, farmers and consumers must take heed of these global forces, or risk being crowded out by private interests pursuing profit over people and planet.
Dr. Jennifer Clapp joins us to discuss:
Dr. Clapp is a Canada Research Chair in Global Food Security and Sustianability and Professor in the School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability at the University of Waterloo, Canada. She has published widely on the global governance of problems that arise at the intersection of the global economy, the environment, and food security. Her current research focuses on the implications of financial markets and transnational corporations for food system sustainability. Her most recent books include Speculative Harvests: Financialization, Food, and Agriculture (with S. Ryan Isakson, Fernwood Press, 2018), Food, 2nd Edition (Polity, 2016), Hunger in the Balance: The New Politics of International Food Aid (Cornell University Press, 2012), and Corporate Power in Global Agrifood Governance (co-edited with Doris Fuchs, MIT Press, 2009).
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The global fertiliser market is a $200 billion industry. But who does it serve?
Produced in large-scale, centralised facilities in developed countries, conventional fertilisers are neither cheap nor reliably accessible for rural smallholder farmers in emerging markets in Africa and India.
Safi Organics in Kenya has a vision to decentralise and downsize fertiliser production. Using recycled waste from local farms, carbon-negative organic biochar fertilisers empower farmers by making their farms more resilient with lower costs, higher yields and better soils.
We talk to co-founder Samuel Rigu about:
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When we stop treating dirt like dirt, when we accept it’s neither ‘dirt cheap’ nor ‘dirt poor’, we will come to realise it is the most precious resource we have. Treat dirt, or soil, the way you want to be treated.
In this episode, David R. Montgomery joins us to talk about how soil has shaped the course of civilisations. From the Classical Greeks and the Romans to the Maya civilisation – the story of soil and its mistreatment has been central to explaining why civilisations collapse.
The plow – the tool that defines farming - is the number one culprit. Some argue it has been more destructive than the sword.
David is a Professor of Earth and Space Sciences at the University of Washington, he is a MacArthur Fellow, and author of King of Fish: The Thousand-year Run of Salmon; The Rocks Don't Lie: A Geologist Investigates Noah's Flood; Dirt: The Erosions of Civilizations; The Hidden Half of Nature: The Microbial Roots of Life and Health (which he co-authored with Anne Biklé); and Growing a Revolution: Bringing Our Soil Back to Life.
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The end of Capitalism is nigh. Or we should certainly hope so.
Raj Patel makes a convincing case for the urgent need to think beyond capitalism if we are to move towards a zero-carbon economy. “Let us recognise that the system itself is dooming us and that we need to think outside it rather than within it” – Raj Patel.
If this sounds revolutionary, that’s precisely the point.
Raj and I discuss:
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Monsanto has been found guilty in the world’s first-ever court case over claims its Roundup herbicide causes cancer. It faces thousands of similar lawsuits. Is this Monsanto’s (Bayer AG) tobacco moment?
Veteran investigative journalist Carey Gillam walks us through, step-by-step, the Monsanto trial that shocked the world.
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As in our politics, the debates around food and sustainability are increasingly polarised. Conventional agriculture is pitted against organic agriculture, vegans face-off against carnivores, urban city-dwellers clash with countrymen and women. How do we bridge these divides?
In this episode, we talk to Ash Bruxvoort about their story growing up as the daughter of a conventional farmer and a sustainable agriculture advocate.
Ash Bruxvoort is a writer and program coordinator at Women, Food and Agriculture Network. They grew up on a family farm outside of Des Moines, Iowa, where their father produces corn and soybeans. Their writing and work focuses on empowering women and gender non-conforming people to tell their stories about the urban-rural divide.
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Patrick is a pioneer of the modern sustainable food movement. He is the Founding Director and current Chief Executive of the Sustainable Food Trust, an organization dedicated to accelerating the transition to more sustainable food and farming systems. Previously, he has been the founding chairman of British Organic Farmers in 1982, and the former Director of the Soil Association, where he played a key role in the development of organic standards and the market for organic foods for nearly 20 years. Patrick is also a farmer, and runs the longest established organic dairy farm in Wales, and wrote the world’s first draft of the organic dairy standards in the 80s.
In this episode, Patrick and I discuss:
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An epidemic of farmer suicides has claimed over 300,000 lives in India since 1995. By investing in social capital, The Art of Living focuses on bringing back self-esteem and self-confidence in rural communities.
Farmers practice yoga, breathing exercises and meditation for stress-relief and personal development - investing in themselves to become productive and proactive advocates for change. Livelihoods are transformed by taking charge and ownership of the challenges faced.
This episode was recorded live at The Art of Living International Center in Bengaluru, India during the visit of students from HEC Paris. Himanshu Kelra, Director of Institutional Relations of the Center, explains The Art of Living’s approach to building social capital. The talk covers:
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A new generation of chefs – the modern-day ambassadors of the food movement – have a vision: radically transform the restaurant industry by turning sustainability into a culinary virtue.
By sourcing differently, cooking creatively, and eliminating the by-products of their restaurant operations, carbon neutral restaurants are pioneering the sustainable dining movement.
In this episode, we talk with ZeroFoodprint and two critically-acclaimed restaurants Amass and The Perennial leading the carbon neutral restaurant movement.
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ZeroFoodprint works with restaurants to help them understand and drive down their foodprint by taking action on operational efficiency, ingredients, and carbon offsets. It works with restaurants all around the world including Noma, Mission Chinese Food, Pistola y Corazón, Amass and The Perennial.
Amass opened in Copenhagen in 2013 by Matthew Orlando, former chef de cuisine of Noma. The world-famous New Nordic restaurant is radically rethinking the use of by-products in all of its operations.
The Perennial is a restaurant in San Fransisco pioneering the sustainable dining movement. By supporting and sourcing from carbon farming initiatives, The Perennial highlights how regenerative agriculture and sustainable dining can become part of the solution to climate change.
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In this episode, we discuss the ins and outs of the EU Common Agricultural Policy with Dr. Alan Matthews, Professor Emeritus of European Agricultural Policy at Trinity College, Dublin.
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Is chocolate going ‘extinct’? Are we heading towards a ‘world without chocolate’?
In this episode, we explore what lies behind these recent media headlines that suggest chocolate may not survive climate change. To find answers, we deep dive into the world of chocolate with Simran Sethi.
Simran Sethi is a journalist focused on food, sustainability and social change. She is the best-selling author of Bread, Wine and Chocolate: The Slow Loss of the Foods We Love, a fellow at the Institute for Food and Development Policy (Food First) and the creator and host of The Slow Melt: an award-winning podcast about chocolate.
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Over the past decade, Monsanto has become a pop cultural bogeyman. Surrounded by controversy, cover-ups, and conspiracies, the agricultural giant is for many the face of corporate evil.
At the same time, the company continues to deliver commercial success. Reporting record sales, the world’s largest seed company shows no signs of slowing down.
In this episode, we talk with Carey Gillam, veteran investigative journalist and author of Whitewash: The story of a Weed Killer, Cancer and the Corruption of Science. A former senior correspondent for Reuters, Carey has spent over 20 years covering the agricultural industry and big food business. Today, she continues her work as the research director for consumer advocacy group US Right to Know.
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EU Observer: 'German vote swings EU decision on 5-year glyphosate renewal'
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This week, we talk with Natalie Pukasemvarangkoon about the Paleo diet.
Natalie has experimented with pretty much every diet in the book. She’s been a carnivore, a pescatarian, a vegetarian, and a vegan for a solid 3 years. She’s tried the 80/10/10 diet, raw till four, the HCLF diet, and yes, the Paleo diet.
Natalie is the founder of the Paleo Collective - an umbrella for the Paleo lifestyle: providing Paleo-friendly caterings, personal chef services, they host pop-up dinners and provide corporate talks and demos to educate people on the diet and lifestyle. They also run a blog with recipes and health tips related to the Paleo diet.
In this episode, we discuss what the Paleo diet is, and why its Natalie’s diet of choice. We explore:
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