Book Review: Who Really Feeds the World – The Failures of Agribusiness and the Promise of Agroecology by Vandana Shiva
Do you consider yourself a feminist? An environmentalist? Do you like eating food, buying food, planting food, or gardening? What about indictments of uber – wealthy corporations role in the genocide of millions?
If you answered ‘Yes!’ or even ‘Maybe?’ to any of these questions, then Who Really Feeds the World – The Failures of Agribusiness and the Promise of Agroecology by Vandana Shiva is a must read for you. Vandana Shiva is an inspiring author who tackles one of the most relevant questions in our world today: who is responsible for feeding, and failures in feeding, our planet?
Dr. Shiva is a physicist, an educator, an activist, and an active global citizen. She is the recipient of more than twenty international awards (including the Right Livelihood Award; the John Lennon-Yoko Ono Grant for Peace; The Sydney Peace Prize; and the Calgary Peace Prize). In addition, she is a board member of the World Future Council and one of the leaders and board members of the International Forum on Globalization. Shiva is not only well educated and informed, but is on the front lines of food systems and global politics.
The author directly answers the central question of her book in her first eight chapters, offering quite catchy, simple phrases as title headings. Each chapter centers one claim and is backed by a combination of case study, statistical analysis, witness testimony, personal accounts, and historical analysis.
Specifically, her chapter centering the Seed Sovereignty movement is quite poignant. Shiva illuminates the reader to the integral networks of a seed in the lives of all humans as it is “the first link in the food chain and the repository of life’s future evolution: it is the very foundation of our being.” Shiva highlights the roles that women, and women identifying folks, have contributed to the evolution of seeds, working in harmony and collaboratively with other humans, earth beings, and nature. She recognizes seeds as “the knowledge of an agroecological, connected web of food and life” that farmers from all walks of life have contributed to. Shiva encourages above all, the global adoption of agroecological methods. Agroecology is an applied science that utilizes available natural materials and methods of management to bolster ecosystems while supporting sustainability, biodiversity, and replenishing the earth. For example, rather than buying pesticides to kill an insect that has been eating your tomatoes at the store, one might plant ‘partner’ species together such as basil and tomatoes to repel these ‘pests’ from your crop. Shiva recommends this practice in favor of monocultured, chemical input intensive agriculture; replacing chemicals with biology and natural processes – promoting cooperation, sustainability, and localization.
In direct contrast, industrial agriculture’s corporate monopolization and privatization of the modern seed market, Shiva claims, threatens indigenous and peasant ownership of farming, seeds, and their knowledge pathways. This paradigm shift centers farmers as the “primitive cultivars” in contrast to “elite cultivars,” scientists.
This dangerous change in ownership of our collective basic unit of life, the seed, works to discredit thousands of years of indigenous, female led, and laborious farm work of cultivating plants in favor of profits, royalties, and paternalistic ownership as companies claim to be the true ‘creators’ of certain seeds. Creation and commercialization of patented genetically modified (GM) seeds has disrupted farmers’ right to save and share seeds, defining this act as theft of intellectual property; in Shivas words, “globalized agriculture views seeds as the intellectual property of corporations; localized agriculture views seeds as the common property of communities.” GM seeds promote limitless exploitation at the expense of people, the planet, and our collective autonomy.
Dr. Shiva makes the revelation that “every dimension of the food crisis—non sustainability, injustice, unemployment, hunger, and disease—is linked to the globalized, industrialized food system.” And that all of these issues can be “addressed through ecological agriculture and local food systems” by regaining the seed sovereignty of local communities, women, farmers, and indigenous peoples alike. She recommends that the way forward, to survive is “to grow sustainability, [access] nutrition, and [enable] food democracy,” adding that “we must think small, not big; local, not global by adopting agroecological food systems back into the mainstream fold.”
Vandana Shiva’s refreshing take on the real effects of industrial agriculture puts a timely, new perspective on issues of climate change, colonization, and personal autonomy. Needless to say, this book is a must read for all you foodies, feminists, and environment enthusiasts – keep Shiva’s words in mind the next time you go to the grocery.
If you like that sneak peek, download a copy of Dr. Shiva’s book. The proof of these claims will shock you. Then, try one of her many other, equally impactful works: Making Peace with the Earth, Earth Democracy, Soil Not Oil, Staying Alive, Stolen Harvest, Water Wars, and Globalization’s New Wars!