Who Really Feeds the World the Failures of Agribusiness and the Promise of Agroecology Pdf
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Even though I agree with most of her general ideas, I'm not so sure that I agree with some of the statistics she uses. It just feels very cherry-picked and exaggerated. Some of the numbers don't even seem to match up from page to page, or they'll contradict previous arguments. A lot of my problems with this book also come from her trying to compete with industrial farming to see which approach can maximize the number of human beings on the planet. Shouldn't the idea of population growth be part of what's being challenged here? I do agree that sustainable, organic, small-scale, biodiverse farms and localized economies can support a lot more people than the mainstream thinks it can, and long-term it'll certainly support more generations of human beings than industrial farming, but I think it's a mistake for environmentalists to allow themselves to be sucked into arguments like these, even if it is potentially true. The main reason to support agroecology isn't because it's the best way to feed more people in the short-term. It's because it can be done sustainably. Even if it only fed half as many human beings at any given time it would still be the answer. And even if it could feed twice as many people, when you take all other environmental and social considerations into account, we still shouldn't try to grow the population. I'm not saying that I think Vandana Shiva doesn't agree with that, just that there's a lot of pages in here spent trying to show how much more productive sustainable farming is than industrial farming, and I don't think we should even have to prove that. It's like when you see Republicans tricking Democrats into arguing over which party drills the most oil. "Oh wait, aren't we supposed to be against that? Oops." Not the best approach.
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The book which could have been a reference point for agri-policy makers worldwide reads like literature that
There's little to disagree with Vandana Shiva; agricultural monopoly and profit mongering need to be checked, local biodiversity needs to be protected, farmer interests and land replenishment need to be in the forefront along with farm yield. Yet the book seems like long repetitive prose littered with selective facts, which could have been made more comprehensible with analytical insight.The book which could have been a reference point for agri-policy makers worldwide reads like literature that only manages to uphold confirmation bias.
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The book is organized into chapters, each one addressing a different aspect of the answer to the titular question.
Some key ideas:
- The dominant paradigm of the modern day
Overall, a just-on-this-side-of-good read. I think it's good for readers interested in and beginning to get into the arguments on agroecology, permaculture and the like. It answers some key questions that begin to crop up when you first start to consider that there might be a different way to do things - a more sustainable way.The book is organized into chapters, each one addressing a different aspect of the answer to the titular question.
Some key ideas:
- The dominant paradigm of the modern day is (Western, patriarchal) science, and it emphasizes the absolute reign of humankind (Man) over nature (Woman).
If this seems rather contrived or exaggerated imagination to you - think of the fact that science as we know it today was created and managed only and solely by men since centuries - only recently have women even been allowed in. Even today, women's diseases and pain and safety has taken a backseat because of implicit bias in all science, everywhere - there are not enough studies or research centering women and by women.
- In modern science, "nature" is often posited as dead matter - today we know this is not true. Nature is actually interconnected - everything to everything else - not dead matter that can be manipulated without consequence. Nature is a web of life, and humans are a part of it.
- The same chemicals that were used against human beings in World War 2 – and the same companies who manufactured them – after the war turned their attention to the agriculture industry. So today, nerve agents and gases used in concentration camps are being used as pesticides and insecticides.
- The idea of "labor" vs "livelihood" – labor as an input that is fed into a linear chain of production, vs livelihood as a creative human endeavor that sustains communities physically as well as socially and emotionally.
- The actual sustainability of agroecology – not just in terms of environment, but production. Agroecology – growing food without, as Vandana puts it, waging war on the very land that feeds us – with only organic inputs and cycling all nutrients – is not only productive, but more productive than industrial agriculture.
I thought this was a rather important point to address, since for me, this was one of the biggest doubts about agroecology that I still harbored.
Vandana points out how the definition of "more" has been slightly fudged and twisted to lead us to believe that only chemicals can produce enough yield:
1. HYVs, or High Yielding Varieties – genetically modified or hybridized seeds, only give the "high yield" with high levels of chemical input.
2. The actual "high yield" emphasizes the "part of a part" of a plant – for example, grain. Who decides what is needed to be high yield? The farmer requires straw of good quality to feed the animals. To the industrialist, however, only the grain matters. So the high yield may mean that the farmer does not get all that they actually require – they may end up using grain as fodder.
3. The same area under agroecology produces more nutrition than industrial agriculture.
All these points are, I think, sufficiently backed up with sources in the footnotes.
-Biopiracy – western corporations trying to patent seeds, neem oil, plants of importance to many other cultures – and claiming it as theirs - and the attempts, many successful, to stop it, were covered in great detail. It seems ridiculous how a thing was just existing, minding its own business for millennia, till now the US cos came along and want to slap a patent on it. Ridiculous.
Thankfully these attempts are somewhat halted – for now. Ongoing fight against these.
-Large corporations monopolizing the entire industry – how they leave farmers, worldwide, in dire straits with no option eventually but to consume products and seeds only from the corporations themselves. And how to take steps against that.
I enjoyed reading the book. But I will readily admit it was highly repetitive and could have been much more concise. Every chapter felt like a rhythmic chanting of the same few lines – dominant scientific paradigm, turn to biodiversity and agroecology, something - plus a few paras of new content.
Overall, though, definitely give the book a read if anything of the subject interests you. Chances are you will put it down with a few more facts or connections you hadn't made before.
edit:formatting
'Who Really Feeds the World' is a book written in 2016 by Dr Vandana Shiva, the physicist, ecologist, food rights and anti-GMO activist who is sometimes called 'the Gandhi of grain' (BBC Travel 2021). In her book, Shiva provides detailed overview of the modern world's food supply and identifies its crisis and contribution to the climate change. The book widely explains how this crisis threatens biodiversity of the planet and its inhabitants who become increasingly hungry and unhealthy, even tho
'Who Really Feeds the World' is a book written in 2016 by Dr Vandana Shiva, the physicist, ecologist, food rights and anti-GMO activist who is sometimes called 'the Gandhi of grain' (BBC Travel 2021). In her book, Shiva provides detailed overview of the modern world's food supply and identifies its crisis and contribution to the climate change. The book widely explains how this crisis threatens biodiversity of the planet and its inhabitants who become increasingly hungry and unhealthy, even though industrial agriculture and created by it monocultural crops, promise to produce more food (Shiva 2016). Shiva's book is a strong, critical, and holistic piece of work that gives the (not necessarily specialist) reader an easy to grasp insight into the problem but also into her three decades long research and involvement into 'seed-saving' Navdanya movement.
The main argument and purpose of the book is to show contrast between two paradigms that surround today's food systems and its organising principles. The first paradigm explains the nature of the corporate agriculture that is ruled by - as Shiva describes - 'the Law of Exploitation' and 'the Law of Domination' (Shiva 2016, p2) which are exercised by corporate farming that disregards traditional knowledge at cost of 'militarized' and 'violent' way of thinking towards the Earth (p17), destruction of fertile soil what inevitably leads to the creation of poverty, hunger, climate change and shortage of the clean water (p29) and monoculture farming that produces lacking in nutrients - genetically engineered foods. Shiva argues that industrial farming is counterproductive and highly dangerous for natural biodiversity as it creates the 'poison cycle' (p53) of chemicals used to fertilise and kill natural and needed for survival of the ecosystem pests. The book condemns the 'patriarchal science' (p125) which 'shakes nature to her foundations' (p126), dominates nature and disregards women's agricultural knowledge that is essential to maintaining a food security.
The second paradigm is by contrast, based on 'the Law of Return' – a sustainable system of food production referred to by Shiva as an 'agroecology' that maintains a traditional ecological farming where there is no 'waste; everything is recycled' (Shiva 2016, p3). Shiva sees it as the solution to the first paradigm's problem. She shows how agroecology sustains and preserves biodiversity, soil fertility and water by 'recycling organic matter' (p33) and not using synthetic fertilisers as fungi, bacteria, and pests already maintain natural balance in the ecosystem. She endorses small-scale farming, especially led by women who 'return to the Earth' (p74) what soil has given them in the first place and is able to grow nutritious, healthy, and safe foods.
The strength of the book lies in the fact that Shiva does not simply describe the current status quo of industrial agriculture and its failures in a problem-solving (Cox 1981)manner but is providing a full picture of the issue while answering 'how' and 'why' questions about the modern food system. She argues that 'crisis is not an accident; it is built into the system's very design' (Shiva 2016, p.1-2) and emphasis that current dominant farming system is driven by profit-maximising practices where 'the arenas of seed, food, and agriculture' are transformed 'into a commodity to be traded for profit' (p.125). To explain this, Shiva goes back to the very beginnings and foundations of the industrial agriculture and finds that its values and rationalities are built on a 'Western, mechanistic, reductionist modern science'(p.18).
'Who Really Feeds the World?' is an important book and valuable contribution to the critical environmental politics study, as it provides a holistic and multidisciplinary approach to analysis of why contemporary food production is so problematic and why our food system needs to shift towards agroecology. Shiva provides a typical for Marxist ecologists' critique of capitalism (Hickel 2021) and explains how Western knowledge benefits market economy and allows 'control over nature' to extract profit from 'seeds, chemicals, and fertilizers that constantly needed to be purchased' (Shiva 2016, p20-22). Shiva also brings attention to how the globalised agriculture follows postcolonial agendas and exploits the Global South where the regime for example 'enabled high-cost European farmers to benefit at the expense of much more efficient South African producers' (p101) while the global North's farming system continues to be a major contribution to climate change and its impact on food prices and its availability. The North deepens the hunger crisis, especially in developing countries like India that 'is the hunger capital of the world, and as globalisation becomes further entrenched, so does hunger' (p114). Additionally, Shiva uses an intersectional, post-humanist approach (Haraway 2015) and asks questions 'about our relationship with the Earth and other species' (p12) while reinforcing the idea that if people do not want to extinct, people have to start seeing themselves as 'cocreators and co-producers with Mother Earth' rather than just dominate 'inferior' nature (p3). For Shiva, species like plants, pests, insects, or seeds are our 'kin'(p.94; 136) and not simply a 'property' what makes the book have a more unique and less human-centred viewpoint. What is more, Shiva delivers a feminist critique of male-dominated and violent neoliberal system of food production where male-led system that 'privileges violence, fragmentation and mechanistic thought' (p126). She acknowledges women's importance that often is omitted in the climate change debate and reinforces that 'the future of food needs to be reclaimed by women (…) only when food is in women's hands will both food and women be secure'(p136). It is because Shiva explains that women are 'producing more than half the world's food and (…) 80% of the food needs' for households and regions(p124).
What makes the book credible and convincing in its arguments and criticisms is the fact that Shiva is not solely an author but also an active activist and member of the 'save the seed' Navdanya movement, what makes her standout as a critical ecological thinker. Shiva used agroecology in practice what was an effective way of making the land of Navdanya's farm - fertile, diverse in corps and non-food species, productive and ecologically balanced(p.148). Her transitional framework - that she proposes at the end of the book is therefore a genuine and trustworthy recipe for solving the food crisis, because as she states - 'these transitions are not an utopia(…)and are actually taking place across the world' (p146).
To sum up, Shiva's book is a strong, unique, and persuasive analysis of the two paradigms of the food production with a credible and a practical proposal for systematic change. Her critique is a holistic synthesis of insightful approaches like critical ecological, feminist, decolonial, anti-capitalist and intersectional stances that give the reader a comprehensive understanding of the topic.
BBC Travel (2021). Vandana Shiva on why the food we eat matters. [online] www.bbc.com. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20....
Cox, R.W. (1981). Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory. Millennium, [online] 10(2), pp.126–155
Haraway, D. (2015) 'Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocence, Chthulucene: Making Kin', Environmental Humanities, 6 (1), 159-165.
Hickel, J. (2021) 'The Anti-Colonial Politics of Degrowth' Political Geography 88 (June): 102404. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2021....
Shiva, V. (2016). Who really feeds the world? London: Zed Books.
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Law of Exploitation sees the world as a machine and nature as dead matter. This harms people's health and the environment.
Law of Return maintains that all beings
Ever so often, I don't think twice about the food on my plate. I am far removed from the efforts, growth and processes that bring the food to my table. Without the need to question the sustainability or ethical questions, this has made me unknowingly complicit to possible exploitation of others, additionally causing harm to my own body.Law of Exploitation sees the world as a machine and nature as dead matter. This harms people's health and the environment.
Law of Return maintains that all beings give and take mutually. It is based on life and its interconnectedness.
Traditional farming is rooted in paradigm of agroecology, conforming to the Law of Return. Shiva argues in support for this. The existing industrial agriculture is a monoculture monopoly, set up to increase inequity and be unsustainable.
What surprises me is the global seed monopoly, we are growing significantly less diverse crops than less than 100 years ago - which likely has health/nutritional and environmental impacts we are unaware of.
Shiva complements Kate Raworth Donut Economics & Hope Jahren's The Story of More. However, she is anti-globalization and this is where I find myself in conflict with her views. I think there are benefits to having an 'open society'.
She argues that neoliberalization has contributed to the "myth of more" to justify industrial agriculture. While I agree with this claim, I do believe that globalization is necessary for effective exchanges in (traditional) knowledge and practices. The existing global model is guilty of upholding corporate monopoly trying to perpetuate overdependence. This is the root of the issue and what needs to be dismantled, not globalization. Like Raworth, I think we also need to look at the need to have an "enough" to debunk the "myth of more".
My (pragmatic) idealism thinks globalization can be productive and environmentally sustainable. But conditions need to be set to decentralize power locally and respect diversity that Shiva supports. Additionally, openness must be limited when the principle of harm (against human and ecologically) is violated. With the current momentum on climate change, it is possible.
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Who really DOES feed the world? It is NOT industrial cash-crop monocultures (which only feed 30% of the world) - it is small-scale farmers who provide 70% of the world's food.
So THIS is what we need: organic (or agroecological) farming, based on co-operation and the interconnectednes Yes! Vandana Shiva clearly articulates what's wrong with the world's food and farming, and how - in broad terms at least - to change it for the better. She is one of the world's most important leaders and thinkers.
Who really DOES feed the world? It is NOT industrial cash-crop monocultures (which only feed 30% of the world) - it is small-scale farmers who provide 70% of the world's food.
So THIS is what we need: organic (or agroecological) farming, based on co-operation and the interconnectedness of all things, where farmers have sovereignty and produce a huge diversity of real, healthy, nourishing food for local communities. Industrial cash-crop monocultures are hugely destructive to soils and ecosystems, and because the profits flow to multinationals, farmers are indebted, suicidal, or displaced. Industrially produced food lacks vitality and nutrients; instead it has harmful additives and residues - it's not food but merely a commodity.
Shiva emphasises that women must play a strong role in this transition to a life-affirming way of producing food, and also emphasises the importance of saving myriad seed varieties as part of strengthening biodiversity and of seed sovereignty, rather than being beholden to corporates who have patented, hybridised and genetically engineered seeds for their own commercial purposes.
Check out Vandana Shiva's work at https://navdanya.org/site/. ...more
I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the food crisis or genetically modified organisms. It is an information-packed book which, at times, can be redundant. The emphasis Shiva puts on certain topics is compelling, but it sometimes becomes intense. The author tends to tangent about an issue for a while before using data to support her point. However, Shiva failed to support her generalizations on how women contribute to feeding the world. The idea that women feed the world more than men is brought up at various times, but it is never backed up by actual facts. Other than that, most of the points made are supported by factual data.
I enjoyed how much this book taught me. Although the book is heavily influenced by Shiva's opinions, it does contain a lot of interesting information that was new to me. If you have no prior knowledge of the issues surrounding world hunger or genetically modified organisms, I suggest reading something less biased before reading this. The author has strong viewpoints on the issues discussed and does not bring in many counterarguments. I recommend reading other works to get a more well-rounded education on the topics discussed. If you have a good understanding of the issues, this is a good book to read in order to learn more about one side of the debate. If you do not agree with Shiva's stance on the issues addressed, it will help you to see the arguments against genetically modified crops and large farming of monocultures. If you agree with the author's stance, I suggest reading works that disagree with this book.
If you find the topic interesting, this is a page-turner. Even so, it has slower parts where the author is repeating herself many times. However, the fascinating facts keep you reading until the end. Shiva is very persuasive, but you should be a cautious reader and not assume she is telling the truth until she backs it with data. Sometimes the author interjects her opinions without having a factual basis to support her ideas. Whether or not you enjoy the reading, you will learn some new facts about the food crisis and genetically modified organisms, and the book will be beneficial for you to read. ...more
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