FALL SEMESTER November 18

November 8

We heard a very inspiring and educational presentation from Liza about Food Waste.


Diet for a Small Planet by Moore-Lappe

In her ground breaking book, Diet for a Small Planet, Moore-Lappe, contrast the terms starvation and food insecurity.

Moore-Lappe attributes world starvation and food insecurity to the existing of a the long historical processes of colonialism that has destroyed a traditional social system, and is responsible for the global scarcity of democracy. She points out that democracy carries within the principles of accountability, where people have a say in decisions that affect their well being. In a democratic state, leaders are kept accountable to the needs of the majority. Democracy protects its citizens’ most fundamental rights. She smartly points out that as long as this fundamental concept of democracy is absent from a countries economic life, people will continue to be powerless. Antidemocratic structures are those in which power is so tightly concentrated that the majority of the people are left without a saying, and leaders are only accountable to the powerful minorities.  These structures rob their people of power over their lives.

Her concept can be extended to other aspects of our current industrialized, global agri-food system and larger economy. Moore-Lappe outlines four main levels where democracy is scarcer by the day: at the family level, the food providers, mostly women, are losing authority over land use; at the village level, fewer and fewer people control more and more farm and pasture land; at the national level, nations are not owners of their own destiny in this global market economy, they are ruled by antidemocratic governments that answer only to wealthy elites; and last democracy is scarce at the international arena, where a handful of corporations dominate the world trade in those commodities that are the lifeblood of third world economies.