Tag Archives: food

The Global Land Grab: Frederick Kaufman Part II

August 6, 2013Full Showdeveloping countries, food, food security, frederick kaufman, goldman sachs, populationAlex Wise

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We often hear about the resource curse in developing countries in terms of oil or precious minerals — most of us don’t associate the concept with food. But as this week’s guest on Sea Change Radio, food journalist Frederick Kaufman, has chronicled, in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa the resource of fertile land is being exploited in a way that is reminiscent of how other marketable resources have been appropriated.

Multinational companies and foreign governments are buying up mass tracts of land in poorer nations, growing food on that land, but then shipping all of it off elsewhere, depriving the populations of those countries both the resource and the profit it garnered. Kaufman explores how this reflects a change in global food security patterns, and offers his take on how enormous financial institutions like Goldman Sachs are reaping profits while others starve.

Securing The Foodshed: Philip Ackerman-Leist

April 16, 2013Full Showagriculture, food, food security, Sustainable AgricultureAlex Wise

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There is little disagreement that urban farming translates into increased access to local, sustainable, and healthy food, and that this is a very good thing. But how is it done? What are the success stories of urban farming? And what exactly is a “foodshed?” Our guest this week on Sea Change Radio is Philip Ackerman-Leist, an author, educator and farmer. We learn about foodsheds and discuss how urban farming has proliferated in cities like Cleveland, Detroit and Oakland. He also tells host Alex Wise about how today’s global menu and palate are creating a carbon-intensive food transport problem, and shares some of his best thinking on the ways to get a new generation of Americans engaged in helping ensure our food security future.

Teeny Weeny Technology: Heather Millar on Nanoparticles

January 22, 2013Full Showfood, heather millar, nanoparticles, orion magazineAlex Wise

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Here’s a little exercise: take a pen and a blank piece of paper and write down everything you know about nano-technology. If you do this, you may find your essay to be pretty brief. You could take comfort to know you’re not alone in your ignorance of nano-technology. But perhaps you should not be feeling so comforted. In her recent Orion Magazine article, “Pandora’s Boxes,” today’s guest on Sea Change Radio, journalist Heather Millar, points out that nanoparticles are ubiquitous.Read the show transcript

Tom Laskawy: Food Monopolies and the Antitrust Legacy of Robert Bork

January 8, 2013Full Showfactory farming, food, GristAlex Wise

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In the words of Robert Bork, the controversial legal scholar and one of the fathers of modern anti-trust law who died this past December 19th at age 85, “Courts that know better ought not . . . to make rules unrelated to reality.” Well, the reality that Prof. Bork and his fellow originalists strived for has manifested itself in a monopolistic food system that keeps prices low and our waistlines bulging. This week’s guest on Sea Change Radio, food writer Tom Laskawy, tells host Alex Wise why he believes that Bork’s ideas of linking economics to antitrust gave us cheap meat and dairy as well as massive quantities of processed food – and why that’s a problem. Here’s a link to Laskawy’s piece in Grist discussed at length on this week’s show.