empathetic embrace

Food systems are one of our most defining characteristics, being an integral part of the interaction of humans with the environment. Eating is the most intimate relation a person can have with nature since we incorporate plant and animal parts into our bodies – a process that is indispensable for life. Furthermore, eating is a social necessity that connects people. Food systems are different and unique in every culture and society.

World development in the last hundred years has amplified immense changes in our food system. Advances in high-tech machinery and innovation have contributed to higher-yielding and efficient agriculture, minimizing the need for the work force. Global food production offers great variety and quality year round, neglecting seasonality. In addition, impacts of climate change are surfacing that alter cultivation methods and agricultural practices, which greatly influence our food systems. This results in the challenging trade-off between productivity and sustainability. An increasing rate of global trade and communication as well as increasing purchasing power, food consumption and associated pattern changes throughout the world have multiple consequences, such as the rise of new epidemicdiseases like diabetes and obesity¹ (diabesity). Dietary choices are influenced by factors in the local food environment such as availability and accessibility of foods. There are major gaps in the global food system: on the one hand, we encounter extravagant amount of excess food and on the other hand roughly 870 million people are hungry worldwide, lacking major macronutrients and micronutrients². In wealthy nations, consumershave been steadily disconnected from food production as a whole. Some children no longer know of the origin of milk. In addition, there is an impressive lack of knowledge about healthy eating in large sections of the population, often referred to as “food illiteracy”³.The trend of urbanization will augment the demand for healthy, nutritious food in densely populated urban areas. As a consequence, rural areas, which containmost food production, are deserted. This causes tremendous changes in rural space and agricultural activity. There arewide discrepancies in our food understanding and this, in my opinion, has caused ruptures in food systems that are contributing to food insecurity and food illiteracy.

Cities are usually melting pots with high creativity and vigour. Therefore, human resources in metropolitan areas tend to respond in a much quicker, pro-reactive manner to tackle issues when compared to the abandoned rural areas that are confronted with completely different demographic features. This said, I am very interested in two of the four sectors the 100 Questions were divided into: agronomic practice as I study Agricultural Sciences and secondly, agricultural development which includes the development and governance of this abandoned rural space⁴.

Rural areas are intertwined with agriculture and poverty. 85% of global farmland is less than two hectares in size. There are over 500 million smallholders in the world that produce 80% of the food we consume⁵. These people live in rural areas and make up the majority of the rural poor. Evidently, smallholders are the backbone of global food production. In my opinion, there needs to be a much stronger emphasis on the development and safeguarding of rural livelihoods in respect to sustainably ameliorating the lives of smallholders socially and economically. U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food de Schutter summarized it inAgroecology and the Right to Food: “there is a largely shared diagnosis at the level of discourse about what needs to be done — switch to supporting small-scale farmers and agro-ecological methods”⁶.

To continue, dealing with arising issues in rural spaces is closely linked to localism in the sense that it has to be contextualized to its surrounding. Most food is grown in the countryside! As mentioned in “Shall We Go Home To Eat?”, there is great potential and a strong connection between the localization of food systems and the promotion of environmental sustainability and social justice⁷. Hence, rural space is a local platform for the reflexive exchange of and debate on ethical norms and values that may set the basis of local alternative food movements. Localism may be the context in which alternative strategies can flourish in respect to social injustice and inequality caused by capitalism. Additionally, the paper approaches local activism from a critical but not condescending point of view. It highlights the importance of constant self-evaluation and critically scrutinizing the extent of how well it integrates its environment. Having worked in quite a few different civic initiatives and organizations, I have experienced the challenge to fully democratically incorporate everyone involved, not ostracizing others. Arguments or disagreements within a group are usually counted as proof that the movement is not cohesive. This often causes a public devaluation and dashes the seriousness of the movement. Nevertheless, most change happens on a very local level. This has been proven by all the work associated with our CBEL project. There is an extensive amount of dynamic civic initiatives to tackle food insecurity and it is extremely interesting to take notice of the different approaches and philosophies of each.

 References

¹ Quinn, L. (2009). Diabetes. In R. Mullner (Ed.), Encyclopedia of health services research. (pp. 294-297). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412971942

² World Food Programme, 10 Things You Need To Know About Hunger In 2013, 2 January 2013, retrieved from: http://www.wfp.org/stories/10-things-you-need-know-about-hunger-2013.

³ Mary W. Murimi, Healthy Literacy, Nutrition Education, and Food Literacy, Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, Volume 45, Issue 3, May–June 2013, Page 195, ISSN 1499-4046, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jneb.2013.03.014.

⁴ Pretty, J., Sutherland, W. J., Ashby, J., Auburn, J., Baulcombe, D., Bell, M., Pilgrim, S. (2010). The top 100 questions of importance to the future of global agriculture. International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability, 8(4), 219-236.

⁵ HLPE, 2013. Investing in smallholder agriculture for food security. A report by the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition of the Committee on World Food Security, Rome.

⁶ United Nations Human Rights Council, Agroecology and the Right to Food, [A/HRC/16/49], 8 March 2011.

⁷ E. Melanie DuPuis, David Goodman, Should we go “home” to eat?: toward a reflexive politics of localism, Journal of Rural Studies, Volume 21, Issue 3, July 2005, Pages 359-371, ISSN 0743-0167, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2005.05.011.

Here is an article by the great George Monbiot, to consider the justification of the upcoming unfathomable Christmas spending on products that, in the end, we most likely do not need…

“Christmas permits the global bullshit industry to recruit the values with which so many of us would like the festival to be invested – love, warmth, a community of spirit – to the sole end of selling things that no one needs or even wants.”
– George Monbiot

Spend, Don’t Mend, George Monbiot

This years Vancouver International Film Festival showed a documentary about the journey of Ghana becoming an oil-producing nation: BIG MEN directed by Rachel Boynton. I was highly interested due to the fact that I was living in Ghana when the drill for oil started. How would this film portray the situation?

The film introduces Kosmos Energy, a Texan oil company that discovered the oil reservoirs and initiated the “oil mission”. The film does a good job on portraying the complexity of interests: investors in USA who want to see profit, Kosmos Energy being overwhelmed as a small company , other oil companies gaining interest causing increasing competition and pressure, Ghanaian officials and government debating on the concept of neocolonialism and the benefit for the Ghanaian people, environmental organizations emphasizing on risks and many other aspects. The film also touches on how a country’s sovereignty may be undermined by corporate interests. Further on it documents some of the consequences of the oil business in Nigeria that has not fulfilled the promise of general prosperity, but even worse sparked uprising by armed militia. One may draw possible parallels. Alliances and collaborations are made and former friends betrayed in quick succession all for flowing black gold – who is benefiting?

The documentary is more like a thriller with a bitter, bitter aftertaste..

I recommend this film to anybody interested in the extraction of finite resources, and neo-colonialism – a term that was significantly influenced by Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of the independent Ghana and a strong panafricanist enforcing the liberation of Africa. Ironically, the commercial oil field just off the coast of Ghana is called Jubilee Field and the vessel’s name that transports the oil is Kwame Nkrumah…

Visit : http://www.bigmenthemovie.com/

A quote from the introduction of Neocolonialism, The Last Stage of Imperialism by Dr. Kwame Nkrumah:

“The result of neo-colonialism is that foreign capital is used for the exploitation rather than for the development of the less developed parts of the world. Investment, under neo-colonialism, increases, rather than decreases, the gap between the rich and the poor countries of the world. The struggle against neo-colonialism is not aimed at excluding the capital of the developed world from operating in less developed countries. It is aimed at preventing the financial power of the developed countries being used in such a way as to impoverish the less developed.”

Hans Rosling and the gapminder

This TEDtalk revolves around the topic of contextualizing statements. Hans Rosling, the speaker, substantiates why it is so essential to scrutinize data carefully and use the information in a way that contributes to a break of polemical generalizations and stereotypes. For respectful interactions with one another, we as humans need to speak consciously about our environments. Since I have lived in Morocco and Ghana, I can relate to desultory, generalized assertions some people – even university professors – make about Africa as a whole! One important point Rosling associated with this is the critical questioning and dissociation of the “we” and the abject “them” which is often connected to “pre-conceived ideas”. Therefore, Rosling and his team’s goal is to counter these “pre-conceived ideas” by making data accessible and visual for everyone through the gapminder. This is a true tool for empowerment. Assumptions, statements, political and economic views about the “Other” mirror power structures within society. For instance, the estimate in the video of how family income will change in function to population growth by 2015 is presumably based on calculations that advocate World Bank strategies since the data used derives from World Bank statistics. The World Bank is a supranational conglomerate where the powerful nations tend to direct the course of defining development for the Global South¹. So with all economic expertise and model calculations, we need to keep in mind that behind all projections live humans with a cultural and political uniqueness that cannot be put into predictable logarithms or functions and are often vulnerable to such predictions. This is due to the fact that each country and each region have a different background and approach to “development”. Hence I highly agree with Rosling that whatever we talk about needs to be highly contextualized and evaluated.

Explore and download the gapminder :  http://www.gapminder.org/

References:

¹ Kramarz, T. and Momani, B. (2013), The World Bank as Knowledge Bank: Analyzing the Limits of a Legitimate Global Knowledge Actor. Review of Policy Research, 30: 409–431. doi:10.1111/ropr.12028

 Robert H. Wade (2007) Ngaire Woods The Globalizers: The IMF, the World Bank and Their Borrowers, New Political Economy, 12:1, 127-138, DOI:10.1080/13563460601068909

First, Do No Harm.
Our attitudes, behaviours and actions have direct implications for our surroundings. Our outer appearance, body language, non-action, extroversion all communicate to the recipient. The interpretation of that which is communicated depends on one’s socialization. What we may perceive as a logical and benevolent action, could possibly be irritating and irrelevant from a different perspective. As Dr. Dharamsi pointed out, language is a powerful tool. A sensitivity and an awareness of the language and words we use are necessary for respectful communication. Language reflects power structures and privilege. It is part of being reflective and critically conscious. Critical consciousness is “defined as a moral awareness which propels individuals to disembed from their cultural, social, and political environment, and engage in a responsible critical moral dialogue with it, making active efforts to construct their own place in social reality and to develop internal consistency in their ways of being” (Mustakova-Possardt, 1998).

When listening to speakers and considering how I speak, I often think of Friedemann Schulz von Thun’s communication model called the four-side model. Schulz von Thun is a professor of psychology at the University of Hamburg. He has specialized in intercultural communication and conflict communication. According to his model, the sender and recipient both have four mouths and four ears, each responsible for one of the four layers. All of them are active in a conversation. Thus, making a statement has four different layers:
1. the matter layer: factual information about which the sender is informing. There are three applicable criteria:
a. truth criterion: is the information presented correct/incorrect
b. relevance criterion: are the facts relevant/irrelevant
c. sufficiency criterion: are the facts sufficient for the issue, or are there other things to consider
The information needs to be coherent and clear, so that the recipient can respond to the information according to the three criteria listed above.

2. self-revealing or self-disclosure level: each statement reveals something about the sender’s personality unintentionally or intentionally (feelings, values, characteristic features, needs). This can be explicit or implicit. The recipient’s self-revealing-ear is attentive and draws connections: What type of person is the sender? What is his view?

3. relationship layer: indicates how the sender relates to the recipient. This is indicated implicitly or explicitly through wording, tone of voice, mimic and gestures. The recipient will feel appreciated, rejected, disregarded or respected according to the information received.

4. an appeal: this is where the sender can exert influence on the recipient. Each statement wants to achieve something. The sender may express an appeal, give advice, instructions, or express a wish. The appeal may be direct and apparent or indirect and tacit. As a result, the recipient will ask his/herself: What can I do, feel, think?

The activation and emphasis of each of these layers depend on the information and the sender-recipient interaction. For example, the cultural background of the two parties and the setting of the interaction influence each layer. Using this model to actually think before making a statement helps to understand where misinterpretations and misunderstandings could occur in the communication process. Not all of our ears may be active all the time. But we can try to sharpen our awareness of the fact that a message can have several aspects. When a misunderstanding occurs, we can observe ourselves and analyze which ear we used to receive the message and then try to see it from a different point of view. The relationship aspect of a message is often the most sensitive part of communication. This also applies to intercultural communication. Different cultures have different values, communication rituals and approaches to criticism and feedback. The knowledge about the fact that differences exist, helps to notice and respect this cultural diversity.

“…only through communication can human life hold meaning.” Paulo Freire

Mustakova-Possardt, E., Critical Consciousness: An Alternative Pathway for Positive Personal and Social Development, Journal of Adult Development, Volume 5 Issue 1, page 13-30, 1998, Kluwer Academic Publishers-Plenum Publishers, http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A%3A1023064913072

Hello dear GRS community!
My name is Helen and I am here on exchange from the Humboldt University in Berlin. I study Agricultural Sciences. I particularly chose to come to LFS because I admire the very interdisciplinary approach of the GRS programme. At my home uni, I often missed the methodological linkage between our current food systems to current global issues. Here at UBC I am looking forward to getting to know different opinions on global issues and different approaches on how to assess and tackle them. One of my main interest is sustainable, rural development and agroecology, especially in tropical regions of the world.
My studies in Berlin focus on the science of agriculture, and often neglect the societal implications of changes in agricultural ecosystems. This is why a majority of courses I have chosen this semester revolve around topics associated with social and political sciences. One of the courses is called International Nutrition and it deals with malnutrition and hunger as well as food security on a global scale. Big words that appallingly have never been analysed in lectures in Berlin! I think it is a very unique skill to be able to connect science with arts.
I am also very excited about the fact that UBC has an organic farm on campus! I have volunteered at UBC Farm the past weeks and it has been absolutely amazing because every time I got to the farm, the sun came out. I am very passionate about farming and often spend my summers on little farms. Food is love!
Another big opportunity is the African Awareness Club. Since I have lived in Morocco and Ghana, I can relate to desultory, generalized assertions some people – even university professors – make about Africa as a whole! This club is essential to an open-minded and reflexive academic environment. I joined this club and am looking forward to upcoming discussions and events.
I am thrilled to be in Vancouver and at UBC!

So let the year commence…

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