Who Really Feeds the World?: The Failures of Agribusiness and the Promise of Agroecology [J0404]

2016 PB in nice clean condition. Debunking the notion that our current food crisis must be addressed through industrial agriculture and genetic modification, author and activist Vandana Shiva argues that those forces are in fact the ones responsible for the hunger problem in the first place. Who Really Feeds the World? is a powerful manifesto calling for agricultural justice and genuine sustainability, drawing upon Shiva's thirty years of research and accomplishments in the field. Instead of relying on genetic modification and large-scale monocropping to solve the world's food crisis, she proposes that we look to agroecology-the knowledge of the interconnectedness that creates food-as a truly life-giving alternative to the industrial paradigm. Shiva succinctly and eloquently lays out the networks of people and processes that feed the world, exploring issues of diversity, the needs of small famers, the importance of seed saving, the movement toward localization, and the role of women in producing the world's food.

From recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "Informative and a bit scary because how little I knew about the farming industry."; "Who Really Feeds the World is an argument against globalized industrial agriculture and for decentralized, local, small scale regenerative agriculture. Vandana goes over the many facets of how farming, food, and humans have been exploited, degenerated, and extorted for the sake of profits for large conglomerates. "; "The book brings several reflections on how the earth is a living being, as well as all the things that inhabit it. Vandana also talks about how we are all interconnected and how the food web is the web of life. You need the seeds to plant, the healthy soil to grow and the seeds, the knowledge of the farmers, the evolutionary intelligence of the land, the pollinators (bees, etc.), other plants that end up controlling pests and increasing diversity on the land so that we can eat more nutritious and healthy foods."