Download or read book Fighting for the Future of Food written by Rachel Schurman and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2013-11-30 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When scientists working in the agricultural biotechnology industry first altered the genetic material of one organism by introducing genes from an entirely different organism, the reaction was generally enthusiastic. To many, these genetically modified organisms (GMOs) promised to solve the challenges faced by farmers and to relieve world hunger. Yet within a decade, this “gene revolution” had abruptly stalled. Widespread protests against the potential dangers of “Frankenfoods” and the patenting of seed supplies in the developing world forced the industry to change course. As a result, in the late 1990s, some of the world’s largest firms reduced their investment in the agricultural sector, narrowed their focus to a few select crops, or sold off their agricultural divisions altogether. Fighting for the Future of Food tells the story of how a small group of social activists, working together across tables, continents, and the Internet, took on the biotech industry and achieved stunning success. Rachel Schurman and William A. Munro detail how the anti-biotech movement managed to alter public perceptions about GMOs and close markets to such products. Drawing strength from an alternative worldview that sustained its members’ sense of urgency and commitment, the anti-GMO movement exploited political opportunities created by the organization and culture of the biotechnology industry itself. Fighting for the Future of Food ultimately addresses society’s understanding and trust (or mistrust) of technological innovation and the complexities of the global agricultural system that provides our food.
Download or read book Fighting for the Future of Food written by Rachel Schurman and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How activists changed the trajectory of the new agricultural biotechnologies.
Download or read book Fighting for Our Future written by Beth Murphy and published by McGraw-Hill Companies. This book was released on 2003 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Personal stories, medical advice, and honest answers to the questions young women with breast cancer ask.
Download or read book The Economics of Sustainable Food written by Nicoletta Batini and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2021-06-08 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Economics of Sustainable Food details the true cost of food for people and the planet. It illustrates how to transform our broken system, alleviating its severe financial and human burden. The key is smart macroeconomic policy that moves us toward methods that protect the environment like regenerative land and sea farming, low-impact urban farming, and alternative protein farming, and toward healthy diets. The book's multidisciplinary team of authors lay out detailed fiscal and trade policies, as well as structural reforms, to achieve those goals. Chapters discuss strategies to make food production sustainable, nutritious, and fair, ranging from taxes and spending to education, labor market, health care, and pension reforms, alongside regulation in cases where market incentives are unlikely to work or to work fast enough. The authors carefully consider the different needs of more and less advanced economies, balancing economic development and sustainability goals. Case studies showcase successful strategies from around the world, such as taxing foods with a high carbon footprint, financing ecosystems mapping and conservation to meet scientific targets for healthy biomes permanency, subsidizing sustainable land and sea farming, reforming health systems to move away from sick care to preventive, nutrition-based care, and providing schools with matching funds to purchase local organic produce.--Amazon.
Download or read book Hot Hungry Planet written by Lisa Palmer and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2017-05-09 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The U.N. predicts the Earth will have more than 9.6 billion people by 2050. With resources already scarce, how will we feed them all? Journalist Lisa Palmer has traveled the world for years, documenting the cutting-edge innovations of people and organizations on the front lines of fighting the food gap.
Download or read book Grabbing Power written by Tanya M Kerssen and published by Food First Books. This book was released on 2013-01-08 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Grabbing Power explores the history of agribusiness and land conflicts in Northern Honduras focusing on the Aguán Valley, where peasant movements battle large palm oil producers for the right to land. In the wake of a military coup that overthrew Honduran president Manuel Zelaya in June 2009, rural communities in the Aguán have been brutally repressed, with over 60 people killed in just over two years. United States military aid--spent in the name of the War on Drugs--fuels the Honduran government's ability to repress its people. A strong and inspiring movement for land, food and democracy has grown over the last two years, and it shows no sign of backing down.
Download or read book The Taste of Tomorrow written by Josh Schonwald and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2012-04-10 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For fans of Michael Pollan and Mark Bittman, Josh Schonwald delivers a fascinating investigation into the trends and technologies that are transforming the world of food before our very eyes—from Alice Waters's micro farm to nanotechnology and beyond. Building upon the knowledge base we have gained from such books as The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Schonwald takes our contemporary conversation about food a step further, debunking myths, clarifying controversies (such as the current storm over GMOs, or genetically modified organisms), and exploring the wild possibilities that food science and chemical engineering are making realities today—from food pills to new species of scratch-built fish.
Download or read book Billion Dollar Burger written by Chase Purdy and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-06-16 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The riveting story of the entrepreneurs and renegades fighting to bring lab-grown meat to the world. The trillion-dollar meat industry is one of our greatest environmental hazards; it pollutes more than all the world's fossil-fuel-powered cars. Global animal agriculture is responsible for deforestation, soil erosion, and more emissions than air travel, paper mills, and coal mining combined. It also, of course, depends on the slaughter of more than 60 billion animals per year, a number that is only increasing as the global appetite for meat swells. But a band of doctors, scientists, activists, and entrepreneurs have been racing to end animal agriculture as we know it, hoping to fulfill a dream of creating meat without ever having to kill an animal. In the laboratories of Silicon Valley companies, Dutch universities, and Israeli startups, visionaries are growing burgers and steaks from microscopic animal cells and inventing systems to do so at scale--allowing us to feed the world without slaughter and environmental devastation. Drawing from exclusive and unprecedented access to the main players, from polarizing activist-turned-tech CEO Josh Tetrick to lobbyists and regulators on both sides of the issue, Billion Dollar Burger follows the people fighting to upend our food system as they butt up against the entrenched interests fighting viciously to stop them. The stakes are monumentally high: cell-cultured meat is the best hope for sustainable food production, a key to fighting climate change, a gold mine for the companies that make it happen, and an existential threat for the farmers and meatpackers that make our meat today. Are we ready?
Download or read book Food Fights written by Charles C. Ludington and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2019-08-29 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What we eat, where it is from, and how it is produced are vital questions in today's America. We think seriously about food because it is freighted with the hopes, fears, and anxieties of modern life. Yet critiques of food and food systems all too often sprawl into jeremiads against modernity itself, while supporters of the status quo refuse to acknowledge the problems with today's methods of food production and distribution. Food Fights sheds new light on these crucial debates, using a historical lens. Its essays take strong positions, even arguing with one another, as they explore the many themes and tensions that define how we understand our food—from the promises and failures of agricultural technology to the politics of taste. In addition to the editors, contributors include Ken Albala, Amy Bentley, Charlotte Biltekoff, Peter A. Coclanis, Tracey Deutsch, S. Margot Finn, Rachel Laudan, Sarah Ludington, Margaret Mellon, Steve Striffler, and Robert T. Valgenti.
Download or read book Seeds of Resistance written by Mark Schapiro and published by Hot Books. This book was released on 2023-01-24 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seeds of Resistance is a wake-up call. With vivid and memorable stories, Mark Schapiro tells us how seeds are at the frontlines of our epic battle for healthy food.” —Alice Waters, founder of Chez Panisse and the Edible Schoolyard Sun. Soil. Water. Seed. These are the primordial ingredients for the most essential activity of all on earth: growing food. All of these elements are being changed dramatically under the pressures of corporate consolidation of the food chain, which has been accelerating just as climate change is profoundly altering the conditions for growing food. In the midst of this global crisis, the fate of our food has slipped into a handful of the world’s largest companies. Seeds of Resistance will bring home what this corporate stranglehold is doing to our daily diet, from the explosion of genetically modified foods to the rapid disappearance of plant varieties to the elimination of independent farmers who have long been the bedrock of our food supply. Seeds of Resistance will touch many nerves for readers, including concerns about climate change, chronic drought in essential farm states like California, the proliferation of GMOs, government interference (or purposeful ignorance), and the alarming domination of the seed market and our very life cycle by global giants like Monsanto. But not all is bleak when it comes to the future of our food supply. Seeds of Resistance will also present hopeful stories about farmers, consumer groups, and government agencies around the world that are resisting the tightening corporate squeeze on our food chain. “The latest science suggests that plants, including those of our major food crops, are engaged in a continuous interplay of responses with the environment in which they’re planted. That environment is changing; climatic disruptions are accelerating. The number of seed companies is declining, and the spectrum of seeds shrinking. The group of people involved in fighting for their seeds, and a more just and healthy food system, is expanding. Old assumptions of how we grow food are falling. New paradigms are emerging. It’s a time of profound vitality and volatility in the seed realm, with high stakes for all of us who care about our health, the planet’s health, and the food we eat. As powerful forces circle round the ground-zero ingredient of our food, one thing is becoming clear: a seed is never just a seed. Seeds are the canaries on our climate disrupted planet. They’re emitting strong signals. Let’s read them.”
Download or read book Protest Kitchen written by Carol J. Adams and published by Conari Press. This book was released on 2018-10-01 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2018 Foreword Book of the Year Awards Bronze WinnerProtest Kitchen is an empowering guide to the food and lifestyle choices anyone can make for positive change in the face of the profound challenges of our time.Our food choices have much more of an impact than most people imagine. They not only affect our personal health and the environment, but are also tied to issues of justice, misogyny, national security, and human rights. Protest Kitchen is the first book to explore the ways in which a more plant-based diet challenges regressive politics and fuels the resistance.A provocative and practical resource for hope and healing, Protest Kitchen, features over 50 vegan recipes (with alternatives for "aspiring vegans") along with practical daily actions such as:•Substitute cow's milk in your coffee and cereal for any of a variety of delicious non-dairy milks. This will help lower the release of methane gas that contributes to global warming•Use a smartphone app when buying chocolate to avoid supporting African farmers who use child-labor, even child slavery, to supply cacao beans to the food industry•Make your own cleaning supplies and wood polish; it's frugal and avoids reliance on products that may be tested on animals
Download or read book Fighting for the Future written by Sabrina Mittermeier and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first two seasons of Star Trek: Discovery, the newest instalment in the long-running and influential Star Trek franchise, received media and academic attention from the moment they arrived on screen. Discovery makes several key changes to Star Trek's well-known narrative formulae, particularly the use of more serialized storytelling, appealing to audiences' changed viewing habits in the streaming age - and yet the storylines, in their topical nature and the broad range of socio-political issues they engage with, continue in the political vein of the series' megatext. This volume brings together eighteen essays and one interview about the series, with contributions from a variety of disciplines including cultural studies, literary studies, media studies, fandom studies, history and political science. They explore representations of gender, sexuality and race, as well as topics such as shifts in storytelling and depictions of diplomacy. Examining Discovery alongside older entries into the Star Trek canon and tracing emerging continuities and changes, this volume will be an invaluable resource for all those interested in Star Trek and science fiction in the franchise era.
Download or read book The Fight Over Food written by Wynne Wright and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2015-06-17 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “One problem with the food system is that price is the bottom line rather than having the bottom line be land stewardship, an appreciation for the environmental and social value of small-scale family farms, or for organically grown produce.” —Interview with farmer in Skagit County, Washington For much of the later twentieth century, food has been abundant and convenient for most residents of advanced industrial societies. The luxury of taking the safety and dependability of food for granted pushed it to the back burner in the consciousness of many. Increasingly, however, this once taken-for-granted food system is coming under question on issues such as the humane treatment of animals, genetically engineered foods, and social and environmental justice. Many consumers are no longer content with buying into the mainstream, commodity-driven food market on which they once depended. Resistance has emerged in diverse forms, from protests at the opening of McDonald’s restaurants worldwide to ever-greater interest in alternatives, such as CSAs (community-supported agriculture), fair trade, and organic foods. The food system is increasingly becoming an arena of struggle that reflects larger changes in societal values and norms, as expectations are moving beyond the desire for affordable, convenient foods to a need for healthy and environmentally sound alternatives. In this book, leading scholars and scholar-activists provide case studies that illuminate the complexities and contradictions that surround the emergence of a “new day” in agriculture. The essays found in The Fight Over Food analyze and evaluate both the theoretical and historical contexts of the agrifood system and the ways in which trends of individual action and collective activity have led to an “accumulation of resistance” that greatly affects the mainstream market of food production. The overarching theme that integrates the case studies is the idea of human agency and the ways in which people purposefully and creatively generate new forms of action or resistance to facilitate social changes within the structure of predominant cultural norms. Together these studies examine whether these combined efforts will have the strength to create significant and enduring transformations in the food system.
Download or read book Rethinking Food and Agriculture written by Amir Kassam and published by Woodhead Publishing. This book was released on 2020-10-18 with total page 478 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Given the central role of the food and agriculture system in driving so many of the connected ecological, social and economic threats and challenges we currently face, Rethinking Food and Agriculture reviews, reassesses and reimagines the current food and agriculture system and the narrow paradigm in which it operates. Rethinking Food and Agriculture explores and uncovers some of the key historical, ethical, economic, social, cultural, political, and structural drivers and root causes of unsustainability, degradation of the agricultural environment, destruction of nature, short-comings in science and knowledge systems, inequality, hunger and food insecurity, and disharmony. It reviews efforts towards ‘sustainable development’, and reassesses whether these efforts have been implemented with adequate responsibility, acceptable societal and environmental costs and optimal engagement to secure sustainability, equity and justice. The book highlights the many ways that farmers and their communities, civil society groups, social movements, development experts, scientists and others have been raising awareness of these issues, implementing solutions and forging ‘new ways forward’, for example towards paradigms of agriculture, natural resource management and human nutrition which are more sustainable and just. Rethinking Food and Agriculture proposes ways to move beyond the current limited view of agro-ecological sustainability towards overall sustainability of the food and agriculture system based on the principle of ‘inclusive responsibility’. Inclusive responsibility encourages ecosystem sustainability based on agro-ecological and planetary limits to sustainable resource use for production and livelihoods. Inclusive responsibility also places importance on quality of life, pluralism, equity and justice for all and emphasises the health, well-being, sovereignty, dignity and rights of producers, consumers and other stakeholders, as well as of nonhuman animals and the natural world. Explores some of the key drivers and root causes of unsustainability , degradation of the agricultural environment and destruction of nature Highlights the many ways that different stakeholders have been forging 'new ways forward' towards alternative paradigms of agriculture, human nutrition and political economy, which are more sustainable and just Proposes ways to move beyong the current unsustainable exploitation of natural resources towards agroecological sustainability and overall sustainability of the food and agriculture system based on 'inclusive responsibility'
Download or read book Food Fight written by Mckay Jenkins and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-02-13 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are GMOs really that bad? A prominent environmental journalist takes a fresh look at what they actually mean for our food system and for us. In the past two decades, GMOs have come to dominate the American diet. Advocates hail them as the future of food, an enhanced method of crop breeding that can help feed an ever-increasing global population and adapt to a rapidly changing environment. Critics, meanwhile, call for their banishment, insisting GMOs were designed by overeager scientists and greedy corporations to bolster an industrial food system that forces us to rely on cheap, unhealthy, processed food so they can turn an easy profit. In response, health-conscious brands such as Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods have started boasting that they are “GMO-free,” and companies like Monsanto have become villains in the eyes of average consumers. Where can we turn for the truth? Are GMOs an astounding scientific breakthrough destined to end world hunger? Or are they simply a way for giant companies to control a problematic food system? Environmental writer McKay Jenkins traveled across the country to answer these questions and discovered that the GMO controversy is more complicated than meets the eye. He interviewed dozens of people on all sides of the debate—scientists hoping to engineer new crops that could provide nutrients to people in the developing world, Hawaiian papaya farmers who credit GMOs with saving their livelihoods, and local farmers in Maryland who are redefining what it means to be “sustainable.” The result is a comprehensive, nuanced examination of the state of our food system and a much-needed guide for consumers to help them make more informed choices about what to eat for their next meal.
Download or read book As Gods written by Matthew Cobb and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2022-11-15 with total page 502 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The thrilling and terrifying history of genetic engineering In 2018, scientists manipulated the DNA of human babies for the first time. As biologist and historian Matthew Cobb shows in As Gods, this achievement was one many scientists have feared from the start of the genetic age. Four times in the last fifty years, geneticists, frightened by their own technology, have called a temporary halt to their experiments. They ought to be frightened: Now we have powers that can target the extinction of pests, change our own genes, or create dangerous new versions of diseases in an attempt to prevent future pandemics. Both awe-inspiring and chilling, As Gods traces the history of genetic engineering, showing that this revolutionary technology is far too important to be left to the scientists. They have the power to change life itself, but should we trust them to keep their ingenuity from producing a hellish reality?
Download or read book The Genetic Age written by Matthew Cobb and published by Profile Books. This book was released on 2022-09-01 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A TIMES ENVIRONMENT AND SCIENCE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022 'The ideal guide to what is not just a fiendishly complex area of science but also an ethical minefield' Mail on Sunday A new gene editing technology, invented just seven years ago, has turned humanity into gods. Enabling us to manipulate the genes in virtually any organism with exquisite precision, CRISPR has given scientists a degree of control that was undreamt of even in science fiction. But CRISPR is just the latest, giant leap in a long journey to master genetics. The Genetic Age shows the astonishing, world-changing potential of the new genetics and the possible threats it poses, sifting between fantasy and the reality when it comes to both benefits and dangers. By placing each phase of discovery, anticipation and fear in the context of over fifty years of attempts to master the natural world, Matthew Cobb, the Baillie-Gifford-shortlisted author of The Idea of the Brain, weaves the stories of science, history and culture to shed new light on our future. With the powers now at our disposal, it is a future that is almost impossible to imagine - but it is one we will create ourselves.
