Public lecture: Food movements, agroecology, and the future of food and farming

• Tony Weis (Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Western Ontario);
• Miguel Altieri (Professor of Agroecology at the University of California, Berkeley) and
• Eric Holt-Giménez (Executive Director of Food First / Institute for Food and Development Policy).

Today, a billion people live in hunger. Peak oil and environmental degradation threaten the food security of billions more, particularly with half the world’s population living in urban environments where they are dependent on industrially produced and imported food. A transition is urgently needed, but how? What alternative policies can enable communities to realise their own food security in the face of these environmental challenges, while also improving livelihoods, building resilience, and conserving ecosystems? Many food-related movements have already emerged around the world, but what ongoing challenges do they face? We will hear from 3 speakers, each with a long background of experience in activism and academic research on transdisplinary but interconnected themes such as conservation, agro-ecology and sustainable farming, political economy and the social sciences.

Tony Weis, (Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Western Ontario and author of The Global Food Economy: The Battle for the Future of Farming) will discuss the economic and environmental problems of the dominant chemical-industrial food system; Miguel Altieri (Professor of Agroecology at the University of California, Berkeley and author of Agroecology: The Science of Sustainable Agriculture) will look at the alternatives offered by ecological, small scale, local and urban farming; and Eric Holt-Giménez (Executive Director of Food First / Institute for Food and Development Policy, and author of Food Movements Unite!: Strategies to transform our food systems) will look at the emergence of food movements from a global perspective, as well as the divisions between North and South, urban and rural.

Download the powerpoint presentations from some of our speakers:

• Not-so cheap food: illusions of efficiency and the chemical-industrial food system - Tony Weis

This event is co-organised by Transnational Institute (TNI), Institute of Social Studies (ISS) and The Real World Economics group at the University of Amsterdam.
For more information or for media enquiries, please contact: TNI Office (tni@tni.org),
Tel: + 31 20 662 66 08