Because the European Parliamentary elections are nearing their finish, so is that this present’s season. However haven’t any worry; we’ll be again very quickly.
In at this time’s episode, we talk about how local weather change impacts meals methods. As a result of, though we frequently discuss of transit and different industries polluting, we don’t appear to contemplate industrial farming as nice a perpetrator because it actually is. And it impacts all of us.
One examine from 2022 discovered that less than half of European customers belief the place their meals comes from – and solely 37% consider that their meals is actually sustainable. Many are thinking about natural produce and sustainable sources, however industrial farming doesn’t prioritize these values—neither on the company degree nor on the coverage degree.
The EU has started to flirt with the idea of “degrowth” as a substitute of “inexperienced progress”; specialists advocate for changing the present financial metrics, reminiscent of GDP, that are centered on summary monetary achieve. As a substitute, we may use figures and elements that middle society and permit for a extra complicated understanding of commerce, business and funds.
Trendy social and financial theories had been largely constructed on the concept of a teleological path of progress, that’s, the very false concept that humanity is transferring in a specific path alongside a linear line and that perpetual progress and enlargement are the keys to nice societies.
Now, it doesn’t take a PhD to see why this can be a problematic concept: to begin with, our sources aren’t countless; importantly, human historical past isn’t linear. Moreover, this idea views sure societies as extra optimum and expects others to attempt to “catch up” with the leaders, which finally traps them in a growth limbo perpetually.
In the end, we’ve reached a degree of overproduction and overconsumption the place we’ve extra commodities than could be wanted for the globe, however billions of individuals are dwelling in excessive poverty, as a result of we don’t distribute wealth or sources pretty.
As a substitute of this international madness, degrowth promotes lowering our international consumption and dwelling off of fewer sources. Sure, that might imply paying a fairer worth in your finely brewed espresso, which is at the moment produced by abused and exploited employees in Guatemala. It will additionally give attention to shorter commerce distances, native produce and constructive interdependence between sectors.
The present international commerce methods create a whole lot of dependence, however these are not often constructive ones. Industrial farming is solely reliant on fossil fuels, each for working the heavy equipment that changed agricultural employees and for closely polluting agrochemicals reminiscent of fertilizers and pesticides.
Talking of commercial farming, Russia’s conflict on Ukraine has had extreme penalties for the Arab world, as half of Ukraine’s wheat manufacturing is exported there, resulting in a pointy enhance within the worth of bread. Traditionally, such occasions have served as a catalyst for political upheaval within the area. In 2021, the inflation of meals merchandise reached the identical degree that led to the Arab Spring.
Some consider that this conundrum may enable grain producers from European international locations, like Germany, to wield gentle energy within the area by exporting extra superior agricultural practices there.
Meals sovereignty has at all times been about controlling sources, and so long as they’re not within the palms of the individuals who produce them, the battle for farmers’ rights prevails. From the renewed protests in India to those in opposition to the EU’s Inexperienced New Deal right here in Europe, they expose neoliberal agricultural models that middle financial competitors over environmental safety.
To indignant farmers in Europe, plainly the far-right are the one ones keen to pay attention, as they’ve been marching on the streets for months throughout Belgium, Germany, and Poland in opposition to the Inexperienced Deal’s reformist insurance policies that declare sustainability. Instead of protecting local farmers, the EU responded to the wants of agribusinesses, inflicting upheaval and basic mistrust.
On each ends of the left-right spectrum, a coaptation of farmers’ struggles is obvious. Lower than 4 months earlier than the EP elections, the far-right has managed to strategically infiltrate the motion by Europhobia and anti-immigration rhetoric, however that is removed from new. Proper-wing politicians have lengthy had ties with agribusinesses, and this false declare to “defending” household farms comes with personal gain. Who would’ve thought that local weather safety would function an excellent excuse to proceed harming the setting?
As we speak’s visitors:
Tendai Ganduri is a Zimbabwean scholar from the College of Witwaterstand in Johannesburg, South Africa. She has been awarded the Digital Humanism Fellowship from the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, the place she is at the moment researching on how local weather change is communicated on X, utilizing Zimbabwe and South Africa as case research. Ganduri explores the pluralities inside human communities, and compares how residents critique and/or help their governments in relation to nationwide and worldwide occasions and platforms.
Maciej Jakubowiak is Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Dwutygodnik journal, certainly one of Eurozine’s accomplice publications from Poland. He’s an award-winning author and essayist, and has been granted the Adam Włodek Prize, amongst others. His publications embody Hanka: A Profession Story (Hanka.Opowieść o awansie, 2024), The Final People: Imagining the Finish of the World ( Ostatni ludzie. Wymyślanie końca świata , 2021), and Inevitable Plagiarism ( Nieuchronny plagiat , 2017). His Dwutygodnik essay Folk Stories: The Paunch, explores the cultural and nationwide historical past behind his household’s relationship to meals. Has been translated from Polish into English, and was printed on Eurozine this week.
Salma Shaka is a multi-media artist and researcher raised between Palestine, Cyprus, and the UAE. Her work tackles matters of land reclamation, indigenous creativeness, and anti-colonial struggles in relation to feeding and foraging rituals from the Arab and Mediterranean areas. Meals is central to her follow, because it transcends borders, fosters solidarities, and aids in digesting heavy matters on cultural preservation, famine, and systemic erasure.
We meet them on the ERSTE Stiftung in Vienna.
It’s also possible to take pleasure in our episodes in a podcast format on the Cultural Broadcasting Archive, or wherever you discover your podcasts.
Réka Kinga Papp, editor-in-chief
Merve Akyel, artwork director
Szilvia Pintér, producer
Zsófia Gabriella Papp, digital producer
Salma Shaka, writer-editor
Priyanka Hutschenreiter, challenge assistant
Administration
Hermann Riessner, managing director
Judit Csikós, challenge supervisor
Csilla Nagyné Kardos, workplace administration
OKTO Crew
Senad Hergić, producer
Leah Hochedlinger, video recording
Marlena Stolze, video recording
Clemens Schmiedbauer, video recording
Richard Brusek, sound recording
Postproduction
Milan Golovics, dialogue editor
Nóra Ruszkai, video editor
István Nagy, put up manufacturing
Artwork
Victor Maria Lima, animation
Cornelia Frischauf, theme music
Captions and subtitles
Julia Sobota closed captions, Polish and French subtitles; language variations administration
Farah Ayyash Arabic subtitles
Hosted by
ERSTE Stiftung, Vienna
Sources:
Less than half of European consumers trust the food system, reveals pan-European study
Once unthinkable, the prospect of society driven by wellbeing gains traction
Degrowth – what’s behind the economic theory and why does it matter right now?
A new Arab Spring, thanks to Ukraine war?
Farmers’ protest: March to restart amid tight security at Delhi’s borders
Farmers’ protests in Europe and the deadend of neoliberalism
Meet the — really — angry farmers coming to take down Brussels
European far right opportunistically supports farmers
Mapped: The Deep Ties Between Big Ag and Europe’s Right-Wing Politicians
Because the European Parliamentary elections are nearing their finish, so is that this present’s season. However haven’t any worry; we’ll be again very quickly.
In at this time’s episode, we talk about how local weather change impacts meals methods. As a result of, though we frequently discuss of transit and different industries polluting, we don’t appear to contemplate industrial farming as nice a perpetrator because it actually is. And it impacts all of us.
One examine from 2022 discovered that less than half of European customers belief the place their meals comes from – and solely 37% consider that their meals is actually sustainable. Many are thinking about natural produce and sustainable sources, however industrial farming doesn’t prioritize these values—neither on the company degree nor on the coverage degree.
The EU has started to flirt with the idea of “degrowth” as a substitute of “inexperienced progress”; specialists advocate for changing the present financial metrics, reminiscent of GDP, that are centered on summary monetary achieve. As a substitute, we may use figures and elements that middle society and permit for a extra complicated understanding of commerce, business and funds.
Trendy social and financial theories had been largely constructed on the concept of a teleological path of progress, that’s, the very false concept that humanity is transferring in a specific path alongside a linear line and that perpetual progress and enlargement are the keys to nice societies.
Now, it doesn’t take a PhD to see why this can be a problematic concept: to begin with, our sources aren’t countless; importantly, human historical past isn’t linear. Moreover, this idea views sure societies as extra optimum and expects others to attempt to “catch up” with the leaders, which finally traps them in a growth limbo perpetually.
In the end, we’ve reached a degree of overproduction and overconsumption the place we’ve extra commodities than could be wanted for the globe, however billions of individuals are dwelling in excessive poverty, as a result of we don’t distribute wealth or sources pretty.
As a substitute of this international madness, degrowth promotes lowering our international consumption and dwelling off of fewer sources. Sure, that might imply paying a fairer worth in your finely brewed espresso, which is at the moment produced by abused and exploited employees in Guatemala. It will additionally give attention to shorter commerce distances, native produce and constructive interdependence between sectors.
The present international commerce methods create a whole lot of dependence, however these are not often constructive ones. Industrial farming is solely reliant on fossil fuels, each for working the heavy equipment that changed agricultural employees and for closely polluting agrochemicals reminiscent of fertilizers and pesticides.
Talking of commercial farming, Russia’s conflict on Ukraine has had extreme penalties for the Arab world, as half of Ukraine’s wheat manufacturing is exported there, resulting in a pointy enhance within the worth of bread. Traditionally, such occasions have served as a catalyst for political upheaval within the area. In 2021, the inflation of meals merchandise reached the identical degree that led to the Arab Spring.
Some consider that this conundrum may enable grain producers from European international locations, like Germany, to wield gentle energy within the area by exporting extra superior agricultural practices there.
Meals sovereignty has at all times been about controlling sources, and so long as they’re not within the palms of the individuals who produce them, the battle for farmers’ rights prevails. From the renewed protests in India to those in opposition to the EU’s Inexperienced New Deal right here in Europe, they expose neoliberal agricultural models that middle financial competitors over environmental safety.
To indignant farmers in Europe, plainly the far-right are the one ones keen to pay attention, as they’ve been marching on the streets for months throughout Belgium, Germany, and Poland in opposition to the Inexperienced Deal’s reformist insurance policies that declare sustainability. Instead of protecting local farmers, the EU responded to the wants of agribusinesses, inflicting upheaval and basic mistrust.
On each ends of the left-right spectrum, a coaptation of farmers’ struggles is obvious. Lower than 4 months earlier than the EP elections, the far-right has managed to strategically infiltrate the motion by Europhobia and anti-immigration rhetoric, however that is removed from new. Proper-wing politicians have lengthy had ties with agribusinesses, and this false declare to “defending” household farms comes with personal gain. Who would’ve thought that local weather safety would function an excellent excuse to proceed harming the setting?
As we speak’s visitors:
Tendai Ganduri is a Zimbabwean scholar from the College of Witwaterstand in Johannesburg, South Africa. She has been awarded the Digital Humanism Fellowship from the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, the place she is at the moment researching on how local weather change is communicated on X, utilizing Zimbabwe and South Africa as case research. Ganduri explores the pluralities inside human communities, and compares how residents critique and/or help their governments in relation to nationwide and worldwide occasions and platforms.
Maciej Jakubowiak is Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Dwutygodnik journal, certainly one of Eurozine’s accomplice publications from Poland. He’s an award-winning author and essayist, and has been granted the Adam Włodek Prize, amongst others. His publications embody Hanka: A Profession Story (Hanka.Opowieść o awansie, 2024), The Final People: Imagining the Finish of the World ( Ostatni ludzie. Wymyślanie końca świata , 2021), and Inevitable Plagiarism ( Nieuchronny plagiat , 2017). His Dwutygodnik essay Folk Stories: The Paunch, explores the cultural and nationwide historical past behind his household’s relationship to meals. Has been translated from Polish into English, and was printed on Eurozine this week.
Salma Shaka is a multi-media artist and researcher raised between Palestine, Cyprus, and the UAE. Her work tackles matters of land reclamation, indigenous creativeness, and anti-colonial struggles in relation to feeding and foraging rituals from the Arab and Mediterranean areas. Meals is central to her follow, because it transcends borders, fosters solidarities, and aids in digesting heavy matters on cultural preservation, famine, and systemic erasure.
We meet them on the ERSTE Stiftung in Vienna.
It’s also possible to take pleasure in our episodes in a podcast format on the Cultural Broadcasting Archive, or wherever you discover your podcasts.
Réka Kinga Papp, editor-in-chief
Merve Akyel, artwork director
Szilvia Pintér, producer
Zsófia Gabriella Papp, digital producer
Salma Shaka, writer-editor
Priyanka Hutschenreiter, challenge assistant
Administration
Hermann Riessner, managing director
Judit Csikós, challenge supervisor
Csilla Nagyné Kardos, workplace administration
OKTO Crew
Senad Hergić, producer
Leah Hochedlinger, video recording
Marlena Stolze, video recording
Clemens Schmiedbauer, video recording
Richard Brusek, sound recording
Postproduction
Milan Golovics, dialogue editor
Nóra Ruszkai, video editor
István Nagy, put up manufacturing
Artwork
Victor Maria Lima, animation
Cornelia Frischauf, theme music
Captions and subtitles
Julia Sobota closed captions, Polish and French subtitles; language variations administration
Farah Ayyash Arabic subtitles
Hosted by
ERSTE Stiftung, Vienna
Sources:
Less than half of European consumers trust the food system, reveals pan-European study
Once unthinkable, the prospect of society driven by wellbeing gains traction
Degrowth – what’s behind the economic theory and why does it matter right now?
A new Arab Spring, thanks to Ukraine war?
Farmers’ protest: March to restart amid tight security at Delhi’s borders
Farmers’ protests in Europe and the deadend of neoliberalism
Meet the — really — angry farmers coming to take down Brussels
European far right opportunistically supports farmers
Mapped: The Deep Ties Between Big Ag and Europe’s Right-Wing Politicians