ACTION REQUIRED: Questionnaire on Food Valuation and contemporary food initiatives for my PhD
The current food system is in transition largely due to paramount external forces (natural and man-made) and internal ones (eating habits). The way we perceive and value food will determine the path we will pursue on that transition towards more sustainable and fairer food systems. The current narrative sees food as a private good that shall have a cheap price so as to guarantee access to all. But there are other ways to guarantee access to food.
If you are working, organizing or participating in any food-related initiative anywhere in the world, either as a private company, a public officer, an alternative food network or a self-organized collective action, I would welcome your responses to this online questionnaire. I am interested to know how do people value food and what do they think about their food-related activities.
LINK TO QUESTIONNAIRE: Food Dimensions in Food-related Initiatives
Please, fill the questionnaire and then write me back with your comments and feelings.
best regards
Jose Luis Vivero Pol
PhD research fellow, Universite catholique de Louvain
US styled capitalism ensures that with any limited resource there will be those that can’t afford it. This is deliberate economic exclusionism, that favours the few. Indeed, even now with water and food even though they are not limited, millions are excluded from access for economic reasons.
Currently the food produced is enough to feed all global citizens, but not available to all. The earth will always be able to produce enough for all if waste of food, land, water, resources, and labour is reduced and protected cropping and appropriate allocation of land for food is followed. Consideration has to be given first to redesign the economic systems which will then solve the food issues. Even though China had a billion people in the late 1980s it fed itself and it had a high life expectancy. Western styled eating and economics changed that so it is no longer self sufficient for food and free of non-communicable diseases or ill health driven by life style especially food.
This is what the Australians McDougall, Bruce and Crwaford who set up the FAO wanted done, and are still waiting. They knew food, nutrition and financial position are intertwined. There is still time, we can all help. Australia knows how. What we also have researched now and know is that food impacts mental health as well as physical health and without preventative health programs, the food impact is also on those with money.
It is a big problem which does not require big solutions, just commonse and patience.