Three weeks ago I moved to London, UK to study Food Policy at City University. In the past few months I’ve been asked quite a few times what Food Policy was and why I was so interested in it. Today is World Food Day and I thought it would be a great occasion to write about my motivations for pursuing this field.
Five years ago, in my second year of university, I was introduced to the idea of “globalization” and commodity markets. For one of my assignments I had to study the global implications of a commodity which I used on a daily basis – I chose to look into sugar. This led to a domino effect of revelations about agricultural supply chains, the implications of international relations on trade, nutritional regulations, and the health outcomes of this web of processes which all affect consumer choice. I could not digest the idea that something as simple as our daily sugar intake was influenced by complex power relations, trade agreements, and national regulations (or lack thereof).
So what is food policy? Though I’ve had a thorough lecture on its history and current definition(s), my simple answer is that it’s a bit of everything. As my professor Tim Lang says, “It centres on decisions and actions which affect who eats, what, when, where and how”. While the field of Public Health might remove the pump handle in response to certain public health issues, I’m interested in more “upstream” policy solutions to these issues.
Last weekend I was lucky enough to attend a (quite intimate) three-hour workshop hosted by London Freedom Seed Bank with very special guest Vandana Shiva. She took us through the history and current status of the global fight against GMOs and efforts to preserve biodiversity (see her organization Navdanya’s report The GMO Emperor Has No Clothes), and talked about current threats to global food security. Vandana reminded us that no matter where we are in the world, it all comes down to freedom. Freedom to make autonomous choices about food, freedom from ignorance, and freedom from exploitation.
I'm here for food democracy: a fight to restore the freedom to be a responsible citizen and consumer. Think about it, how much power do you have over your daily food choices?
As Karl Marx would remind us: formal freedom is the most subtle form of oppression ever created.
