Whether or not to allow plantations into the fair trade model is not the only debate raging within the specialty coffee industry. Another, and more wide-reaching debate, is whether certification schemes benefit producers, or if they are in fact barriers to trade. While millions of small-scale coffee producers have benefited from certification systems like Fair [...]

Back in January, in response to Fair Trade USA’s (FTUSA) decision to begin certifying plantation-grown coffee, I wrote that fair trade was dead. Some critics vehemently disagreed with my assessment, seeming to take issue with the sweeping declarative statement I made, and accusing me of conflating the concept of “fair trade” with the products distributed [...]

How Do You Grab Land? The recent phenomenon of aggressive land takeovers, also known as land grabs, has resulted in the taking of enormous portions of land throughout Africa. In 2009 alone, nearly 60 million hectares of land was purchased or leased throughout the continent for the production and export of food, cut flowers, and [...]

The flight from Seoul to Jeju Island is only 45 minutes, but in Korea this is as far from mainland Korea you can get geographically and mentally. Jeju is a volcanic island located half way between the Korean mainland and the western tip of Japan. It is an island set apart from the rest of [...]

As Raj Patel illuminated in his 2007 book Stuffed and Starved, the global food system–dominated by large multinational corporations–does not work for most of us. Those of us who live in developed, Westernized nations are eating (on average) more than we should, while those who labor to produce the food we over-consume are starving. Millions [...]

October was National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and since that time, I’ve been thinking a lot about this widespread problem in our society. I noticed, as you likely did, that numerous methods for supporting patients and further research were promoted during the month. October saw a barrage of advertisements and events, both material and virtual, [...]

Finding solutions to hunger is not easy, and as we continue on with our 21 Days for World Hunger series, it’s important to ask ourselves honestly if we’re ready and willing to be leaders in the fight.

Today is Day 18 of 21 Days for World Hunger…and counting…according to the empty pit in my stomach.  Much like the last series, I am trying to eat like (as in as little as) the majority of the nearly one billion people who are living with hunger.  I am reminded that I don’t like being [...]

As hunger is such a widespread problem, I cannot know or address every potential cause, but I can share with you some of the biggest, most widespread causes, those being poverty and high cost of living, a lack of access to good food, and an overall confusion about how to find help.

New York City is the most populous city in the U.S., with roughly 8 million people inhabiting its five boroughs. Of those 8 million people, it’s safe to estimate that 1.3 million have a hard time buying food for themselves. I can think of no better place to start examining our country’s hunger problem than here.

Under the guise of mass production to feed the world’s hungry, Big Agra has artificially and genetically altered staple crops like corn and soybeans. And while this seems to be a noble cause, the introduction of genetically modified organisms or GMOs into our food supply may have far-reaching negative consequences.

With such a high percentage of foods containing GMOs in some way, shape or form, you may be asking yourself how you can possibly avoid what I’ll call the GMO Bad Nasties. And with over 70% of the food in grocery stores today containing some sort of GMO, admittedly this is a tough one. Luckily, there is a way. One of the best ways to avoid GMOs is to go organic.

There have been numerous studies that have indicated that consuming genetically modified foods is risky at best. I will call out a few of them but any Internet search may yield some unpleasantly surprising and numerous results.

So, how do corporations and politics, food production and distribution tie in with world hunger? As previously mentioned, it’s complex. While there are many “experts” who point the finger at overpopulation for the reason that nearly one billion people in the world go hungry, I submit that the root cause lies within inherently flawed production and distribution systems.

Today marks the beginning of my second exploration of world hunger, as part of Conducive Chronicle’s 21 days for Hunger. For these two days I will be focusing on women in hunger, a topic I covered last May in my first souljourn for world hunger. As Kenda mentioned in the Intro to the series yesterday, [...]

After a score of years in print, what is the cultural score on the feminist-vegan message about meat-eating? This is the second in a two part interview with Carol J. Adams, author of The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory, in which Carol talks with Ann Dunnewold, Ph.D., about the progress–and lack thereof–in [...]

This past May I undertook what many people considered an unusual project: I starved myself for seven days. Inspired by the actions of Kenda Swartz Pepper, I did a World Hunger Souljourn of my own; mimicking the diet of the world’s 1.02 billion chronically hungry people while researching and exploring the causes of, and the [...]

The unquestioned vegan bible, The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory, celebrates twenty years in print this year with the release of an updated anniversary edition. At the same time, Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management released research detailing the continued link between meat-eating and gender role stereotypes, i.e., real men still don‘t [...]