vue - What Does "Feeding the World" have to do with Farming?

Harriet Friedmann is Professor of Geography and Planning, Sociology and the Munk School of Global Studies. Her research interests share a common passion for understanding the history and possible futures of food and agriculture. Markets, investments, technologies, knowledges, policies, politics, rebellions, inequalities, international specialization and trade, diets, cuisines, technologies, farming systems, relations of production (family, gender, race, and waged labour), commodity complexes, international (dis)agreements, and health of humans and ecosystems, are all grist to her mill. Friedmann tries to make sense of all this through the historical perspective of "food regimes," which are periods of roughly 25 years of relative stability in patterns of accumulation, inter-state and class relations, and which give way to equally enduring periods of confusion, conflict, and experimentation until a new regime constellates from some of the experiments. Friedmann's recent work has focused on the regional "foodshed" of southern Ontario, one of many which are emerging across the globe, particularly efforts to link and renew cultures of farming, selling, cooking, storing, sharing, and eating to reflect the diasporic layers of populations in Ontario, from aboriginal to today's immigrants. Friedmann is discovering how to both research and be part of the "Community of Food Practice" working towards justice and sustainability through food system renewal; her provisional role is a "facilitator of reflection." She is a past Chair of the Toronto Food Policy Council and a present member. She is the author of -- Food Regimes: International Political Economy of Food. Tokyo: Kobushi Shobo, 2006 (in Japanese. Translator, Professor Masao Watanabe, with Michiko Kida). About this lecture series Click here for videos from previous lectures: http://www.scienceforpeace.ca/vital-discussions-of-human-security-fall-2012-spring-2013 Co-Sponsored by University College Health Studies Programme, Canadian Pugwash Group, Science for Peace and Voice of Women for Peace.