The number of hungry people in the US, and worldwide, is soaring, as is the number of people suffering diet-related disease. The food system is a source for new pandemics. It's driving climate change and a victim of climate disasters. This talk explains how this is all connected, and the task ahead if we're going to change it.
Raj Patel is an award-winning author, film-maker and academic. He is Research Professor in the Lyndon B Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin. He has testified about the causes of the global food crisis to the US, UK and EU governments and is a member of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems. He has degrees from the University of Oxford, the London School of Economics and Cornell University. He has worked for the World Bank and WTO, and protested against them around the world. In 2016, he was recognized with a James Beard Foundation Leadership Award and he co-taught the Edible Education class at UC Berkeley with Michael Pollan. In addition to scholarly publications in economics, philosophy, politics and public health journals, he regularly writes for The Guardian, and has contributed to the Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Times of India, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Mail on Sunday, and The Observer. His first book was Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System. His second, The Value of Nothing, was a New York Times and international best-seller. He is the co-author with Jason W. Moore of A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things. His acclaimed latest book, co-authored with Rupa Marya, is entitled Inflamed: Deep Medicine and The Anatomy of Injustice. His first film, co-directed with Zak Piper and filmed over the course of a decade in Malawi and the United States, is the award-winning documentary The Ants & The Grasshopper.
Sponsored by: Grayson Kirk Fund, International Studies, Global and Intercultural Studies
