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 [...]

In the first article in this series on reducing our reliance on consumerism as a way of life, I provided environmental, social, and economic evidence for why it is important that we start to make changes in our everyday lives. In this, the second in the series, I focus on food production at home as [...]

It seems the more I read about food, the less inclined I am to be waving any sort of banner in anyone’s face about what we should or should not be eating. Why? As hinted at in a previous article, I am coming around to the notion that what we choose to put in our [...]

This is the first of a series of articles that will help us move beyond consumerism and consumption as a world view and lifestyle. The articles will offer suggestions and provide resources that will allow us to take on more responsibility for producing for our own needs, and help conserve our planet as well. By Nicki [...]

This is the first of a series of articles that investigate the roles of agriculture, food security, and social movements in South Korea’s rapid transformation in to an Asian economic and cultural super power. The articles will take a closer look at how this nation transformed itself from one of the poorest countries in the [...]

The most frequently used argument for Fair Trade is that it provides small scale producers with the additional income needed to avoid lives mired in poverty. But poverty in coffee growing communities is a multi-faceted problem that cannot be reduced to a simple question of price mechanisms and improved trade relationships. Despite the rapid growth [...]

Xander Wells, age five, is spreading the word about Fair Trade chocolate. It’s October 31st, 2009, in Oak Park Illinois, and he is part of a group of thousands of people across the United States and Canada participating in Reverse Trick or Treating. With his mother’s help, he is handing out glossy information cards with [...]

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 [...]

For Americans today, ethical consumption choices abound. Look around you in the supermarket and you will find products certified organic, fair trade, sustainable, made from recycled materials, and cruelty and hormone-free, to name but a few. Beyond the grocery store we are surrounded by hybrid and electric vehicles, sustainable wood products, and a multitude of [...]

Ah, coffee. What would we do without you? For centuries, people have worshiped the brew. It has long been such a prominent feature in social life that it has been memorialized in music, poems, literature, and film. For many in the United States, coffee, anyway you brew it, is an important part of a daily [...]

We must retrofit our corporate, globalized food system to produce healthful food for local communities. But where do we start? Last year,  Tuula Rebhahn, food security advocate spent some time in India, and in this country – which is stereotyped by the Western world as starving and impoverished – discovered a traditional food system that might [...]