Will the future of food be genome edited?
What will we eat in the future—and who gets to decide? From lab-grown meat to agroecology, the politics of food in Africa are being shaped by tech dreams, corporate agendas, and grassroots resistance.
Food
Feeding fear and prejudice
In South Africa, a spate of food poisoning incidents has ignited another round of xenophobic scaremongering.
Reading List: Joeva Rock
We often hear from Western donors that Africa suffers from food ‘scarcity.’ The real problem is the exploitation of African land, labor, and knowledge.
Banana Republics
Western leftists are arguing among themselves about whether there will be bananas under socialism. In Africa, however, bananas do not necessarily represent the vagaries of capitalism.
The external domination of Africa’s agricultural future
The changing structure of the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) threatens the food security of the Global South.
A generation of seeds
While it is clear that food insecurity threatens the life of millions of Kenyans, lifting the ban on GMOs is not the solution.
Like a bad rain year
The consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for African food security and the need for greater food sovereignty.
An ethnography for fad diets
Two tourists take a package trip to visit the Hadza people in Tanzania and are so jazzed with what they see, they make a podcast about it. What could go wrong?
There was no Green Revolution
The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa was presented as a game-changer to address hunger. The consensus 15 years later: It failed.
While 282 million Africans go to bed hungry every night
More than 500 indigenous and farmer organizations across the continents have raised their voices to expose the UN’s Food Systems Summit as only advocating one food system—so they’re being silenced.
The global and class inequalities of fossil fuel subsidy reform
Climate activists and leftists should tread cautiously when they use the climate argument to support fossil fuel subsidy reform in Africa.
Death by pesticide
How pesticides banned in the European Union continue to be sold in Kenya, and with devastating impact.
The corporatization of food in South Africa
We can only end hunger when people have control over what they eat and how that food is produced.
Neocolonization on a plate, with a soda to go
The risk of obesity increases with socioeconomic status in several African countries, unlike in their European counterparts with comparable income levels.
Food crimes
Why the World Food Program doesn't deserve the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize.
What Chinese people eat
News reports claiming that “wet markets” in Asia are the source of the coronavirus obscure the fact that the consumption of wild animals is common in the West.
The lost heritage of emergency relief
Local traditions of crisis management have largely been shed along the path to “development.” The age of COVID-19 is the time to recover them.
GMOs for Africa?
Rather than addressing food scarcity, genetically modified crops may render African farmers and scientists more, not less, reliant on global markets.
Des OGM pour l’Afrique?
Plutôt que de pallier l’insécurité alimentaire, les cultures génétiquement modifiées risquent de rendre les agriculteurs et les scientifiques africains plus, et non moins, dépendants des marchés mondiaux.
Dear David Chang
A plea for foodie celebrities like Chang, the host of a popular Netflix show, to take African cuisine seriously.