Conference 2017: Workshop Presentation and Action Points
Food diversity, life: rooting our Daily Bread in a healthy environment
As described in Laudato Si’ (#129), most people in the world are nourished by the efforts of smaller-scale, usually local, farmers, gardeners, herders and fishers. The minority 30%, mainly in industrialised countries and emerging conurbations in the South, are locked into resource-hungry and unsustainable food chains dominated by corporations. Busting the myth about Big Ag and Biosciences, ‘feeding the world’ is as important as nurturing the reality of food sovereignty and democratic control over localised food systems. The workshop explored underlying causes of the dysfunctional global food system and aimed to highlight some of the myriad diversity of solutions being practised locally at home and abroad, that could provide food for everyone forever, whilst sustaining a healthy world.
Patrick Mulvany: Patrick is an agriculturalist and advocate for resilient, localised food systems. After being in Honduras with CIIR, he worked for many decades with Practical Action -and chaired the UK Food Group- and is now a member of the Food Ethics Council. He has been an advisor to many international NGOs and is an active participant in civil society lobbies on agricultural diversity and food sovereignty in Europe and at the United Nations.