Towards a Fair and Sustainable Food System for Europe
How is food produced and how does it arrive on our table? What factors enter into play throughout its chain of production, distribution and consumption and what is the social and environmental impact of our current industrial food model? This cycle addresses all these issues, as well as the agroecological alternatives to the present model.
The great business of food is one of the main causes of climate change. Its impact is speeding up loss of biodiversity, soil erosion and water pollution; and it is putting public health and food safety at risk and enlarging the inequality gap.
The goal of this cycle is to facilitate greater knowledge of the food system as a tool for social change. It is vital to understand the different processes involved and to exercise critical thinking, as players of the agro-food system, in order to become aware of the issues and then take action and demand changes to bring about an agroecological model that is socially fairer and more respectful towards nature.
These sessions have a European slant, but also a global dimension, given the global nature of the agro-food business and especially of its impact on the world. The Common Agricultural Policy is to be present in every session of the programme, which also aims at analysing the advances and the setbacks involved in the Policy’s reform in each of its relevant areas.
The cycle will take place on 21 and 28 September and 7, 14 and 21 October, from 17.30 to 19.00 hrs. It will comprise five panel discussions addressing key aspects of the currently dominant agro-food system.
Programme:
- Tuesday 21 September: Protecting the Soil: the Great Challenge of Agriculture.
- Tuesday 28 September: The Challenge of Water.
- Thursday 7 October: The Hidden Cost of Cheap Food.
- Thursday 14 October: Food Sovereignty versus Corporate Control.
- Thursday 21 October: The Transformation Potential of Agroecology.
Speakers in the cycle will include internationally prestigious figures in the field of food, human rights and animal rights, like Vandana Shiva, Pedro Arrojo, Sofía Monsalve and Olga Kikou; researchers and academics in the fields of soil and water, like Pilar Andrés, Ray Archuleta or Concha Fabeiro; Member of the European Parliament and co-president of the European Green Party, Thomas Waitz; Geneviève Savigny, a farmer and a member of the European Economic and Social Committee; representatives of environmental NGOs Andrés Muñoz (Friends of the Earth), Pedro García (ANSE [Association of Naturalists of the Southeast of Spain]) or Celsa Peiteado (WWF); investigative journalist Nazaret Castro (Carro de Combate); and ecological agriculture expert Aina Calafat (SEAE [Spanish Society of Ecological Agriculture and Agroecology]).
Organised by: the Green European Foundation (GEF), with the collaboration of the Fundación Transición Verde [Green Transition Foundation], La Casa Encendida and the Sociedad Española de Agricultura Ecológica y Agroecología [Spanish Society of Ecological Agriculture and Agroecology] (SEAE).
*Spanish-English simultaneous interpreting services will be available in all sessions.
