November 1, 2024 • 36 mins
We are (still) talking about food apartheid. While the United Nations has the goal of a world free from hunger by 2030, the reality is that because of these inequitable food systems, we are far from that goal. From conflict to climate change, there is a lot that is keeping us from living in a hunger-free world.
So let’s get into it on this episode of the Environmental Justice Lab.
Resources:
Food Apartheid - ReGeneration.
Food Apartheid | Why we should change the way we talk about food deserts
Global Food Crisis - World Food Programme
Violence and the Right to Food - The Situation in Palestine
The Question of Palestine: The Right to Food - United Nations (2003)
Connect with our Environmental Justice Lab community:
Instagram: @envjusticelab
YouTube: @envjusticelab
Email: theenvironmentaljusticelab@gmail.com
Don’t forget to subscribe and rate the podcast wherever you listen! Support our work by joining the Supporters Club: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-environmental-justice-lab--5583745/support
So let’s get into it on this episode of the Environmental Justice Lab.
Resources:
Food Apartheid - ReGeneration.
Food Apartheid | Why we should change the way we talk about food deserts
Global Food Crisis - World Food Programme
Violence and the Right to Food - The Situation in Palestine
The Question of Palestine: The Right to Food - United Nations (2003)
Connect with our Environmental Justice Lab community:
Instagram: @envjusticelab
YouTube: @envjusticelab
Email: theenvironmentaljusticelab@gmail.com
Don’t forget to subscribe and rate the podcast wherever you listen! Support our work by joining the Supporters Club: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-environmental-justice-lab--5583745/support
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Environmental Justice Lab. I'm your host, doctor
Leslie Joseph. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm
so glad you're here. This is part three of our
discussion on food apartheid. So if you recall, we introduced
a topic a few weeks ago, I think by now
(00:21):
it's spent about a month, and we talked about what
food apartheide is, what it isn't why we use the
term food apartheid instead of some of these other food
terms that you might know about, things like food and security,
food desert. They don't really get to the heart of
the matter. And so we talked a lot about why
(00:42):
food apartheid was more appropriate for discussing food issues and
food disruptions and problems that you might see when you're
trying to get food to the table. And in the
second episode about food apartid, we spent our time in
the United States, right That's where I'm from, that's where
I live, and I wanted to share with you some
of the issues that we have in the United States
(01:05):
that relate to food apartheid, things like our US Department
of Agriculture and how they deal with their money and
how they discriminate with the support and their policies. And
I talked about prison labor and how US companies, big
corporations exploit prison labor, exploit the people who are incarcerated
for their own personal interests, and they pump out food
(01:29):
that is unhealthy at very low prices because they're using
prison labor to do so. It's really an interesting way
to take advantage of our criminal justice system. And so
we talked a little bit about that, and then supermarket redlining.
So it was a new term for me, but it
makes sense when I drive around looking for a supermarket.
(01:49):
You know the good cities with the nice supermarkets, you
know the ones with the bad supermarkets or with none
at all. And so you can see clearly from how
cities are laid out, how things are planned, that certain
people get access and certain people do not get access
to healthy food through supermarkets, grocery stores, fresh markets, farmers' markets,
(02:10):
all those things. And so we talked a little bit
about that in the second episode, and I promised, and
I'm here for part three because I want to talk
about food apartheid all around the world because it exists
all across the globe. It's not just in the developed country.
(02:31):
It's not just on the western hemisphere, it's not just
in the northern hemisphere. It's all over and so on
this episode, I want to spend some time talking about
food apartheid around the world and specifically why we see it,
because I would argue that the reasons for the food
(02:53):
issues around the world are different than what you might
find in any particular developed country, and so let's talk
about that. Let's spend some time and think through what's
going on with food around the world. So that's what
we're going to do on this episode of the podcast.
Stay tuned. This is the Environmental Justice Lab. Welcome to
(03:38):
the Environmental Justice Lab. I am your host, doctor Joseph.
Thank you so much for listening. We are talking about
food apartheide, and we're talking about food apartheide all around
the world. It's all around the world. There's no reason
to think that there isn't a place on this planet
where this inequity, where there's injustice in the system. There
(04:01):
is injustice and inequities all over the world when it
comes to food. We need to be very clear about that.
We need to think through why that is, and we
need to really be critical of what is upholding these
unjust systems that cause people to not get the food
(04:25):
that they need. We have to talk about that. So,
just to begin a discussion, I want you all to
be aware that the United Nations has seventeen sustainable development goals, right.
They want the world, the whole globe, to develop and
(04:47):
to be sustained in ways that are helpful for the
people and that allow for people's lives to be enhanced
and for them to flourish. And they have goals like
ending poverty and having clean water for everyone, and education
and just governments and all kinds of reforms to help
(05:08):
all nations achieve a level of dignity, human rights and
access to resources to help their families, help their cities,
their villages, their countries flourish. And so it's not surprising
(05:29):
that the second goal they have is a world free
from hunger by twenty thirty. That is the goal to
end hunger, to achieve global food security, to improve nutrition,
to promote sustainable agriculture. They don't want anybody to be
(05:49):
hungry anywhere in the world, and that is their sustainable
development goal as it relates to food across the world.
And surprise, we haven't even come close to meeting that goal.
And you know, I wish I could just say it's
simply a matter of providing the right amount of a
(06:12):
and assistance. I wish we could say it's just a
matter of allowing other aspects of these countries to develop
in ways that will allow for these food systems to
be robust and strong to support the people that live there.
But we can't say that because it's not true. It's
not true at all. There are so many variables and
(06:35):
factors and issues that feed into the reality that food
is simply not available for everyone. And it's not because
of the people that live there. It's not because there's
a lack of resources, not because we need to grow
more or produce more. It's because we have systems in
(06:56):
place and nations with their own agendas that are harming
and disrupting and hurting the people who need the most
help to achieve food security. And so unlike the United States,
(07:17):
where we have these kind of policy decisions that drive
the way food is distributed and how aid is provided
to people who need it, on the global stage, as
you might imagine, there's a lot more people involved, a
lot more countries involved, there's a lot more issues involved,
in different competing interests involved, and so because of that,
(07:44):
it's going to be really difficult to achieve any measure
of global food security to deal with these food apartheid
instances that we see across the world. And so we
need to talk about that because it is something that
without having our eyes open, we might be looking to
(08:07):
the wrong places to get solutions to these issues. So
I have two seas that I believe are the reason
that there is food apartheid around the world. Two seas.
I got one conflict, conflict. The second one is the climate.
(08:31):
The climate. I'm going to say conflict and climate. So
let's start with conflict. How many conflicts are there in
the world. I mean, there's so many. I mean, I
don't know if you're even keeping track. If you watch
the news for a couple of minutes, if you flip
through your favorite social media platform for a few minutes,
(08:51):
you'll see the conflicts. You'll see images from Russia and Ukraine.
You'll see images from Gaza in the West Bank. You'll
see images from Sudan, You'll see images from the Congo.
You'll see images from all these places where just war
is happening at the moment. And what's interesting about conflict
(09:15):
is that when you're in a battle, when you're in
a fight, you don't typically fight fair, you don't typically
follow the rules because you want to win, because you
believe your cause is just, and you will do whatever
it takes to win, whatever the fight is. That's why
just about every single warring party that I just mentioned
(09:40):
has been accused of war crimes, all of them, every
single one. Now I don't believe they're all the same.
I don't believe each of these warring parties are equally criminal.
But everybody's trying to win, and so they're fighting. And
because they're fighting, and because they're warring, a lot of
what happens is the systems and the resources that are
(10:03):
needed to survive are cut off to try to cripple
your opponent, to cripple the group you're trying to fight against.
So farms get destroyed, factories, things that produce food get seized.
You know, ports, imports, exports get cut off because that's
(10:24):
the lifeline for anyone trying to survive in the middle
of a conflict zone. Humanitarian aid gets restricted. How many
stories have you read about humanitarian aid vehicles, aid trucks,
aid workers being killed in a conflict because people do
not want you to get food, people do not want
(10:45):
you to get water, and so all these things. These conflicts,
These conflicts fuel the food crisis around the globe. They
fuel the food apartheid system that exist in the world,
and they fuel the hunger and the famine and the
(11:08):
dispossession of people's land and property which many around the
world use for their food. That's what these wars do.
That's what these conflicts bring about. And the reason it's
important to think about it and talk about it is
because these nations can't wage war on their own. They
(11:31):
don't have the capacity, they don't have the financial standing
to continually fight these battles. Russia gets support from China
and other nations. The warring parties in the Sudan, they're
funded and backed by different large, rich countries. And look,
(11:55):
we don't have to talk about Palestine. We already know.
We've talked about on the podcast many times. Israel is
funded by US, the United States, billions and billions and
billions of dollars to wage war in the occupied territories
you know, Hamas, the fighters that are in different Palestinian territories.
(12:19):
I mean they get funding from I think Iran is
the big one. Other smaller countries are trying to pitch in,
but they can't. It's not the same. And you can
even tell by the death toll and the destruction that
is not the same. It's not the same. And so
(12:41):
all of these conflicts, all of them. There's a conflict
in Haiti right now. There are gangs running rampant all
across the capital, all across the country, trying to take over,
take over the airport, take over all of the civil structures.
There's a new prime minister trying to bring peace with
(13:03):
the Kenyon peacekeeping mission. It's not going so well. Where
are these gangs getting their funding from. They're not selling
cookies at a bake sale. They're getting massive amounts of money,
weapons protection from rich people, primarily in the United States,
(13:28):
to fuel their fight against the Haitian government and against
the people trying to bring peace and order to the country.
That's what's happening. These conflicts. These conflicts fuel this. So
people in handy you are hungry. Where's the food coming from?
(13:48):
They can't get any nobody's selling food the store at
the market, where you're gonna get food into that and
you're not going to get any There's a famine. People
are hungry, starving, children are dying in Gaza. Where's the
food coming from. They've cut off the humanitarian aid. Only
a little bit gets in. There's hundreds and hundreds of
trucks waiting to get in. Israel's restricting them from coming
(14:10):
in to provide food. There's a famine there. The World
Food program says so, all the human rights organizations say so.
It's a big problem. It's a big problem because of
the conflict. That's what happens when you have conflict. Food
gets restricted the systems. Whoever has the power, whoever has
(14:34):
the authority, whoever has the bigger guns, can keep the
rest of you from eating. That's what happens in a
conflict zone. That's one of the many reasons why we
want peace. Peace in the Middle East. We want to
cease fire. We want civil wars in Sudan to cease.
(14:56):
We want strife in the Congo, and we want the
gangs in Haiti to put their weapons down. We want
people to stop fighting because the people suffer. The people
suffer as a result. So whatever gain you're trying to
make is at the cost of thousands, hundreds of thousands
of lives, and food is a big part of that, right,
(15:20):
Food is a big part. I forgot to talk about Yemen.
What about Yemen? I always forget about Yemen. That war's
been going on for I feel like it's a decade.
This war's been going on in Yemen and famine and malnourishment.
Every time I open up an article about Yemen, it's famine.
It's not a coincidence, and it's not hard to understand
(15:45):
why that is. This is what conflict brings. And I
don't know what side of who's war you're on or
who you're supporting and whatever conflict is going on at
the moment, but if you're listening, you have to agree
that dying, malnourished children, pregnant women, people who have pre
(16:11):
existing health conditions, the elderly people in hospitals shouldn't have
to pay the price for whatever objective you're trying to
achieve with your conflict. I don't know what you're trying
to achieve. I don't know what your goal is. But
(16:31):
if it's going to cost thousands of lives and people
are going to be dead in the street. Then you
should go back to the house and think of a
different way to achieve your objective, whatever it is, instead
of this endless cycle of violence. We don't need it,
and we don't want it, and we can't afford to
(16:54):
have it. We just can't. We need the conflicts to stop.
So I mentioned conflicts like ongoing war, but there are
other types of conflicts too. There's political conflicts, there's other
kinds of economic issues, things that will keep places from
having what they need. For instance, let's just be clear
(17:19):
that most food apartheid systems globally exist within the framework
of apartheid in general in those same areas. So I
was reading earlier researching this topic, looking at Me and
Mar in the Rohingas, and everybody agrees there's apartheid there,
(17:45):
that the Rohinga people are without standing in Me and Mar,
that they're denied rights, that they're confined and arbitrarily detained
and arrested, and they face violence and all kinds of
unjust actions are taken against them. Now, the articles from
(18:06):
AMC International, from Human Rights Watch, they didn't talk about
food apartheid. They talked about apartheid. But I can promise
you food is ingrained in that apartheid system, and that
there are tears to the kinds of access that they
have depending on who you are. That's how apartheid works.
That's how it's always functioned, right when there was apartheid
(18:30):
in South Africa, same thing when it came to food,
better higher quality food options for some, lesser low quality
food items for the rest. That's what apartheid means, and
it exists in those spaces across society. It's not just economic,
(18:51):
it's not just political. It's food, it's everything. It's apartheid.
And people agree, the people who research this stuff, the
people who investigate it's apartheid. It's another kind of conflict
that is present in a particular area that harms people.
(19:14):
Let's do another one. Obviously, it's a touchy subject. People
don't want to talk about it. People are afraid of
what could happen if you do. But we just have
to be honest. We have to be honest and talk
about the Palestinian territories and the fact that every credible
(19:38):
human rights organization says that in the occupied territories, a
system of apartheid exists where one group Israeli citizens and
settlers and nationals have certain rights and privileges and have
(19:59):
their ow own justice system, whereas the Palestinian inhabitants of
the occupied territories do not have those. It is the
clearest understanding of apartheid there is. And when it comes
to those territories, food is a big part of it.
(20:21):
Water is a big part of it. So the land
that Palastinis are using for farm and to provide for
their families is often confiscated by the government by settlers
for no reason other than that they're able to do it.
They have the power and the authority and they just
(20:42):
take it. And from what I've been reading, things like
olive trees, things like grazing animals, the types of things
that you would have on a farm, that you would
have in a field that you use to sustain your
family and your businesses. They're subject to seizure. They're just taken.
They're just taken, which is not the case if you're
(21:05):
an Israeli settler that lives in those occupied territories. And
it's not me saying that, it's the United Nations saying that,
it's AMC International saying that is Human Rights Watch saying
that these are the organizations that look at that system
and call it apartheid. There's even discussion about whether or
(21:25):
not the actual state of Israel itself operations apartheid system.
I think the answer is inconclusive, depending who you talk to,
but there's no question about the territories. Nobody's arguing that.
And so when you have that kind of a system
(21:47):
in place, then you see large numbers of children going hungry.
You see families unable to provide for themselves, to get
clean water, to get healthy food, to get whatever is
required to survive. You see the Gaza strip completely annihilated.
(22:08):
You see it, You see it, and once you see it,
you can't unsee it. And I know we're at a
year of the current war in Gaza, and a year
ago the Hamas organization, regime group, whatever you want to
(22:37):
call them, went across the border and committed some of
the most heinous, horrible, brutal, whatever word you can think of,
atrocious acts imaginable. They did that on October seventh, twenty
(22:57):
twenty three music festivals. They took hundreds of hostages, killed
lots of civilians. So much they did on that day,
and there's no person that I know who would say
(23:18):
that that was a justified act. No one, even people
that I know who are Palestinian, would not say that, right.
I mean, I'm a Christian. I hang out with Christians
all the time. We don't condone any kind of violence
on that scale for any reason. There's no reason for that,
there's none. The problem is since that day up until now,
(23:43):
the response that Israel provided to that attack can't be excused.
It can't be. At some point, you're not defending yourself,
You're seeking to eliminate a population of people. You're seeking
(24:05):
to eradicate a group. And so you know, I don't
want to get into all the details because they're awful details. Right, children, hospital, schools, churches,
life itself has been completely eliminated from Gaza over the
(24:35):
last year. The hostages. We want the hostages to go
home to their families. They've been dying from the airstrikes
and the assaults that have been taking place in Gaza.
They won't get out until it cease fire. They won't
(25:00):
they will not get out until there's a ceasefire. And
when it comes to food, which is the point of
this episode, what are they eating in Gaza? What are
they actually eating? What are civilians eating. What are moms
feeding their children in Gaza right now? Animal feed. They're
(25:26):
finding dirt and they're baking it, and they're drinking water
that nobody would even wash their car with. It's so dirty.
There's a famine, their children dying by the thousands from hunger.
That's what's happening. They're a trucks that are sitting outside
(25:50):
of guys are ready to come into Gaza to distribute
the needed a because let's not forget this area has
all since it existed, relied on humanitarian aid is coming
in slowly because it's being restricted by the Israeli military.
(26:11):
It's it just is. There's no reason for that. The
people that lived there didn't do anything to receive this
type of assault. Go after the people who committed the
atrocities on October seventh, twenty twenty three, find them, bring
them to justice for what they did. Don't go in
(26:34):
and kill tens of thousands of civilians. Don't do it.
And so conflict is the first thing that I wanted
to bring to your attention as the main driver for
food apartheid around the world's conflict. The second thing is
(27:00):
the climate. Now here's the thing about the climate. Nobody
wants to acknowledge the reality that what they do in
their home, what their country does to provide electricity and
to provide food and to provide a certain stand of living,
would have any impact on anyone else around the world. Right,
(27:21):
it's just us. We take care of our own. We
want to take make sure our air is clean, our
water is clean. Let's make sure we do. But that's
just ridiculous and silly. Climate change affects everyone all around
the world, and it compromises the people who have the
fewest resources, and it causes the most impact and damage
(27:44):
to those areas, then to the places who are actually
producing the emissions and producing the pollution that's fueling climate change.
That's just a fact. It's an absolute fact. So when
you think about the reality that because the weather is changing,
(28:07):
seasons are changing in ways that are uncharacteristic, you have
more and more hurricanes, more and more floods, more and
more tornadoes, more and more earthquakes, more tsunamis, all these
extreme weather events. Because you have temperatures that continue to rise,
continue to rise, you have a sea level that continues
to rise, continues to rise. What do you get You
(28:28):
get vulnerable places inundated with these impacts, unable to provide
for themselves, for their families, for their communities. That's what
you get. You get communities that are literally underwater. They're
underwater and because of that, and it might not feel
(28:50):
as direct as you would like it to be, but
food apartheid is completely interwoven with the disproportionate impacts that
climate change brings. It's just a fact. It's just a fact.
If I'm able to live in my nice, plush home,
(29:11):
drive my large emitting vehicle that's powered by fossil fuels,
with my home power by fossil fuels, and everything built
around me, with materials and processes that are fueled by
fossil fuels, pumping literally tons and tons of emissions into
(29:32):
the atmosphere, what do you think is gonna happen. I'm fine,
I'll be fine. I can go inside the house, turn
the air conditioning on, and go to the store later.
But a lot of people can't do that. A lot
of other developing countries rely on agriculture, They rely on
(29:58):
their water sources, resources, they rely on the environment to
facilitate the production of what they need to survive. They
need that, and if we disrupt it, if we undermine
it by our activities, by the way that we manage things,
(30:19):
we are in a sense creating that unjust reality for
them by our actions. Let's just be clear about that.
So don't try and make the case that what goes
on in wherever you live is your concern and only
(30:41):
your concern, and what happens in other places, well, they
need to figure out what they're going to do to
provide for their people and for their institutions. Don't do it.
Because the climate crisis, the climate emergency that we're currently witnessing,
(31:03):
it impacts the most vulnerable the most. I'll give you
an easy example. Every fall there's a hurricane, at least
one each year. There's been more and more hurricanes each year,
stronger and stronger hurricanes over and over. We just had
(31:24):
here in America two back to back Category five hurricanes
to come through. Hurricane Helene. Hurricane Milton hit the same
place went through the Caribbean hit US. Now in America,
many of us can evacuate, We can find places to go.
(31:46):
Many people can't. Many people are stuck where they already
don't have resources to get out. They have to ride
the storm out and hope for the best when those
storm passes, and try to figure what they're going to
do with no power, no electricity, no food, no water, nothing. Now,
imagine if you were an island in the Caribbean Ocean.
(32:08):
Imagine if you're a small country off the coast of
some larger nation and a hurricane comes through. But if
you're the Bahamas. I teach a class here at Bendic
College and we had presentations about environmental justice issues, and
someone presented on climate change and the Bahamas, and he
(32:30):
talked about how these hurricanes every year continue to decimate
his town in the Bahamas, and it's climate change doing that.
Climate change is responsible. And so when it comes to food,
when it comes to any kind of food production system,
every year it's getting disrupted and getting torn down by
(32:52):
these events that we in these large, prosperous developed countries
are facilitated by the way we use electricity and energy
and how we produce it. We're creating those systems, those
systems of apartheid. And I know it's hard to hear
for a lot of people because you don't want to
feel like you're implicated in those realities. But you are
(33:14):
We are all of us who have the ability to
make choices about how we use our energy and how
we produce it, even what we eat. We all have
a role to play in dealing with some of these issues.
And so you know, it will be easy on this
episode to pick out a certain place around the world
(33:35):
and say, look there's apartheid there, and look there's food
apartheid there, and look what's happening over there. But the
reality is on the global stage, we're all interconnected, and
if you live in America like I do, you have
the most influence on the global stage. We are what
people always want to call us, the leaders of the
free world, the largest military, the largest economy, the largest everything.
(34:01):
We're also i think, the largest producer of greenhouse gas emissions.
And so we're the ones who need to step up
and recognize that our activities and our actions are a
big driver of what we are seeing around the world
when it comes to food, apartheid, food insecurity, famine, all
(34:23):
of those things. So we got to do something about that.
We have to be aware that we have to acknowledge
and push whoever we can push to do things that
deal with the climate, because if we don't we're going
to be literally disrupting and dismantling the ability of lots
(34:45):
of nations around the world to provide for their citizens.
So we need to do something. That's all I got.
The two seas, the two seas responsible for food apartheid
around the world. From my perspective, climate and conflict. Conflict
and climate, we end those, we might be able to
(35:10):
reach that sustainable goal of a world free from hunger
by twenty thirty. Right, we might be able to live
in a world where there is no hunger for anyone man, woman,
boy or girl, anything, anyone anywhere will have what they
need to eat. That we will have food security. People
(35:31):
will be confident that they'll have their food needs met
in a nutritious and sustainable way. If we can in
the conflicts deal with the climate catastrophe, we can potentially
get there. That's my charge for everyone listening. Let's end
(35:56):
these conflicts, stop supporting them, stop fueling them, stop enabling
them to take place, and let's be serious about the
climate and dealing with the impacts that climate change has
on these vulnerable communities and these vulnerable countries, these developing
(36:19):
nations all around the world. We can do something and
we should do it now. And that's it. Thank you
so much for listening to the Environmental Justice Lab. Where
we are for the people and for the planet. I
will see you next time.
Welcome to the Environmental Justice Lab. I'm your host, doctor
Leslie Joseph. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm
so glad you're here. This is part three of our
discussion on food apartheid. So if you recall, we introduced
a topic a few weeks ago, I think by now
(00:21):
it's spent about a month, and we talked about what
food apartheide is, what it isn't why we use the
term food apartheid instead of some of these other food
terms that you might know about, things like food and security,
food desert. They don't really get to the heart of
the matter. And so we talked a lot about why
(00:42):
food apartheid was more appropriate for discussing food issues and
food disruptions and problems that you might see when you're
trying to get food to the table. And in the
second episode about food apartid, we spent our time in
the United States, right That's where I'm from, that's where
I live, and I wanted to share with you some
of the issues that we have in the United States
(01:05):
that relate to food apartheid, things like our US Department
of Agriculture and how they deal with their money and
how they discriminate with the support and their policies. And
I talked about prison labor and how US companies, big
corporations exploit prison labor, exploit the people who are incarcerated
for their own personal interests, and they pump out food
(01:29):
that is unhealthy at very low prices because they're using
prison labor to do so. It's really an interesting way
to take advantage of our criminal justice system. And so
we talked a little bit about that, and then supermarket redlining.
So it was a new term for me, but it
makes sense when I drive around looking for a supermarket.
(01:49):
You know the good cities with the nice supermarkets, you
know the ones with the bad supermarkets or with none
at all. And so you can see clearly from how
cities are laid out, how things are planned, that certain
people get access and certain people do not get access
to healthy food through supermarkets, grocery stores, fresh markets, farmers' markets,
(02:10):
all those things. And so we talked a little bit
about that in the second episode, and I promised, and
I'm here for part three because I want to talk
about food apartheid all around the world because it exists
all across the globe. It's not just in the developed country.
(02:31):
It's not just on the western hemisphere, it's not just
in the northern hemisphere. It's all over and so on
this episode, I want to spend some time talking about
food apartheid around the world and specifically why we see it,
because I would argue that the reasons for the food
(02:53):
issues around the world are different than what you might
find in any particular developed country, and so let's talk
about that. Let's spend some time and think through what's
going on with food around the world. So that's what
we're going to do on this episode of the podcast.
Stay tuned. This is the Environmental Justice Lab. Welcome to
(03:38):
the Environmental Justice Lab. I am your host, doctor Joseph.
Thank you so much for listening. We are talking about
food apartheide, and we're talking about food apartheide all around
the world. It's all around the world. There's no reason
to think that there isn't a place on this planet
where this inequity, where there's injustice in the system. There
(04:01):
is injustice and inequities all over the world when it
comes to food. We need to be very clear about that.
We need to think through why that is, and we
need to really be critical of what is upholding these
unjust systems that cause people to not get the food
(04:25):
that they need. We have to talk about that. So,
just to begin a discussion, I want you all to
be aware that the United Nations has seventeen sustainable development goals, right.
They want the world, the whole globe, to develop and
(04:47):
to be sustained in ways that are helpful for the
people and that allow for people's lives to be enhanced
and for them to flourish. And they have goals like
ending poverty and having clean water for everyone, and education
and just governments and all kinds of reforms to help
(05:08):
all nations achieve a level of dignity, human rights and
access to resources to help their families, help their cities,
their villages, their countries flourish. And so it's not surprising
(05:29):
that the second goal they have is a world free
from hunger by twenty thirty. That is the goal to
end hunger, to achieve global food security, to improve nutrition,
to promote sustainable agriculture. They don't want anybody to be
(05:49):
hungry anywhere in the world, and that is their sustainable
development goal as it relates to food across the world.
And surprise, we haven't even come close to meeting that goal.
And you know, I wish I could just say it's
simply a matter of providing the right amount of a
(06:12):
and assistance. I wish we could say it's just a
matter of allowing other aspects of these countries to develop
in ways that will allow for these food systems to
be robust and strong to support the people that live there.
But we can't say that because it's not true. It's
not true at all. There are so many variables and
(06:35):
factors and issues that feed into the reality that food
is simply not available for everyone. And it's not because
of the people that live there. It's not because there's
a lack of resources, not because we need to grow
more or produce more. It's because we have systems in
(06:56):
place and nations with their own agendas that are harming
and disrupting and hurting the people who need the most
help to achieve food security. And so unlike the United States,
(07:17):
where we have these kind of policy decisions that drive
the way food is distributed and how aid is provided
to people who need it, on the global stage, as
you might imagine, there's a lot more people involved, a
lot more countries involved, there's a lot more issues involved,
in different competing interests involved, and so because of that,
(07:44):
it's going to be really difficult to achieve any measure
of global food security to deal with these food apartheid
instances that we see across the world. And so we
need to talk about that because it is something that
without having our eyes open, we might be looking to
(08:07):
the wrong places to get solutions to these issues. So
I have two seas that I believe are the reason
that there is food apartheid around the world. Two seas.
I got one conflict, conflict. The second one is the climate.
(08:31):
The climate. I'm going to say conflict and climate. So
let's start with conflict. How many conflicts are there in
the world. I mean, there's so many. I mean, I
don't know if you're even keeping track. If you watch
the news for a couple of minutes, if you flip
through your favorite social media platform for a few minutes,
(08:51):
you'll see the conflicts. You'll see images from Russia and Ukraine.
You'll see images from Gaza in the West Bank. You'll
see images from Sudan, You'll see images from the Congo.
You'll see images from all these places where just war
is happening at the moment. And what's interesting about conflict
(09:15):
is that when you're in a battle, when you're in
a fight, you don't typically fight fair, you don't typically
follow the rules because you want to win, because you
believe your cause is just, and you will do whatever
it takes to win, whatever the fight is. That's why
just about every single warring party that I just mentioned
(09:40):
has been accused of war crimes, all of them, every
single one. Now I don't believe they're all the same.
I don't believe each of these warring parties are equally criminal.
But everybody's trying to win, and so they're fighting. And
because they're fighting, and because they're warring, a lot of
what happens is the systems and the resources that are
(10:03):
needed to survive are cut off to try to cripple
your opponent, to cripple the group you're trying to fight against.
So farms get destroyed, factories, things that produce food get seized.
You know, ports, imports, exports get cut off because that's
(10:24):
the lifeline for anyone trying to survive in the middle
of a conflict zone. Humanitarian aid gets restricted. How many
stories have you read about humanitarian aid vehicles, aid trucks,
aid workers being killed in a conflict because people do
not want you to get food, people do not want
(10:45):
you to get water, and so all these things. These conflicts,
These conflicts fuel the food crisis around the globe. They
fuel the food apartheid system that exist in the world,
and they fuel the hunger and the famine and the
(11:08):
dispossession of people's land and property which many around the
world use for their food. That's what these wars do.
That's what these conflicts bring about. And the reason it's
important to think about it and talk about it is
because these nations can't wage war on their own. They
(11:31):
don't have the capacity, they don't have the financial standing
to continually fight these battles. Russia gets support from China
and other nations. The warring parties in the Sudan, they're
funded and backed by different large, rich countries. And look,
(11:55):
we don't have to talk about Palestine. We already know.
We've talked about on the podcast many times. Israel is
funded by US, the United States, billions and billions and
billions of dollars to wage war in the occupied territories
you know, Hamas, the fighters that are in different Palestinian territories.
(12:19):
I mean they get funding from I think Iran is
the big one. Other smaller countries are trying to pitch in,
but they can't. It's not the same. And you can
even tell by the death toll and the destruction that
is not the same. It's not the same. And so
(12:41):
all of these conflicts, all of them. There's a conflict
in Haiti right now. There are gangs running rampant all
across the capital, all across the country, trying to take over,
take over the airport, take over all of the civil structures.
There's a new prime minister trying to bring peace with
(13:03):
the Kenyon peacekeeping mission. It's not going so well. Where
are these gangs getting their funding from. They're not selling
cookies at a bake sale. They're getting massive amounts of money,
weapons protection from rich people, primarily in the United States,
(13:28):
to fuel their fight against the Haitian government and against
the people trying to bring peace and order to the country.
That's what's happening. These conflicts. These conflicts fuel this. So
people in handy you are hungry. Where's the food coming from?
(13:48):
They can't get any nobody's selling food the store at
the market, where you're gonna get food into that and
you're not going to get any There's a famine. People
are hungry, starving, children are dying in Gaza. Where's the
food coming from. They've cut off the humanitarian aid. Only
a little bit gets in. There's hundreds and hundreds of
trucks waiting to get in. Israel's restricting them from coming
(14:10):
in to provide food. There's a famine there. The World
Food program says so, all the human rights organizations say so.
It's a big problem. It's a big problem because of
the conflict. That's what happens when you have conflict. Food
gets restricted the systems. Whoever has the power, whoever has
(14:34):
the authority, whoever has the bigger guns, can keep the
rest of you from eating. That's what happens in a
conflict zone. That's one of the many reasons why we
want peace. Peace in the Middle East. We want to
cease fire. We want civil wars in Sudan to cease.
(14:56):
We want strife in the Congo, and we want the
gangs in Haiti to put their weapons down. We want
people to stop fighting because the people suffer. The people
suffer as a result. So whatever gain you're trying to
make is at the cost of thousands, hundreds of thousands
of lives, and food is a big part of that, right,
(15:20):
Food is a big part. I forgot to talk about Yemen.
What about Yemen? I always forget about Yemen. That war's
been going on for I feel like it's a decade.
This war's been going on in Yemen and famine and malnourishment.
Every time I open up an article about Yemen, it's famine.
It's not a coincidence, and it's not hard to understand
(15:45):
why that is. This is what conflict brings. And I
don't know what side of who's war you're on or
who you're supporting and whatever conflict is going on at
the moment, but if you're listening, you have to agree
that dying, malnourished children, pregnant women, people who have pre
(16:11):
existing health conditions, the elderly people in hospitals shouldn't have
to pay the price for whatever objective you're trying to
achieve with your conflict. I don't know what you're trying
to achieve. I don't know what your goal is. But
(16:31):
if it's going to cost thousands of lives and people
are going to be dead in the street. Then you
should go back to the house and think of a
different way to achieve your objective, whatever it is, instead
of this endless cycle of violence. We don't need it,
and we don't want it, and we can't afford to
(16:54):
have it. We just can't. We need the conflicts to stop.
So I mentioned conflicts like ongoing war, but there are
other types of conflicts too. There's political conflicts, there's other
kinds of economic issues, things that will keep places from
having what they need. For instance, let's just be clear
(17:19):
that most food apartheid systems globally exist within the framework
of apartheid in general in those same areas. So I
was reading earlier researching this topic, looking at Me and
Mar in the Rohingas, and everybody agrees there's apartheid there,
(17:45):
that the Rohinga people are without standing in Me and Mar,
that they're denied rights, that they're confined and arbitrarily detained
and arrested, and they face violence and all kinds of
unjust actions are taken against them. Now, the articles from
(18:06):
AMC International, from Human Rights Watch, they didn't talk about
food apartheid. They talked about apartheid. But I can promise
you food is ingrained in that apartheid system, and that
there are tears to the kinds of access that they
have depending on who you are. That's how apartheid works.
That's how it's always functioned, right when there was apartheid
(18:30):
in South Africa, same thing when it came to food,
better higher quality food options for some, lesser low quality
food items for the rest. That's what apartheid means, and
it exists in those spaces across society. It's not just economic,
(18:51):
it's not just political. It's food, it's everything. It's apartheid.
And people agree, the people who research this stuff, the
people who investigate it's apartheid. It's another kind of conflict
that is present in a particular area that harms people.
(19:14):
Let's do another one. Obviously, it's a touchy subject. People
don't want to talk about it. People are afraid of
what could happen if you do. But we just have
to be honest. We have to be honest and talk
about the Palestinian territories and the fact that every credible
(19:38):
human rights organization says that in the occupied territories, a
system of apartheid exists where one group Israeli citizens and
settlers and nationals have certain rights and privileges and have
(19:59):
their ow own justice system, whereas the Palestinian inhabitants of
the occupied territories do not have those. It is the
clearest understanding of apartheid there is. And when it comes
to those territories, food is a big part of it.
(20:21):
Water is a big part of it. So the land
that Palastinis are using for farm and to provide for
their families is often confiscated by the government by settlers
for no reason other than that they're able to do it.
They have the power and the authority and they just
(20:42):
take it. And from what I've been reading, things like
olive trees, things like grazing animals, the types of things
that you would have on a farm, that you would
have in a field that you use to sustain your
family and your businesses. They're subject to seizure. They're just taken.
They're just taken, which is not the case if you're
(21:05):
an Israeli settler that lives in those occupied territories. And
it's not me saying that, it's the United Nations saying that,
it's AMC International saying that is Human Rights Watch saying
that these are the organizations that look at that system
and call it apartheid. There's even discussion about whether or
(21:25):
not the actual state of Israel itself operations apartheid system.
I think the answer is inconclusive, depending who you talk to,
but there's no question about the territories. Nobody's arguing that.
And so when you have that kind of a system
(21:47):
in place, then you see large numbers of children going hungry.
You see families unable to provide for themselves, to get
clean water, to get healthy food, to get whatever is
required to survive. You see the Gaza strip completely annihilated.
(22:08):
You see it, You see it, and once you see it,
you can't unsee it. And I know we're at a
year of the current war in Gaza, and a year
ago the Hamas organization, regime group, whatever you want to
(22:37):
call them, went across the border and committed some of
the most heinous, horrible, brutal, whatever word you can think of,
atrocious acts imaginable. They did that on October seventh, twenty
(22:57):
twenty three music festivals. They took hundreds of hostages, killed
lots of civilians. So much they did on that day,
and there's no person that I know who would say
(23:18):
that that was a justified act. No one, even people
that I know who are Palestinian, would not say that, right.
I mean, I'm a Christian. I hang out with Christians
all the time. We don't condone any kind of violence
on that scale for any reason. There's no reason for that,
there's none. The problem is since that day up until now,
(23:43):
the response that Israel provided to that attack can't be excused.
It can't be. At some point, you're not defending yourself,
You're seeking to eliminate a population of people. You're seeking
(24:05):
to eradicate a group. And so you know, I don't
want to get into all the details because they're awful details. Right, children, hospital, schools, churches,
life itself has been completely eliminated from Gaza over the
(24:35):
last year. The hostages. We want the hostages to go
home to their families. They've been dying from the airstrikes
and the assaults that have been taking place in Gaza.
They won't get out until it cease fire. They won't
(25:00):
they will not get out until there's a ceasefire. And
when it comes to food, which is the point of
this episode, what are they eating in Gaza? What are
they actually eating? What are civilians eating. What are moms
feeding their children in Gaza right now? Animal feed. They're
(25:26):
finding dirt and they're baking it, and they're drinking water
that nobody would even wash their car with. It's so dirty.
There's a famine, their children dying by the thousands from hunger.
That's what's happening. They're a trucks that are sitting outside
(25:50):
of guys are ready to come into Gaza to distribute
the needed a because let's not forget this area has
all since it existed, relied on humanitarian aid is coming
in slowly because it's being restricted by the Israeli military.
(26:11):
It's it just is. There's no reason for that. The
people that lived there didn't do anything to receive this
type of assault. Go after the people who committed the
atrocities on October seventh, twenty twenty three, find them, bring
them to justice for what they did. Don't go in
(26:34):
and kill tens of thousands of civilians. Don't do it.
And so conflict is the first thing that I wanted
to bring to your attention as the main driver for
food apartheid around the world's conflict. The second thing is
(27:00):
the climate. Now here's the thing about the climate. Nobody
wants to acknowledge the reality that what they do in
their home, what their country does to provide electricity and
to provide food and to provide a certain stand of living,
would have any impact on anyone else around the world. Right,
(27:21):
it's just us. We take care of our own. We
want to take make sure our air is clean, our
water is clean. Let's make sure we do. But that's
just ridiculous and silly. Climate change affects everyone all around
the world, and it compromises the people who have the
fewest resources, and it causes the most impact and damage
(27:44):
to those areas, then to the places who are actually
producing the emissions and producing the pollution that's fueling climate change.
That's just a fact. It's an absolute fact. So when
you think about the reality that because the weather is changing,
(28:07):
seasons are changing in ways that are uncharacteristic, you have
more and more hurricanes, more and more floods, more and
more tornadoes, more and more earthquakes, more tsunamis, all these
extreme weather events. Because you have temperatures that continue to rise,
continue to rise, you have a sea level that continues
to rise, continues to rise. What do you get You
(28:28):
get vulnerable places inundated with these impacts, unable to provide
for themselves, for their families, for their communities. That's what
you get. You get communities that are literally underwater. They're
underwater and because of that, and it might not feel
(28:50):
as direct as you would like it to be, but
food apartheid is completely interwoven with the disproportionate impacts that
climate change brings. It's just a fact. It's just a fact.
If I'm able to live in my nice, plush home,
(29:11):
drive my large emitting vehicle that's powered by fossil fuels,
with my home power by fossil fuels, and everything built
around me, with materials and processes that are fueled by
fossil fuels, pumping literally tons and tons of emissions into
(29:32):
the atmosphere, what do you think is gonna happen. I'm fine,
I'll be fine. I can go inside the house, turn
the air conditioning on, and go to the store later.
But a lot of people can't do that. A lot
of other developing countries rely on agriculture, They rely on
(29:58):
their water sources, resources, they rely on the environment to
facilitate the production of what they need to survive. They
need that, and if we disrupt it, if we undermine
it by our activities, by the way that we manage things,
(30:19):
we are in a sense creating that unjust reality for
them by our actions. Let's just be clear about that.
So don't try and make the case that what goes
on in wherever you live is your concern and only
(30:41):
your concern, and what happens in other places, well, they
need to figure out what they're going to do to
provide for their people and for their institutions. Don't do it.
Because the climate crisis, the climate emergency that we're currently witnessing,
(31:03):
it impacts the most vulnerable the most. I'll give you
an easy example. Every fall there's a hurricane, at least
one each year. There's been more and more hurricanes each year,
stronger and stronger hurricanes over and over. We just had
(31:24):
here in America two back to back Category five hurricanes
to come through. Hurricane Helene. Hurricane Milton hit the same
place went through the Caribbean hit US. Now in America,
many of us can evacuate, We can find places to go.
(31:46):
Many people can't. Many people are stuck where they already
don't have resources to get out. They have to ride
the storm out and hope for the best when those
storm passes, and try to figure what they're going to
do with no power, no electricity, no food, no water, nothing. Now,
imagine if you were an island in the Caribbean Ocean.
(32:08):
Imagine if you're a small country off the coast of
some larger nation and a hurricane comes through. But if
you're the Bahamas. I teach a class here at Bendic
College and we had presentations about environmental justice issues, and
someone presented on climate change and the Bahamas, and he
(32:30):
talked about how these hurricanes every year continue to decimate
his town in the Bahamas, and it's climate change doing that.
Climate change is responsible. And so when it comes to food,
when it comes to any kind of food production system,
every year it's getting disrupted and getting torn down by
(32:52):
these events that we in these large, prosperous developed countries
are facilitated by the way we use electricity and energy
and how we produce it. We're creating those systems, those
systems of apartheid. And I know it's hard to hear
for a lot of people because you don't want to
feel like you're implicated in those realities. But you are
(33:14):
We are all of us who have the ability to
make choices about how we use our energy and how
we produce it, even what we eat. We all have
a role to play in dealing with some of these issues.
And so you know, it will be easy on this
episode to pick out a certain place around the world
(33:35):
and say, look there's apartheid there, and look there's food
apartheid there, and look what's happening over there. But the
reality is on the global stage, we're all interconnected, and
if you live in America like I do, you have
the most influence on the global stage. We are what
people always want to call us, the leaders of the
free world, the largest military, the largest economy, the largest everything.
(34:01):
We're also i think, the largest producer of greenhouse gas emissions.
And so we're the ones who need to step up
and recognize that our activities and our actions are a
big driver of what we are seeing around the world
when it comes to food, apartheid, food insecurity, famine, all
(34:23):
of those things. So we got to do something about that.
We have to be aware that we have to acknowledge
and push whoever we can push to do things that
deal with the climate, because if we don't we're going
to be literally disrupting and dismantling the ability of lots
(34:45):
of nations around the world to provide for their citizens.
So we need to do something. That's all I got.
The two seas, the two seas responsible for food apartheid
around the world. From my perspective, climate and conflict. Conflict
and climate, we end those, we might be able to
(35:10):
reach that sustainable goal of a world free from hunger
by twenty thirty. Right, we might be able to live
in a world where there is no hunger for anyone man, woman,
boy or girl, anything, anyone anywhere will have what they
need to eat. That we will have food security. People
(35:31):
will be confident that they'll have their food needs met
in a nutritious and sustainable way. If we can in
the conflicts deal with the climate catastrophe, we can potentially
get there. That's my charge for everyone listening. Let's end
(35:56):
these conflicts, stop supporting them, stop fueling them, stop enabling
them to take place, and let's be serious about the
climate and dealing with the impacts that climate change has
on these vulnerable communities and these vulnerable countries, these developing
(36:19):
nations all around the world. We can do something and
we should do it now. And that's it. Thank you
so much for listening to the Environmental Justice Lab. Where
we are for the people and for the planet. I
will see you next time.
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