Yesterday, several on-campus groups, including WesFRESH and the College of the Environment, brought guest speaker Eric Holt-Gimenéz to speak about his job as the  executive director of Food First and the Institute for Food and Development Policy.  Holt-Giménez, a first-generation American who was raised working on dairy farms in California, spent twenty years working with the farmer-to-farmer agriculture movement in Latin America before returning to the US to pursue a doctorate in political economy.  These two interests-ecological agriculture and the politics of food-are what drives Holt-Giménez and the organization.
According to their website, Food First’s mission is to “analyze the root causes of global hunger, poverty, and ecological degradation and develop solutions in partnership with movements working for social change.”  Many of their initiatives involve programs that have already been set up in cities around the country (the organization is based in California) such as urban gardens and food-justice groups.  Food First provides aid and information to these groups so that they are able to influence and create policies.  As Holt-Giménez emphasized in his talk, it is often not enough to be a good farmer; many times it is necessary to engage in politics to create real change as well.
In his lecture, Holt-Giménez explained that many if not all of the uprisings surrounding the Arab Spring were preceded by food-related riots.  This was true of Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen in 2011, and was true of almost forty other countries in 2008. (There was even a riot in Milwaukee.)  Holt-Giménez’s point is that oftentimes a nation’s political climate can be influenced by its food issues.  One chart he showed to the audience, based on the Food Price Index, projected two more riots: one in July of this year and another in August of the following year.  His organization believes that now, more than ever, real change is needed when it comes to the way food is grown and distributed, both in America and around the world.
Holt-Giménez’s experience as a farmer and a political economist provides him with the unique opportunity to speak to both sides of an issue, as a worker and a policy-maker.  In his speech he criticized the Green Revolution and Big Agriculture, as well as several new programs which are underway, including the Gates’ Foundation’s project Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, which he believes promotes the use of genetically modified organisms and will ultimately be very damaging to the agricultural and ecological systems of the countries in which it is implemented.  Many critics believe that the introduction of GMO seeds as food aid can have profound effects on the food sovereignty of developing nations. Instead, Food First focuses on new innovations, the avoidance of pesticides and fertilizers, and the integration of centuries of farming knowledge developed by communities in Latin America, Asia, and Africa.  The organization has also helped to bring together workers, food activists, farmers, and policy-makers from around the world to advocate for change as part of their Democratizing Development program.