Who Really Feeds the World? The Failures of Agribusiness and the Promise of Agroecology

by Vandana Shiva

Debunking the notion that our current food crisis must be addressed through industrial agriculture and genetic modification, author and activist Vandana Shiva argues that those forces are in fact the ones responsible for the hunger problem in the first place. Who Really Feeds the World? is a powerful manifesto calling for agricultural justice and genuine sustainability, drawing upon Shiva’s thirty years of research and accomplishments in the field. Instead of relying on genetic modification and large-scale monocropping to solve the world’s food crisis, she proposes that we look to agroecology—the knowledge of the interconnectedness that creates food—as a truly life-giving alternative to the industrial paradigm. Shiva succinctly and eloquently lays out the networks of people and processes that feed the world, exploring issues of diversity, the needs of small famers, the importance of seed saving, the movement toward localization, and the role of women in producing the world's food.

Genres: Nonfiction, Food, Agriculture, Environment, Ecology, Politics, Science

192 pages, Paperback

First published April 29, 2015

About the author

A major figurehead of the alter-globalization movement as well as a major role player in global Ecofeminism, Dr. Vandana Shiva is recipient to several awards for her services in human rights, ecology and conservation. Receiving her Ph.D in physics at the University of Western Ontario in 1978, Dr. Vandana Shivas attentions were quickly drawn towards ecological concerns.

Reviews

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

Considering how much I agree with Vandana Shiva, it's really amazing that I didn't love this book. The writing focuses mainly on general ideas, the way you'd expect a book to be written for an audience that's new to these things, yet her tone is more for an audience that already agrees with her. If you don't already have a good understanding of these ideas then you probably won't have the patience to listen to her, and if you do have a good understanding already then you're not going to learn much from this. So what's the point? It's also extremely repetitive. Looking at the table of contents you'd think that the book would be well organized but when you read it she basically summarizes the main topics from every chapter within each chapter, so you're essentially just rereading the same short essay 10 times. Each essay is okay on its own (although some of the feminist ideas in the chapter on women farmers are kind of pushing it in my opinion) but even within each one there's still a lot of repetition. It gets really irritating.

Even though I agree with most of her general ideas, I'm not so sure that I agree with some of the statistics she uses. It just feels very cherry-picked and exaggerated. Some of the numbers don't even seem to match up from page to page, or they'll contradict previous arguments. A lot of my problems with this book also come from her trying to compete with industrial farming to see which approach can maximize the number of human beings on the planet. Shouldn't the idea of population growth be part of what's being challenged here? I do agree that sustainable, organic, small-scale, biodiverse farms and localized economies can support a lot more people than the mainstream thinks it can, and long-term it'll certainly support more generations of human beings than industrial farming, but I think it's a mistake for environmentalists to allow themselves to be sucked into arguments like these, even if it is potentially true. The main reason to support agroecology isn't because it's the best way to feed more people in the short-term. It's because it can be done sustainably. Even if it only fed half as many human beings at any given time it would still be the answer. And even if it could feed twice as many people, when you take all other environmental and social considerations into account, we still shouldn't try to grow the population. I'm not saying that I think Vandana Shiva doesn't agree with that, just that there's a lot of pages in here spent trying to show how much more productive sustainable farming is than industrial farming, and I don't think we should even have to prove that. It's like when you see Republicans tricking Democrats into arguing over which party drills the most oil. "Oh wait, aren't we supposed to be against that? Oops." Not the best approach.

[Sabrina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I understand where people are coming from when they say this book is repetitive, but another interpretation could be repetition for a purpose. It’s a lot of wide ranging concepts to an intensely complex subject in a relatively short book, and the way I saw the repetition of certain key phrases were just that, here’s the key takeaway. If you are reading this book, Vandana leaves you no room to guess what she wants you to remember. While a lot of the concepts in a general sense you may have heard of before, chemicals in our food are killing us and the world, big corporations don’t care, small farms and organic is the way, this book is a spring board into the world of not just knowing about it, but doing something about it.

[Bernard Lavallée · Rating 3 out of 5]

The ideas were great, but I expected much more from this book considering the author. There was so much repetition that I had a hard time finishing it, even though I am highly interested in the subject. I feel as if the book could have been half as long. That being said, there were a lot of amazing insights about the truth behind global food production.

[Tob · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dopo aver letto l'introduzione ero molto incuriosito da questo libro, tuttavia le mie aspettative sono state ampiamente deluse. Ho trovato questo scritto terribilmente banale, fin dal primo capitolo l'autrice si schiera palesemente contro "l'agricoltura industriale" limitandosi a fare un elenco di quanto è "brutta e cattiva". Inoltre ho trovato poco corretto descrivere i chimici come semplice produttori di veleni, che sviluppano nuove sostanze con il solo scopo di lucrare.
E' uno dei pochi libri che non sono riuscito a finire.

[Mehul Dhikonia · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's little to disagree with Vandana Shiva; agricultural monopoly and profit mongering need to be checked, local biodiversity needs to be protected, farmer interests and land replenishment need to be in the forefront along with farm yield. Yet the book seems like long repetitive prose littered with selective facts, which could have been made more comprehensible with analytical insight.

The book which could have been a reference point for agri-policy makers worldwide reads like literature that only manages to uphold confirmation bias.

[delievi · Rating 3 out of 5]

low quality writing, a whole lot of repetition but still a worthy introductory read

[Pierre-Olivier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bonne analyse contextuelle du système alimentaire mondiale. Parfait pour un néophyte des luttes paysannes, de la résistance politique contre l’agro-industrie et de la perspective écofeministe de la subsistance. Quelque peu naïf sur le rôle de l’état et des structures supranationale comme les nations unies ou la fao. Shiva reste une réformiste, sont discours et les solutions proposées sont à l’intérieur des balises du capitalisme et de l’état ce qui fait la faiblesse de sont propos. À lire en complément avec : plaidoyer pour une agriculture paysanne de Roméo Bouchard et notre poison quotidien de Marie-monique Robin.

[Mathieu Mal · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Ecological unraveling is a nonlinear phenomenon, taking place according to an exponential curve of rapid change. Even if one assumes it is linear, by the time industrial agriculture can provide even 40 percent of our food supply, it will have destroyed 100 percent of our ecological life-support base. This is a recipe for extinction, not for feeding the world."

[Cande · Rating 3 out of 5]

food democracy, localisation and creative evolution

un libro que no me ha gustado tanto, pero que me ha ayudado a entender el sistema agroalimentario y a ordenar pensamientos sobre la ecología

[ana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Después de más de dos años en mi mesilla, he perdido la batalla. Ahora el libro está de nuevo en la estantería. Quizá algún día, lo termino.

Lo que más me ha gustado ha sido admirar todo lo que sabe Shiva, evidenciar su compromiso con la agricultura sostenible y con la vida, con las trabajadoras del campo y la salud humana y ambiental.

Lo que menos, la reiteración del argumento y la multitud de fuentes y datos. avanzar en la lectura, en ocasiones, parecía como volver a un capítulo anterior, ya leído.

[Jo March · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, a just-on-this-side-of-good read. I think it's good for readers interested in and beginning to get into the arguments on agroecology, permaculture and the like. It answers some key questions that begin to crop up when you first start to consider that there might be a different way to do things - a more sustainable way.

The book is organized into chapters, each one addressing a different aspect of the answer to the titular question.

Some key ideas:

- The dominant paradigm of the modern day is (Western, patriarchal) science, and it emphasizes the absolute reign of humankind (Man) over nature (Woman).
If this seems rather contrived or exaggerated imagination to you - think of the fact that science as we know it today was created and managed only and solely by men since centuries - only recently have women even been allowed in. Even today, women's diseases and pain and safety has taken a backseat because of implicit bias in all science, everywhere - there are not enough studies or research centering women and by women.

- In modern science, "nature" is often posited as dead matter - today we know this is not true. Nature is actually interconnected - everything to everything else - not dead matter that can be manipulated without consequence. Nature is a web of life, and humans are a part of it.

- The same chemicals that were used against human beings in World War 2 – and the same companies who manufactured them – after the war turned their attention to the agriculture industry. So today, nerve agents and gases used in concentration camps are being used as pesticides and insecticides.

- The idea of “labor” vs “livelihood” – labor as an input that is fed into a linear chain of production, vs livelihood as a creative human endeavor that sustains communities physically as well as socially and emotionally.

- The actual sustainability of agroecology – not just in terms of environment, but production. Agroecology – growing food without, as Vandana puts it, waging war on the very land that feeds us – with only organic inputs and cycling all nutrients – is not only productive, but more productive than industrial agriculture.

I thought this was a rather important point to address, since for me, this was one of the biggest doubts about agroecology that I still harbored.
Vandana points out how the definition of “more” has been slightly fudged and twisted to lead us to believe that only chemicals can produce enough yield:
1. HYVs, or High Yielding Varieties – genetically modified or hybridized seeds, only give the “high yield” with high levels of chemical input.
2. The actual “high yield” emphasizes the “part of a part” of a plant – for example, grain. Who decides what is needed to be high yield? The farmer requires straw of good quality to feed the animals. To the industrialist, however, only the grain matters. So the high yield may mean that the farmer does not get all that they actually require – they may end up using grain as fodder.
3. The same area under agroecology produces more nutrition than industrial agriculture.

All these points are, I think, sufficiently backed up with sources in the footnotes.

-Biopiracy – western corporations trying to patent seeds, neem oil, plants of importance to many other cultures – and claiming it as theirs - and the attempts, many successful, to stop it, were covered in great detail. It seems ridiculous how a thing was just existing, minding its own business for millennia, till now the US cos came along and want to slap a patent on it. Ridiculous.
Thankfully these attempts are somewhat halted – for now. Ongoing fight against these.

-Large corporations monopolizing the entire industry – how they leave farmers, worldwide, in dire straits with no option eventually but to consume products and seeds only from the corporations themselves. And how to take steps against that.

I enjoyed reading the book. But I will readily admit it was highly repetitive and could have been much more concise. Every chapter felt like a rhythmic chanting of the same few lines – dominant scientific paradigm, turn to biodiversity and agroecology, something - plus a few paras of new content.
Overall, though, definitely give the book a read if anything of the subject interests you. Chances are you will put it down with a few more facts or connections you hadn’t made before.
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[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE INDIAN ACTIVIST DISTILLS THREE DECADES OF WORK IN THIS BOOK

Vandana Shiva is an Indian scholar, environmental activist, food sovereignty advocate, and anti-globalization author and activist; she won the Alternative Nobel Peace Prize (the Right Livelihood Award) in 1993. She is also the founder of Navdanya, an Indian-based non-governmental organization which promotes conservation, biodiversity, organic farming, etc.

She wrote in the Introduction to this 2016 book, “We are facing a deep and growing crisis rooted in how we produce, process, and distribute our food. The planet’s well-being, people’s health, and societies’ stability are severely threatened by an industrial globalized agriculture driven by greed and profits… [Food] is today the single biggest health problem in the world: nearly one billion people suffer from hunger and malnutrition, two billion suffer from diseases like obesity and diabetes, and countless others suffer from diseases, including cancer, caused by the poisons in our food…. Food has been transformed into a commodity: something to be speculated on and profiteered from. This leads to rising food prices and creates social instability everywhere. Since 2007 there have been fifty-one food riots in thirty-seven countries… Today, an alternative has become an imperative for our survival, so let us begin asking the question, ‘Who feeds the world?’” (Pg. ix)

She continues, “The dominant paradigm is industrial and mechanized, which has led to the collapse in our food and agricultural systems… At the heart of this paradigm is the Law of Exploitation, which sees the world as a machine and nature as dead matter… But there is another, emerging paradigm, one that … is governed by the Law of Return. Under this law, all living beings give and take in mutuality. This ecological paradigm of agriculture is based on life and its interconnectedness… Adhering to the Law of Return, there is no waste: everything is recycled.. Today, the industrial paradigm is in deep conflict with the ecological paradigm… There are paradigm wars of economics, culture, and knowledge, and they frame the very basis of the food crisis we are facing today.” (Pg. x-xi)

She adds, “The future of food depends on remembering that the web of life is a food web. This book is dedicated to this remembering, because forgetting the ecology of food is a recipe for famine and extinction… [This book] is a distillation of three decades of research and action, and a call for a global shift.” (Pg. xv, xxi)

She observes, “We are made of the same five elements---earth, water, fire, air, and space---that constitute the universe… This ecological truth is forgotten in the dominant knowledge paradigm, because industrial agriculture is based on eco-apartheid. It is based on the false idea that we are separate from and independent of the earth.” (Pg. 22-23)

She observes, “Genetic engineering was offered as an alternative to chemical pesticides. However… New pests emerge and old pests become resistant. The result is an increased use of chemical pesticides. GMOs are failing to control pests and weeds. Instead, they have created superpests and superweeds.” (Pg. 34)

She suggests, “The corporate control of seed that has eroded biodiversity is a result of a paradigm of production based on uniformity and monocultures: what I have called ‘Monocultures of the Mind.’ A Monoculture of the Mind imposes one way of knowing---reductionist and mechanistic---on a world with a diversity and plurality of knowledge systems… these monocultures are blind to the evolutionary potential and intelligence of cells, organisms, ecosystems, and communities.” (Pg. 43) Later, she adds, “The paradigm shift we propose is a shift from monocultures to diversity; from chemical-intensive agriculture to ecologically-intensive agriculture… from capital-intensive production to low- or zero-cost production; from yield per acre to health and nutrition per acre; and from food as a commodity to food as a nourishment and nutrition. This shift addresses the multiple crises related to food systems: falling incomes for farmers, rising costs for consumers, and the increasing levels of pollution in our food.” (Pg. 54)

She points out, “From less than 30 percent of the world’s arable land, small-scale farmers produce 70 percent of the food eaten in the world. Agribusiness, on the other hand, uses 70 percent of the world’s arable land to produce a mere 30 percent of the food. So who REALLY feeds the world? The numbers speak loud and clear.” (Pg. 63)

She notes, “The inability to repay past debts---and therefore to access fresh loans---has been widely accepted as the most significant proximate cause of the farmers’ suicides that are widespread in different areas in India. Since 1995, 284,000 farmers in India have killed themselves due to rising input prices and volatile output prices. As government support for farmers declined… they were driven into the hands of potentially more exploitative, usurious relationships. While institutional credit would have left farmers’ land intact, farmers were instead forced to borrow from moneylenders or, worse, agents of the seed and chemical companies, who would give credit against the farmers’ land. And the day the farmer loses the land is the day the farmer commits suicide.” (Pg. 78)

She observes, “Obesity, contrary to popular views, is not the prerogative of the rich, developed countries. Rather, the globalization of a handful of commodities has meant that poor nutrition is being exported worldwide, in what is often known as the McDonaldization of world food.” (Pg. 103-104)

She states, “It is a WASTE to use food to drive cars. It is a WASTE to use 10 kg of grain to produce 1 kg of meat. A food system that focuses on profits, rather than the health and well-being of people or the planet, will waste not only food, but also people and the planet.” (Pg. 107)

She proposes, “How can we make this transition happen? First, countries should give priority in their budgets to support the poorest consumers so that they have access to sufficient food. Second, countries should give priority to their domestic food production in order to become less dependent on the world market. This means an increased investment in peasant- and farmer-based food production. We DO need more intensive food production, but intensive in the use of labor in the sustainable use of natural resources… Third, internal market prices had to be stabilized t a reasonable level for farmers and consumers… Fourth, in every country an intervention system has to be put in place that can stabilize market prices… Finally, to make this happen, land must be distributed equally to the landless and to peasant families through genuine agrarian reforms and land reforms.” (Pg. 109-110)

She says, “The solution to malnutrition lies in growing nutrition, and growing nutrition means growing biodiversity. It means recognizing the knowledge of biodiversity and nutrition among millions of Indian women who have received it for generations as grandmothers’ knowledge. But there is a creation myth that is blind to … the creativity intelligence, and knowledge of women.” (Pg. 122)

She notes, “Organic is not a ‘thing’; it is not a product. It is a philosophy: a way of thought and a way of living, based on the awareness that everything is connected, and everything is in a relationship with everything else. What we eat affects biodiversity, soil, water, climate, and farmers. What we do to the soil and the seed affects our own bodies and our health.” (Pg. 133)

She concludes, “I have built Navdanya over the last three decades to create a food and agricultural system that is at peace with the Earth. Nonviolent farming that protects species also helps grow more food. And it produces better food, thus ending the war against our bodies that has led to the diseases of obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and cancers.” (Pg. 138)

Shiva’s books are of tremendous interest to those studying the economic, political, and spiritual ramifications of environmental issues.

[Clàudia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is my first Vandana Shiva’s book and first manifesto against monoculture and genetically-modified foods, but many ideas were already familiar to me. I’m really in favour of small-scale farms and locally produced food as well as sustainable agriculture with systems thinking perspective; however, the book got quite repetitive after a while. I also checked one of the references of some statement she made that seed exchange is forbidden within the UK and EU and she referenced a book she written herself, which I don’t think it’s the most correct way of doing so. Forgetting these two details, the content is inspiring and invites population to reflect on current ways of living more related to Nature and human friendly. At the end I got quite convinced that big corporations controlling food chains is a mistake that is paying off its its consequences with hunger, pollution, poverty, distress and wars for resources. Local production, zero kilometer initiative, urban gardening or ecological agriculture are just simple examples of what can we do to relieve the global food problem. I myself feel I want to learn something so fundamental as seeding and harvesting, which I wonder why I was never taught in school before.

[Shaun · Rating 4 out of 5]

Better than any other book I've encountered, with "Who Really Feeds the World?" Vandana Shiva lays out all of the ways that the industrial model of agribusiness continually fails to solve hunger while undermining the very social and ecological foundations that have supported humanity for millennia. In contrast to the Law of Exploitation of the industrial systems, Shiva shows how agroecology and its Law of Return are what truly feed the world and generate its astounding diversity. Key to this: recognizing the knowledge and power of women worldwide, preserving traditional ecological knowledge and practices, building the soil, conserving water, and cooperating to share the abundance. A short book with far-reaching vision.

[André Habet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really glad I read this, but the more it went on, the more I felt as if just a few key phrases were being recycled again and again. Think it could've been half as long and more effective as a result.

[Víctor · Rating 1 out of 5]

Carece de base científica y es bastante alarmista. Mezcla temas (agricultura, economía y feminismo) de forma caótica.

[Anh Nch · Rating 3 out of 5]

8 chapters:
1. Agroecology feeds the world, not a violent knowledge paradigm
2. Living soil feeds the world, not chemical fertilizers
3. Bees and butterflies feed the world, not poisons and pesticides
4. Biodiversity feeds the word, not toxic monocultures
5. Small-scale farmers feed the world, not large-scale industrial farms ⭐️⭐️⭐️
- "Local farming communities still produce 70% of the world's food"
- "In an ecological and small farming system, outputs include the rejuvenation of ecological processes, the diverse outputs of crops, livestock and trees, and the livelihoods created through cocreation and coproduction. In a large-scale industrial farming system, output is reduced to a single community and input is reduced to labor."
- "The devaluing of livelihoods is also a recipe for further intensifying the external inputs of chemicals and fossil fuels, which rather than feeding people and sustaining farming systems, create hunger and generate environmental degradation. This is known as the "myth of more", in which an agricultural system where a farmer spends more for costs of inputs than she or he will earn from selling a monoculture community is presented as "productive", a path to higher incomes and higher production."
6. Seed freedom feeds the world, not seed dictatorship ⭐️⭐️⭐️
- "In the last half century, a reductionist, mechanistic paradigm has laid down the legal and economic framework for privatizing seeds and the knowledge of seeds. This has destroyed diversity, denied farmers's innovation and breeding rights, enclosed the biological and intellectual commons through patents, and created seed monopolies."
- "Globally, more than 1.4 billion people depend on farm-saved seed as their primary seed source. In order for agribusinesses to make profits, they must rupture this self-sustaining, nutritious system of food production. Farmers' varieties are therefore being replaced by 3 new seed varieties: high-yielding varieties, hybrid seeds, and GMOs."
- 2 lawsuits Monsanto vs Vernon Hugh Bowman (2007) and vs Percy Schmeiser (1998) -> consequences: Monsanto and others corporations can own all future generations of seeds, and they can use patents to sue farmers whose crops it has contaminated.
- "Since 1995, 284 000 farmers in India have killed themselves due to rising input prices and volatile output prices."
7. Localization feeds the world, not globalization ⭐️⭐️⭐️
- "As far as "cheap food" goes, globalized food is actually produced at a very high cost, and if it weren't for the fact that agribusinesses collect more than $400 billion in subsidies in rich countries, the entire system would collapse."
- "The subsidized commodities are then in turn sold to poor countries, which are forced to dismantle their border protections so that rich nations can "dump" artificially cheap commodities into the developing world."[...] "This creates the artificial impression that cheaper goods are now available in poorer countries. However, what this actually does is destroy local sources of food production and distribution, including farmers' livelihoods." (Cases: Kenya in 1980 with trade liberalization, Mexico in 2014 with North American Free Trade Agreement NAFTA)
- "One billion people on the planet are hungry (2009). Globalization has led to a shift from "food first" to "export first", in which growing luxury crops for export takes precedence over growing food crops for people."
- "Ironically, while one in every four Indians goes hungry due to the displacement of local food sources and farmers' livelihoods, an urban upper class is suffering from diabetes and obesity, which stem from exactly the same source".
8. Women feed the world, not corporations
9. The way forward

[Aleksandra Jarosz · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Who Really Feeds the World’ is a book written in 2016 by Dr Vandana Shiva, the physicist, ecologist, food rights and anti-GMO activist who is sometimes called ‘the Gandhi of grain’ (BBC Travel 2021). In her book, Shiva provides detailed overview of the modern world’s food supply and identifies its crisis and contribution to the climate change. The book widely explains how this crisis threatens biodiversity of the planet and its inhabitants who become increasingly hungry and unhealthy, even though industrial agriculture and created by it monocultural crops, promise to produce more food (Shiva 2016). Shiva’s book is a strong, critical, and holistic piece of work that gives the (not necessarily specialist) reader an easy to grasp insight into the problem but also into her three decades long research and involvement into ‘seed-saving’ Navdanya movement.

The main argument and purpose of the book is to show contrast between two paradigms that surround today’s food systems and its organising principles. The first paradigm explains the nature of the corporate agriculture that is ruled by - as Shiva describes - ‘the Law of Exploitation’ and ‘the Law of Domination’ (Shiva 2016, p2) which are exercised by corporate farming that disregards traditional knowledge at cost of ‘militarized’ and ‘violent’ way of thinking towards the Earth (p17), destruction of fertile soil what inevitably leads to the creation of poverty, hunger, climate change and shortage of the clean water (p29) and monoculture farming that produces lacking in nutrients - genetically engineered foods. Shiva argues that industrial farming is counterproductive and highly dangerous for natural biodiversity as it creates the ‘poison cycle’ (p53) of chemicals used to fertilise and kill natural and needed for survival of the ecosystem pests. The book condemns the ‘patriarchal science’ (p125) which ‘shakes nature to her foundations’ (p126), dominates nature and disregards women’s agricultural knowledge that is essential to maintaining a food security.

The second paradigm is by contrast, based on ‘the Law of Return’ – a sustainable system of food production referred to by Shiva as an ‘agroecology’ that maintains a traditional ecological farming where there is no ‘waste; everything is recycled’ (Shiva 2016, p3). Shiva sees it as the solution to the first paradigm’s problem. She shows how agroecology sustains and preserves biodiversity, soil fertility and water by ‘recycling organic matter’ (p33) and not using synthetic fertilisers as fungi, bacteria, and pests already maintain natural balance in the ecosystem. She endorses small-scale farming, especially led by women who ‘return to the Earth’ (p74) what soil has given them in the first place and is able to grow nutritious, healthy, and safe foods.

The strength of the book lies in the fact that Shiva does not simply describe the current status quo of industrial agriculture and its failures in a problem-solving (Cox 1981)manner but is providing a full picture of the issue while answering ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions about the modern food system. She argues that ‘crisis is not an accident; it is built into the system’s very design’ (Shiva 2016, p.1-2) and emphasis that current dominant farming system is driven by profit-maximising practices where ‘the arenas of seed, food, and agriculture’ are transformed ‘into a commodity to be traded for profit’ (p.125). To explain this, Shiva goes back to the very beginnings and foundations of the industrial agriculture and finds that its values and rationalities are built on a ‘Western, mechanistic, reductionist modern science’(p.18).

‘Who Really Feeds the World?’ is an important book and valuable contribution to the critical environmental politics study, as it provides a holistic and multidisciplinary approach to analysis of why contemporary food production is so problematic and why our food system needs to shift towards agroecology. Shiva provides a typical for Marxist ecologists’ critique of capitalism (Hickel 2021) and explains how Western knowledge benefits market economy and allows ‘control over nature’ to extract profit from ‘seeds, chemicals, and fertilizers that constantly needed to be purchased’ (Shiva 2016, p20-22). Shiva also brings attention to how the globalised agriculture follows postcolonial agendas and exploits the Global South where the regime for example ‘enabled high-cost European farmers to benefit at the expense of much more efficient South African producers’ (p101) while the global North’s farming system continues to be a major contribution to climate change and its impact on food prices and its availability. The North deepens the hunger crisis, especially in developing countries like India that ‘is the hunger capital of the world, and as globalisation becomes further entrenched, so does hunger’ (p114). Additionally, Shiva uses an intersectional, post-humanist approach (Haraway 2015) and asks questions ‘about our relationship with the Earth and other species’ (p12) while reinforcing the idea that if people do not want to extinct, people have to start seeing themselves as ‘cocreators and co-producers with Mother Earth’ rather than just dominate ‘inferior’ nature (p3). For Shiva, species like plants, pests, insects, or seeds are our ‘kin’(p.94; 136) and not simply a ‘property’ what makes the book have a more unique and less human-centred viewpoint. What is more, Shiva delivers a feminist critique of male-dominated and violent neoliberal system of food production where male-led system that ‘privileges violence, fragmentation and mechanistic thought’ (p126). She acknowledges women’s importance that often is omitted in the climate change debate and reinforces that ‘the future of food needs to be reclaimed by women (…) only when food is in women’s hands will both food and women be secure’(p136). It is because Shiva explains that women are ‘producing more than half the world’s food and (…) 80% of the food needs’ for households and regions(p124).

What makes the book credible and convincing in its arguments and criticisms is the fact that Shiva is not solely an author but also an active activist and member of the ‘save the seed’ Navdanya movement, what makes her standout as a critical ecological thinker. Shiva used agroecology in practice what was an effective way of making the land of Navdanya’s farm - fertile, diverse in corps and non-food species, productive and ecologically balanced(p.148). Her transitional framework - that she proposes at the end of the book is therefore a genuine and trustworthy recipe for solving the food crisis, because as she states - ‘these transitions are not an utopia(…)and are actually taking place across the world’ (p146).

To sum up, Shiva’s book is a strong, unique, and persuasive analysis of the two paradigms of the food production with a credible and a practical proposal for systematic change. Her critique is a holistic synthesis of insightful approaches like critical ecological, feminist, decolonial, anti-capitalist and intersectional stances that give the reader a comprehensive understanding of the topic.


BBC Travel (2021). Vandana Shiva on why the food we eat matters. [online] www.bbc.com. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20....

Cox, R.W. (1981). Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory. Millennium, [online] 10(2), pp.126–155

Haraway, D. (2015) ‘Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocence, Chthulucene: Making Kin’, Environmental Humanities, 6 (1), 159-165.

Hickel, J. (2021) ‘The Anti-Colonial Politics of Degrowth’ Political Geography 88 (June): 102404. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2021....

Shiva, V. (2016). Who really feeds the world? London: Zed Books.

[Shafiqah Nor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ever so often, I don't think twice about the food on my plate. I am far removed from the efforts, growth and processes that bring the food to my table. Without the need to question the sustainability or ethical questions, this has made me unknowingly complicit to possible exploitation of others, additionally causing harm to my own body.

Law of Exploitation sees the world as a machine and nature as dead matter. This harms people's health and the environment.

Law of Return maintains that all beings give and take mutually. It is based on life and its interconnectedness.

Traditional farming is rooted in paradigm of agroecology, conforming to the Law of Return. Shiva argues in support for this. The existing industrial agriculture is a monoculture monopoly, set up to increase inequity and be unsustainable.

What surprises me is the global seed monopoly, we are growing significantly less diverse crops than less than 100 years ago - which likely has health/nutritional and environmental impacts we are unaware of.

Shiva complements Kate Raworth Donut Economics & Hope Jahren's The Story of More. However, she is anti-globalization and this is where I find myself in conflict with her views. I think there are benefits to having an 'open society'.

She argues that neoliberalization has contributed to the "myth of more" to justify industrial agriculture. While I agree with this claim, I do believe that globalization is necessary for effective exchanges in (traditional) knowledge and practices. The existing global model is guilty of upholding corporate monopoly trying to perpetuate overdependence. This is the root of the issue and what needs to be dismantled, not globalization. Like Raworth, I think we also need to look at the need to have an "enough" to debunk the "myth of more".

My (pragmatic) idealism thinks globalization can be productive and environmentally sustainable. But conditions need to be set to decentralize power locally and respect diversity that Shiva supports. Additionally, openness must be limited when the principle of harm (against human and ecologically) is violated. With the current momentum on climate change, it is possible.

[Philippa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes! Vandana Shiva clearly articulates what's wrong with the world's food and farming, and how - in broad terms at least - to change it for the better. She is one of the world's most important leaders and thinkers.
Who really DOES feed the world? It is NOT industrial cash-crop monocultures (which only feed 30% of the world) - it is small-scale farmers who provide 70% of the world's food.
So THIS is what we need: organic (or agroecological) farming, based on co-operation and the interconnectedness of all things, where farmers have sovereignty and produce a huge diversity of real, healthy, nourishing food for local communities. Industrial cash-crop monocultures are hugely destructive to soils and ecosystems, and because the profits flow to multinationals, farmers are indebted, suicidal, or displaced. Industrially produced food lacks vitality and nutrients; instead it has harmful additives and residues - it's not food but merely a commodity.
Shiva emphasises that women must play a strong role in this transition to a life-affirming way of producing food, and also emphasises the importance of saving myriad seed varieties as part of strengthening biodiversity and of seed sovereignty, rather than being beholden to corporates who have patented, hybridised and genetically engineered seeds for their own commercial purposes.
Check out Vandana Shiva's work at https://navdanya.org/site/.

[Vitoria Okuyama · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book brings several reflections on how the earth is a living being, as well as all the things that inhabit it. Vandana also talks about how we are all interconnected and how the food web is the web of life. You need the seeds to plant, the healthy soil to grow and the seeds, the knowledge of the farmers, the evolutionary intelligence of the land, the pollinators (bees, etc.), other plants that end up controlling pests and increasing diversity on the land so that we can eat more nutritious and healthy foods. Vandana also comments on how large corporations are destroying the web of food by controlling the inputs and outputs of production, patenting seeds, etc. These large corporations that claim to be doing good for society and increasing productivity, but actually only want profit. The companies that are putting pesticides in everything are the same companies that produced the gases to kill people during the world wars. After having nothing else to do, they started producing pesticides

[Carlota Julião · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading some reviews, decided to give mine…
I learned so much, but I have to consider I didn’t know that much before I started this book. I think it is great for someone starting to get into the subject. I share Vandana Shiva's ideology, did even before reading her. For me it was not just a read, it was a study. I genuinely recommend checking the Notes while reading when you feel like you crave more evidence, or putting pieces together. I ended up making a presentation (for me), and thru that I could really make a map of ideas. I loved it, teached me so much. I did take longer than the date I put here, I just don’t really remember. I read other books meanwhile, because yes, as others said, it is repetitive. So I needed to do that to continue. Super important book for me.
(English isn’t my first language, so sorry for any mistakes.)

[Emilee Mathieu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Who Really Feeds the World is an argument against globalized industrial agriculture and for decentralized, local, small scale regenerative agriculture. Vandana goes over the many facets of how farming, food, and humans have been exploited, degenerated, and extorted for the sake of profits for large conglomerates. Shiva's work in India through her organization Navdanya is inspiring and her perilous fight for seed and food sovereignty encourages me. This book clears away the clouds of years of propaganda and cultural conditioning done by seed, chemical, and food processing companies, lobbyists, and governments; which have disconnected us from where our food actually comes from, and fed us lies and junk food. Small farms feed people, not big corporations.

[Pollyanna Darling · Rating 3 out of 5]

Excellent information for those who know little about the history of industrial agriculture and the destruction and violence it has wreaked on the living systems of our planet. Also a little repetitive. Dr Shiva presents a compelling case for small scale organic farming in every country that hands back power and income to farmers who have been devastated by the so called Green Revolution that brought industrial chemicals and fertilisers to the Global South and has so far driven 284,000 farmers to suicide in India alone. Worth reading.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vandana Shiva is like the queen of agroecology. I agree with some of the other reviewers in that the book was a little repetitive but I enjoyed the examples and economic details she outlines. Everyone should know about the state of the current food system and the damage it is doing. She uses strong language and describes in definitive terms the unsustainable nature of industrial agriculture. If I were a first-time reader on these topics, I would probably go for something a little more palatable and colloquially-written.

[Ryan Cope · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thought-provoking book, quite literally about who REALLY feeds the world. This book feels like an overview type read and doesn’t get too specific but it offers up some good reminders about why concepts like agroecology and food sovereignty are so important. We think industrial ag feeds the world and is the answer to our hunger problems but it just isn’t true. This books makes a strong case for that. For anyone who loves food, particularly small-scale, locally-produced food, this is certainly worth a read.

[Maisie Finley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was hoping to learn more about biodiversity, agroecology, and small-scale farming but the repetitive nature of the writing made it very difficult to concentrate. (I hope never to see the word paradigm again). If I read this broken up, an essay here and there, I think I would have learned more.

Quick thoughts: The history of pesticides was enlightening, save the bees and butterflies, co-create and co-produce my garden with nature.

My favorite essay was the last one. So often people point out problems, but they rarely provide avenues towards change.

[Catherine Njeri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Insightful, but I like less conspiracy-language

This book is insightful in bringing to light the fact that the food we consume is chemical-filled and controlled by few conglomerates. It's also great to see alternative ways we can grow cheap, healthy food.

It may be that I'm used to a particular style of writing from my fictional books, because the style of language used here felt less descriptive with an air of danger ⚡ (I called it 'conspiracy talk). Nonetheless 4/5

[Nathan Currie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel like this book takes a rudimentary and extremist approach on a more nuanced topic whose solution lies in a grey area. There is a lot of chemo-phobia spread throughout this book with an anti-technology rhetoric. Yes, there are potential problems and risks with chemical inputs but it really depends on your system as a whole.
That being said, there are some good points scattered throughout, but a lot of repetitiveness and statements that aren’t properly backed up.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a brutally honest book about the damage that agribusiness has caused to our diet, our communities and the ecosystem. The author makes very strong arguments on why it is absolutely necessary that as societies we return (to the point that it is possible) to growing our own food instead of relying on large multinational corporations.