More Profits, More Hunger: Neoliberalism and the Corporate Control of Food Lessons from India and the US
Tuesday, October 13th 7-9pm
BRECHT FORUM (451 West St (between Banks & Bethune Sts, New York, NY)

Description

Often called the “Green Chomsky”, Devinder Sharma will discuss how US-sponsored neoliberal policies have willfully marginalized farming communities, damaging rural livelihoods and aggravating food insecurity in India and the world over. Accompanied by Arun Gupta, reporter and an editor at the Indypendent, Nancy Romer, leading Organizer of the Brooklyn Food Coalition, and other leading US food justice activists, this event will highlight the role that US agribusiness corporations have played, and continue to play, in shaping policies that have exacerbated hunger and poverty, and driven us into a global food crisis.

The event will map the network of powerful corporations, institutions, and interest groups who are driving US policies; and begin a dialogue on how to build strategic alliances between anti-corporate struggles in India and organizations and individuals in the US who are committed to stopping the global expansion of US-led agricultural neoliberalism.

Speakers

Devinder Sharma is an award winning researcher, journalist, thinker and activist. The popular Indian weekly ‘The Week’ in its 2009 Independence Day Special (Aug 16, 2009) listed Devinder Sharma among its “25 most Valuable Indians”. He is the author of Gatt and India – The Politics of Agriculture; GATT to WTO: Seeds of Despair and In the Famine Trap.

Arun Gupta is an editor of the Indypendent and a graduate of the French Culinary Institute. Gupta’s reporting focues on US politics, foreign policy, the media, the economy, energy and ecology.

Nancy Romer is a leading organizer of the Brooklyn Food Coalition. The Coalition is a grassroots organization with groups in 10 Brooklyn neighborhoods and growing. The Coalition works on local projects that will help to transform the food system, seeking to bring healthy, sustainable food with social justice to our communities.

Vinay Gidwani is Professor of Geography at The Graduate Center, CUNY. He studies labor relations, capital flows, and agro-ecological change. He is the author of Capital, Interrupted; Agrarian Devlopment and the Politics of Work in India (Minnesota, 2008). The panel will be followed by a discussion that will be opened by Peter Mann, Co-Director of the Global Movements Program of World Hunger Year (WHY).

This event is organized by the South Asian Solidarity Initiative (SASI) and Association for India’s Development NJ/NY (AID), in alliance with World Hunger Year (WHY) and the Center for Place Culture and Politics- CUNY Graduate Center