Weston Roundtable – Feeding the World as if People Mattered: A Diverse, Political Ecology of Agrarian Change

Speaker: Andrew Flachs, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Purdue University

Although farms are living spaces that anchor diverse economies, the challenge of feeding the world is dominated by narrow questions of yield, efficiency, and cost-benefit analysis. Combining streams from world ecology, critical agrarian studies, and diverse economies thinkers, Flachs will discuss anthropological case studies from India, Bosnia, and the U.S. Midwest to ask how small-scale agriculture supports living communities in place: feeding the world as if people mattered. This analysis both helps to re-value the rippling benefits of local farm systems and illuminate the profound damage of overproductive commercial plantations.

The Weston Roundtable is made possible by a generous donation from Roy F. Weston, a highly accomplished UW-Madison alumnus. Designed to promote a robust understanding of sustainability science, engineering, and policy, these interactive lectures are co-sponsored by the Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE), the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and the Office of Sustainability.