Even when we know we’re in trouble, it is often difficult to find the strength to react. We stand still, with the naive feeling that something will change, that someone will choose the right thing for us to do, tells us which path to take.
The same thing is happening today: we are in the midst of an environmental crisis that has long been foretold, yet we observe its consequences without changing our habits. Immobility, inaction. The opposite of what we should be doing at every level, from individuals to civil society, the private sector and governments.
We need to act. But how? We talked about this with Raj Patel, a London-based economist, academic and author born in 1972, the son of a father originally from Fiji and a mother from Kenya.
From abandoning the concept of food as a commodity to community cooking experiences, to the emergence of businesses that donate their proceeds to those who need them most. Experiences of this kind have sprung up in the slums of Durban, South Africa, in the camps of Rio Grande Do Sul, Brazil, and even on urban farms in Detroit in the United States. The principles that guide these experiences are the fruit of indigenous culture, an ancient science that may prove relevant even in the 21st century. But it is up to us to choose to pursue this vision.
Raj Patel
Raj Patel, who worked at the World Bank and the World Trade Organization and then developed a critical consciousness toward them, will speak at Terra Madre Salone del Gusto at a conference entitled You, Me, Us: Making a Difference Together “Citizens must forget about being consumers. Regeneration is not about shopping: it is often about moving away from consumption and buying into co-creation, giving and repair. Consumerism is essentially an individual activity; regeneration, on the other hand, is always reciprocal, social, and free from commodity relationships.”
Raj Patel: regeneration as an effect of democratic consensus
What does regeneration mean for you?
Regeneration is a radical project based on care and repair. When I talk about care, I am referring to the entire web of life, because everything is interconnected. Undertaking repair, on the other hand, requires reflecting on the damage caused by colonial capitalism, acting accordingly, and making amends to both past and future generations.
How can we implement this regeneration?
The fruits of regeneration will not come from the minds of experts, but a democratic consensus in a context of guaranteed rights and equality. Democracy itself has suffered degradation globally, especially with the rise of the far right. The regeneration of the soil, air, water, and the web of life, requires the simultaneous regeneration of our capacities to engage and constructively confront one another.
How does this regeneration process get started?
Regeneration begins together, in the places where we organize our lives: at work, in schools and churches, in cooperatives, in movements, within society. It in these spaces, and from the processes of prioritizing, theorizing and imagining that emerge there, that regeneration can flourish.
You, Me, Us: Making a difference together – September 24 at 5.30 p.m.
Control of the food system, from seeds to fertilizer and pesticide production, from food processing to sales, is concentrated in the hands of a few multinational corporations. How can we regenerate it through our own choices? Well, the good news is that we can. Citizens have extraordinary power as individuals, and even more so as communities. Through our daily choices we can restore food to its original function: to feed people in a healthy way, changing a toxic system designed solely to maximize profits.
Raj Patel will be speaking at this conference.
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The degradation of democracy is due to inequality
How can economic and political actors promote regeneration?
The degradation of democracy is partly due to the extreme increase in inequality and the tolerance shown toward unchecked corporate power. Corporate leaders cannot take part in a process that addresses a problem they themselves have created. Multi-stakeholderism is a dilatory tactic that has prevented society from addressing the climate crisis, and it is time to abandon it.
Regeneration is a radical project based on care and repair. When I talk about care, I am referring to the entire web of life, because everything is interconnected. Undertaking repair, on the other hand, requires reflecting on the damage caused by colonial capitalism, acting accordingly, and making amends to both past and future generations.
Raj Patel
What are the effects of the current food systems on democracy, rights, and society, and what guidelines should be using in designing a new era?
I have already mentioned equality as the central principle of the new era. The pandemic revealed the injustices of the current system and exacerbated them. But despite the horrors caused by Covid-19, and I refer in particular to the aftermath in the Global South, new forms of organization have emerged that are based on mechanisms of care and reparation.
From abandoning the concept of food as a commodity to community cooking experiences, to the emergence of businesses that donate their proceeds to those who need them most. Experiences of this kind have sprung up in the slums of Durban, South Africa, in the camps of Rio Grande Do Sul, Brazil, and even on urban farms in Detroit in the United States.
Each of these places is characterized by a clear understanding of the problems that capitalism generates and proposes a vision of equality – among races, castes, genders – that points to a new kind of future. The principles that guide these experiences are the fruit of indigenous culture, an ancient science that may prove relevant even in the 21st century. But it is up to us to choose to pursue this vision.
