Students learned about how farms in the Philippines are implementing more sustainable endeavors.
Speaker Bradley Cardozo shared his experience on being an activist in the country during a webinar organized by the Food Science Club on Monday April 22.
Cardozo is a cultural anthropologist and lecturer of Asian American studies and geography at Long Beach State and spent a year in the Philippines as a climate activist.
He began the webinar highlighting the issue of maldistribution of food around the world, arguing that hunger and malnutrition are part of a manufacturing crisis.
“Enough food is produced for all eight billion people in the world, …and yet we are still seeing that hundreds of millions of people are chronically undernourished,” Cardozo said.
Cardozo also spoke about the flaws of the food system and the changes he saw while being an activist in the Philippines.
“Food producers and democracy being at the center of our food systems, food is a right and a public good, not a commodity,” Cardozo said. “It is about bringing more fairness and more equitability inside the food system.”
Many scientists have already shared their predictions about the climate changes for the future and they don’t look good.
According to Cardozo, big companies need space in order to enlarge agricultural production. This deforestation contributes to climate change, increasing flooding, drought and storm occurrences and forms a vicious cycle that starts and ends with lack of food.
However, Cardozo says that countries do not experience climate change the same way. Most of the countries that are affected most heavily by climate crises are not the ones who produce the largest numbers of greenhouse gasses. The United States and Japan are examples of countries he named.
When it comes to the future of the Earth, “…we are not just speaking of the rights of us right now – our own rights to food and access to nutrition – but that future humans and future other species deserve the opportunity to live here,” Cardozo said.
In addition to his beliefs on sustainability, Cardozo shared his experiences in the Philippines and how he was able to help the country’s climate preparations, focusing on switching their energy system to a 100% clean and renewable one.
During his time in the Philippines the activist noticed that because of the wage gap between the rich and poor, there was much inequality in terms of land ownership. Many farms were forced to focus on selling first and consuming second.
Motivated by a desire to fight against this land division issue, he volunteered and worked alongside a farmer-led network of people’s organization called MASIPAG (Magsasaka at Siyentipiko para sa Pag-unlad ng Agrikultura, translated as the Farmer-Scientist Partnership for Agricultural Development).
With the aid of the organization, Cardozo helped to implement sustainable initiatives in the Philippines’ farm lands. Farms started using more organic methods such as composts and green maneuvers and avoided agro-chemicals input. This allowed for many farms to fight for equal land division and control over what they were producing.
Compared to conventional farms, the MASIPAG ones are eating a more diverse, secure and nutritious diet, are able to increase farm diversity and biodiversity and have a better soil fertility and farm management skills, according to Cardozo.
Piper Roth, the treasurer of the Food Science Club, met Cardozo by taking one of his climate justice class and had the idea of inviting him to talk in the webinar to share his knowledge and experience on the topic.
Although Roth admitted to having a more pessimistic image of the future of our planet’s climate, she set a goal of inspiring others to do everything they can to ensure a better future for the climate.
The Food Science Club often organizes accessible and interacting workshops and meetings for people to join, the club does not hold any fees to memberships and welcomes everyone who are willing to participate in the events. Those interested can sign up the weekly email to be notified about their next events on their Instagram page.