Equity at the Table Speaker Series
August 28, 2018 ¦ Raleigh, NC
“Beginning to End Hunger: Lessons on Food Security, Transformation, and Solidarity from Belo Horizonte, Brazil”
Speaker: M. Jahi Chappell
Tuesday, August 28, 2018, 7:00-8:30pm // Yancy Auditorium at Shaw University, 118 E. South Street // Raleigh, NC 27601
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Join us Tuesday evening, August the 28th for a presentation by M. Jahi Chappell about holistic approaches to food security and innovative social programs in Belo Horizonte, Brazil as well as lessons for transforming food systems in Brazil and beyond.
This presentation will recount the story of the Brazilian city, Belo Horizonte, that became a testing ground for several innovative social policies after the end of the country’s dictatorship. Founded in 1993, Belo’s Secretariat of Food Security has overseen dramatic decreases in diabetes, infant malnutrition, and infant mortality as well as increases in fruit and vegetable consumption. The Secretariat runs over 20 programs that directly impact a third of Belo Horizonte’s 2.5 million citizens. The programs also work with small, local family farmers to allow them to sell directly to consumers in the city in an attempt to improve rural livelihoods, slow rural-urban migration, and support an alternative, sustainable local food chain. How did this holistic approach to food security come to be, and how has it survived and changed since 1993? This presentation will review how the merging of movement and political party activities led to innovative social programs across Brazil. It will also lay out tentative lessons on how food systems can continue to transform for the better, in Belo Horizonte and beyond.
M. Jahi Chappell is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience (CAWR) at Coventry University in the United Kingdom and a Fellow of Food First / the Institute for Food & Development Policy. His research in political agroecology combines social and natural sciences to create a unique understanding of the stakes and opportunities within contemporary food systems. The underlying goal of his work is to support the construction of participatory, socially just, and ecologically sustainable agrifood systems that support all members of society. Chappell has previously held positions at Washington State University, Cornell University, and the nonprofit thinktank IATP (Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy), and he is a member of the governing boards of the AgroEcology Fund and the grassroots development funder Thousand Currents. Chappell has a Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and a B.S.E. in Chemical Engineering, both from the University of Michigan. His first book, Beginning to End Hunger: Food and the Environment in Belo Horizonte, Brazil and Beyond, was published by the University of California Press in 2018.
Learn more through his book website or institutional website.
About Equity at the Table Speaker Series
In early 2018, the Come to the Table program launched the Equity at the Table Speaker Series. The series is designed for people who are working at the intersection of equity and food security and for those with the desire to think more critically about equity in their work and volunteerism. The series will consist of lectures, workshops and events addressing topics relevant to our work. We invite people of faith, farmers, activists and journalists to attend and share their perspectives.