Frances Moore Lapp

Frances Moore Lappe and Vandana Shiva

Key Thinkers in International Development and Sustainability World hunger contiues to be a pressing issue in international development and sustainability. While large food and seed corporations seem to be perpetuating the problem and destroying the environment in the process, environmental and agricultural activists are fighting back. Frances Moore Lappe and Vandana Shiva believe that is not a lack of food, but rather ineffective food practices that keeps our world in a perpetual cycle of starvation. These women are persistant in their search for more effective and sustainable practices. This essay will examine the point of view and efforts of Lappe and Shiva, and the place they have made for themselves

She attended Earlham College in Indiana. Shortly after college she began finding her passion and doing the research that would lead to her becoming a key thinker in sustainable development. Lappe broke ground with her first book Diet for a Small Planet in 1971. It is in this book that her point of view began to emerge. Lappe argues that ineffective food policies and human practices have led to world hunger (Shetterly, “Frances Moore Lappe”). She points to the meat industry as wasteful and environmentally harmful. Food scarcity results when grain, rich in nutrients and capable of supporting vast populations, is fed to livestock to produce meat which yields only a fraction of those nutrients (Shetterly). In Diet for a Small Planet Lappe provides an alternate diet option, one that is healthy for our bodies as well as our environment (“Diet for a Small Planet”). This vegetarian diet obtains protien from sources other than meat. Her book serves as an informational piece, as well as a cook book. This book sold over 3 million copies and altered the mindset of individuals world

This is of utmost importance to Shiva and much of her point of view derives directly from this passion. She believes that “from the seed we learn renewal, generosity, multiplicity and diversity” (“Vandana Shiva: ‘Staying Alive’”). Shiva fights desperately against genetically modified seeds and has had public battles with large seed manufactures like Monsanto. When companies genetically modify seeds, they claim the seeds themselves as intellectual property (“Vandana Shiva: ‘Staying Alive’”). Shiva believes that by engineering, patenting, and transforming seeds into costly packets of intellectual property, multinational corporations are attempting to impose “food totalitarianism” on the world (Specter, “Vandana Shiva's Crusade Against Genetically Modified Crops”). Shiva promotes “more diversity in crops, greater care for the soil, and more support for people who work the land every day” (Specter). Advocates for genetically modified seeds claim that they increase productivity, therefore making it possible to feed our growing population. In rebuttle to that claim, Shiva states “I am working for a vision where we won’t have 70% of the world’s population living in cities. But, whatever the numbers, every city should have its own ‘foodshed’. Food should become part of town planning. Not only should cities, according to their size, have surrounding areas that provide food