Edible Empire

This episode is a supplementary full interview with Alison Thomas from Episode 6 of the Edible Empire podcast series. Here, we explore visions for a fairer food system that support producers, ensure diverse food choices, and challenge the intensive nature of current supply chains.
Having heard about the deep history of extraction and exploitation inherent in globalised food supply chains, what does a fair food system look like? How could we ensure sufficient, diverse food choices for all whilst supporting those who produce it? This episode dives into proposed futures that challenge the intensive nature of traditional agrifood systems and the supply chains that deliver it, eventually, to our homes.
We now shift focus toward practical frameworks, hopeful visions, and grassroots models for establishing a more equitable, localised, and sustainable global food system. Here, the discussion moves from macro-level economic theory to community-led action. Turning to localised solutions within the United Kingdom, Shrewsbury Food Hub co-founder Ali Thomas demonstrates the power of volunteer-led redistribution networks that intercept supermarket surplus to foster social solidarity and tackle the systemic absurdity of food waste.
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Resources from this interview:
https://www.shrewsburyfoodhub.org.uk/
To view all the links to the websites and documents, visit the show notes on our website.

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This episode is a supplementary full interview with Dr Million Belay from Episode 6 of the Edible Empire podcast series. Here, we explore visions for a fairer food system that support producers, ensure diverse food choices, and challenge the intensive nature of current supply chains.
Having heard about the deep history of extraction and exploitation inherent in globalised food supply chains, what does a fair food system look like? How could we ensure sufficient, diverse food choices for all whilst supporting those who produce it? This episode dives into proposed futures that challenge the intensive nature of traditional agrifood systems and the supply chains that deliver it, eventually, to our homes.
We now shift focus toward practical frameworks, hopeful visions, and grassroots models for establishing a more equitable, localised, and sustainable global food system. Here, the discussion moves from macro-level economic theory to community-led action. Dr Million Belay, General Coordinator of the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa, explains how reclaiming community control over seeds, land, and traditional knowledge allows populations to resist corporate dependency and build resilient agricultural systems. 
Resources from this interview:
https://ipes-food.org/people/million-belay/
https://afsafrica.org/meet-the-team/
https://www.agroecologyconference.eoai-africa.org/Dr_million.html
https://afsafrica.org/14083/

To view all the links to the websites and documents, visit the show notes on our website.

Please support our work and enable us to deliver more content by buying us a coffee or becoming a member of Athletes for Nature.
Follow us on Instagram and Facebook, subscribe to this podcast, and share this episode with your friends and family.

This episode is a supplementary full interview with Dr Anitra Nelson from Episode 6 of the Edible Empire podcast series. Here, we explore visions for a fairer food system that support producers, ensure diverse food choices, and challenge the intensive nature of current supply chains.
Having heard about the deep history of extraction and exploitation inherent in globalised food supply chains, what does a fair food system look like? How could we ensure sufficient, diverse food choices for all whilst supporting those who produce it? This episode dives into proposed futures that challenge the intensive nature of traditional agrifood systems and the supply chains that deliver it, eventually, to our homes.
We now shift focus toward practical frameworks, hopeful visions, and grassroots models for establishing a more equitable, localised, and sustainable global food system. Here, the discussion moves from macro-level economic theory to community-led action. Degrowth scholar Professor Anitra Nelson details how dismantling profit-driven corporate commodity markets can create needs-based local economies that respect ecological boundaries. 
Resources from this interview:
https://anitranelson.info/food-for-degrowth/ 
https://www.routledge.com/Food-for-Degrowth-Perspectives-and-Practices/Nelson-Edwards/p/book/9780367436469 

To view all the links to the websites and documents, visit the show notes on our website.

Please support our work and enable us to deliver more content by buying us a coffee or becoming a member of Athletes for Nature.
Follow us on Instagram and Facebook, subscribe to this podcast, and share this episode with your friends and family.

This episode is a supplementary full interview with Dr Crystal Bennes from Episode 5 of the Edible Empire podcast series. Here, we explore the social impacts of phosphate extraction from Western Sahara, illegally occupied by Morocco, and its place in the wider machinery of food imperialism.
Phosphate, mined from occupied Western Sahara, makes its way into the farming production systems of a number of major industrialised nations, including dairy farming in New Zealand. This episode traces how global agriculture reshapes distant economies through trade in phosphate fertiliser from the illegally occupied territories in West Africa. Through the story of “white gold”, we uncover how even the purest landscapes are bound into the machinery of food imperialism.
We discuss the environmentally destructive and geopolitically fraught supply chains connecting industrialised agrifood production, like the intensive dairy production in New Zealand, with phosphate mining in the illegally occupied territory of Western Sahara. Researcher and artist Dr Crystal Bennes traces the physical journey of this phosphate rock, revealing how Western agricultural high yields rely heavily on wealth extracted under colonial conditions from the Boo Cra mine, highlighting the profound human and environmental costs borne by displaced Sahrawi populations.

To view all the links to the websites and documents, visit the show notes on our website.

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This episode is a supplementary full interview with Dr Mike Joy and Dr Milena Bojovic from Episode 5 of the Edible Empire podcast series. Here, we explore how New Zealand’s dairy industry links local landscapes to global extraction, ecological harm, and the wider machinery of food imperialism.
New Zealand’s image of clean, green pastures hides one of the world’s most intensive dairy industries. Behind each glass of milk there is a hidden web of global extraction: phosphate mined from occupied Western Sahara, palm kernel imported from deforested Southeast Asia, and polluted rivers flowing through Māori ancestral lands. This episode traces how New Zealand’s dairy boom reshapes both local ecosystems and distant economies, from illegally occupied territories in West Africa to political power in New Zealand. Through the story of “white gold”, we uncover how even the purest landscapes are bound into the machinery of food imperialism.
We discuss the environmentally destructive and geopolitically fraught supply chains connecting intensive dairy production in Aotearoa New Zealand with phosphate mining in the illegally occupied territory of Western Sahara as well as palm kernel from South-East Asia in cattle feed. Freshwater ecologist Dr Mike Joy and Geographer Dr Milena Bojovic detail how New Zealand’s export-driven commodity model creates intense global market pressures for corporate profit and high-yield volume. Mike exposes the catastrophic local consequences of this system, explaining how excessive synthetic nitrogen and fertiliser inputs poison rivers, disrupt aquatic ecosystems, and contaminate drinking water. Milena, meanwhile, unpacks the structural traps that force farmers into continual intensification, which in turn fuels dependence on rare, internationally contested mineral resources. 
Resources from this interview:
https://ojs.victoria.ac.nz/pq/article/view/9629/8507
https://people.wgtn.ac.nz/mike.joy 

To view all the links to the websites and documents, visit the show notes on our website.

Please support our work and enable us to deliver more content by buying us a coffee or becoming a member of Athletes for Nature.
Follow us on Instagram and Facebook, subscribe to this podcast, and share this episode with your friends and family.