Big Picture TV › Video › What are the benefits of supporting local food? (Part One)

What are the benefits of supporting local food? (Part One)

A photo of Helena Norberg-Hodge

Helena Norberg-Hodge

Founder of ISEC

  • Downloads

  • Unfortunately, downloads are not available for this speaker.

In order to view the videos online at Big Picture TV, you need to install the Macromedia Flash Player 8 (or later) and have Javascript enabled in your browser.

Get Flash Player from macromedia

About the video: ‘What are the benefits of supporting local food? (Part One)’

In the first part of this two-part series, Helena Norberg-Hodge talks about the benefits that supporting the local food economy can bring to both consumers and producers. By shortening transport costs and “food miles” consumers can help reduce CO2 emissions and costly packaging. This directly improves the livelihoods of local farmers as they struggle to compete with big agribusiness. Small farmers everywhere, she says, are having to meet increasingly costly regulatory requirements brought about, in many cases, by the polluting practices of their larger competitors. This means spending money they don’t have. She encourages people to support local farmer’s markets to “bring the food economy home!”

Total views: 4,545

Filmed: World Summit on Sustainable Development. Johannesburg, South Africa on 1 September 2002

Credits: Interviewer - Michael O'Callaghan Camera - Michael O'Callaghan Editor - Marcus Morrell

Copyright © 2002 Global Vision Consulting Ltd

About Helena Norberg-Hodge

Founder of the International Society for Ecology and Culture (ISEC) and Co-Founder of the International Forum on Globalization (IFG). A linguist by training and a native of Sweden, Helena has been extremely critical of conventional notions of development. She first visited Ladakh in 1975 and founded the Ladakh Project to provide Ladakhis with the means with which they could make more informed choices about their own future.
In recognition for her work she was given a Right Livelihood Award in 1986, also known as the ‘Alternative Nobel Prize.’
She is the author of the highly acclaimed “Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh” (1991).
She is on the International Commission on the Future of Food and Agriculture.

Other videos with Helena Norberg-Hodge

Helena Norberg-Hodge

What does economic globalization entail?

Helena Norberg-Hodge talks about globalization. She explains how governments across the political spectrum pander to private sector demands, often at the expense of smaller businesses.…

Recorded: 1 September 2002

Helena Norberg-Hodge

What are the benefits of supporting local food? (Part Two)

In the second part of this two-part series, Helena Norberg-Hodge explains why supporting the local food economy needn’t mean we stop buying coffee, tropical fruits and other…

Recorded: 1 September 2002

Helena Norberg-Hodge

Can GM solve the problem of global hunger?

Many Bio-tech companies market their GM seeds using the claim that GM is the answer to world hunger. Here, Norberg-Hodge explains how these profit-driven corporations are in reality…

Recorded: 1 September 2002

Helena Norberg-Hodge

What are the roots of fundamentalism?

Helena Norberg-Hodge looks at the root causes of fundamentalist terrorism and ethnic violence. She sees the problem as being largely one of economics. Greater competition is forcing…

Recorded: 1 September 2002

Related videos

Caroline Lucas

Are there any alternatives to economic globalization?

Caroline Lucas explains how economic growth is largely driven by corporate globalization and how the global trading system has been designed to further the interests of the affluent…

Recorded: 3 December 2004

HRH Prince of Wales

What is the future of food? (part 1)

The Prince of Wales gave this closing speech at the Terra Madre conference in Turin, Italy. The conference, held in October 2004, brought together 5,000 small scale food producers…

Recorded: 23 October 2004

Patrick Holden

What is wrong with intensive farming?

As Director of the U.K.’s largest organic certifier, Patrick Holden talks about the agricultural crisis brought about by fifty years of intensive farming. He describes how…

Recorded: 11 March 2004

Elisabet Sahtouris

Should spirituality and science be unified? (part 2)

In this two-part series Dr. Sahtouris talks about reuniting spirituality with science in order to form a new world view – a world view that shows how humanity is still evolving…

Recorded: 1 September 2003

Bill McKibben

Will localisation define the future?

Cheap fossil fuels have facilitated longer trade routes, thereby making global trade possible. Oil depletion and climate change are now requiring of us to reduce fossil fuel dependence…

Recorded: 15 October 2005

Bill McKibben

What are the benefits of eating locally produced food?

Bill McKibben describes his experience eating seasonal foods grown locally to his home in Vermont. The benefits of eating fresh local produce are both environmental and surprisingly…

Recorded: 15 October 2005

Forgotten password?

or Register