A seminar on nutrition in the globalized world
Which is the largest food company in the world: PepsiCo, Nestlé, Tyson, or Kraft? Approximately how many different apple varieties are there worldwide: 30,000, 54, 150,000, or 2,000? From which country did croissants originally come: Turkey, France, England, or Austria?
– a selection of the questions and answer options from the “Nutrition Quiz”, which the 26 students of the Carl von Ossietzky School in the seminar “The world is eating… – Nutrition and Globalization” (November 30 – December 5, 2015) playfully found their way into the topic.
The human right to food and the „silent hunger“
The introduction to the complex topic continued with a presentation by Mareike Bethge, speaker on the main topic "Full is not enough! The future needs healthy nutrition" at Bread for the World, The central questions of her presentation were: "What constitutes a healthy diet, and what impact do globalization processes have on eating habits worldwide?" The presentation also addressed the right to adequate food as a human right, clarified terms such as "silent hunger," "malnutrition/undernutrition," and "land grabbing," and provided information on the situation in developing and industrialized countries. Using statistics, she illustrated that certain groups are more severely affected by hunger—and thus malnutrition—due to their socioeconomic situation (e.g., women, small-scale farmers, etc.) or their physiological conditions (e.g., infants, children, pregnant and breastfeeding women, etc.). The presentation also highlighted the connections between the power of globally operating food corporations and the situation of small-scale farmers in developing countries, as well as the impact of our dietary habits on life in a globalized world.
„"We were ripped off!"“
In the subsequent role-playing game, "Who Profits from Bananas?", participants had the opportunity to put themselves in the shoes of the various actors involved in banana production and trade. During the debriefing session, the discussion focused primarily on the severely disadvantaged situation of banana pickers, who are economically dependent on the decisions of other decision-makers (plantation owners, import/export companies, and supermarket chains): "We've been ripped off!" was the conclusion of one "plantation worker." The extreme power imbalance between the roles not only caused outrage but also sparked a discussion about their own agency as consumers.
After the joint introduction, from the second day of the seminar the participants worked in three workshop groups (rap, theatre and audio/weblog) and presented their findings and positions on different facets of the topic in the respective medium.
In the "Rap" workshop„ The participants explored the topics of exploitation in the global food market and food waste. They wrote their own texts, rehearsed, and recorded the best parts. In addition, the group produced a own music video, which was presented to the guests on the penultimate day of the seminar in addition to their live performance.
The participants of the Theatre workshop They developed their own play, set in 2030, the year in which the deadline for implementing the United Nations' seventeen "Sustainable Development Goals"—including the eradication of world hunger—expires. Globally, however, there seem to have been no major changes—despite the narrator's portrayal of a "better" world where, for example, fair conditions prevail in the job market. In the fictional state of Aliambra, banana pickers are exploited by the general, who in turn tries to meet the king's quality standards for bananas. In another part of the world, the excessive consumption of junk food and eating disorders resulting from media-driven ideals of thinness are part of everyday life for the female protagonists. "Justice" is what the young actors demand at the end of the play.
The artistic work was complemented by an excursion led by the workshop groups "Rap" and "Theater" on the Dahlem Estate, where they visited the "Culinarium" exhibition and concluded with a conversation with Katharina Olschenka, co-founder of the Delivery services „Ordered locally“, led.
In the Workshop „Audio/Weblog“ The participants primarily focused on the conditions under which food is produced and its origins. They presented their resulting audio contributions in the form of a radio program. „36.1 Nutrition on Berlin FM“ titled. The centerpiece of the program: A report from Markthalle NEUN in Kreuzberg, in which various stallholders, some of whom are also local producers, have their say and present their regional or organic products. The segment also includes a conversation with Florian Kliem, co-founder of the Canteen NINE, enriched. In the interview, the food expert advocated for making the origin of food products and their local and global production conditions visible. This would, on the one hand, promote consumers' appreciation of food and, on the other hand, raise their awareness of the impact of their consumption habits.
In addition to the radio broadcast, the participants of this workshop created their own internet presence entitled „"Nutrition in Berlin"“, which incorporated the results of all working groups.
Photo impressions from the six joint seminar days on Flickr
The seminar was funded by the Federal Agency for Civic Education and the Senate Department for Education, Youth and Science.
