🌎 The Economics of Eating | Local Futures (Economics of Happiness)
In this powerful 18 min-documentary, Helena Norberg-Hodge uncovers the hidden global market that lies behind the food we consume.
It’s a system that drives biodiversity loss, accelerates climate change, harms our health, threatens livelihoods, and weakens local communities. The film challenges the assumption that large-scale farms and long supply chains are the best way to feed the world. Instead, it reveals countless inspiring alternatives that are localising the food economy by rebuilding diverse, community-centred food systems.
The Economics of Eating asks why food grown thousands of miles away generally costs less than food produced nearby. The film explores how public policies, subsidies, infrastructure, and regulations have shaped a system where industrial, global food is artificially cheap. Meanwhile, farmers who nurture soil health, protect biodiversity, prioritise animal welfare, and support their communities are pushed to the margins, unable to compete fairly within a system that favours the big and the global.
Despite these challenges, many communities worldwide are actively creating sustainable local food economies that foster healthier ecosystems, meaningful livelihoods, and stronger, more resilient communities. There are countless initiatives that demonstrate that it’s possible for us to increase productivity, and agricultural as well as wild biodiversity, while shrinking our human footprint.
The film suggests that we can all do our bit to support or join local food initiatives in our area. It also poses a crucial question: what if economic rules were changed so that local, fresh, and healthy food was not the expensive choice but the natural and affordable one? Ultimately, the film argues that shifting taxes, subsidies, and policies away from the industrialised global market toward ecological, local food systems could transform the whole world – healing both people and planet.
Credits: A film by Jake Marquez and Maren Morgan with Helena Norberg-Hodge and Local Futures Find all our films here: https://www.localfutures.org/films/
More about our work: https://www.localfutures.org
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