Cooking and eating are daily activities of human beings. But are we really aware of what we are eating? Do we know where our food comes from and how far it is transported? Are we aware of the implications of our food system in regard to our health, ecology and climate change? Mario Fernández Zarza will discuss the movement toward Food Sovereignty that is gaining momentum worldwide. This alternative to our current system involves major changes in our approach to food and agriculture. It is a movement away from the dominant, corporate-controlled food system to a more collaborative, socially just and ecological food system, where local communities have control and power over how it’s shaped.
Mario Fernández Zarza is a professor at the school of Tourism and Gastronomy at the De La Salle Bajío University. His areas of research are Localized Agri-Food Systems (SIAL), rural sociology, food consumption, culinary skills and gender. He has participated such projects as “Cooking and eating as a political, social, environmental and health act,” sponsored by the Secretariat of Innovation, Science and Higher Education of Guanajuato; and “Ibero-American kitchens at the Center,: Public Policies of the Agri-food Value Chain,” a project financed by the Ibero-American General Secretariat through the Ibercocinas initiative.