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Alternative Radio for February 05, 2007
1:02 PM - 2:00 PM
[Program Website]
Today's Highlight: "The Politics of Food," with Vandana Shiva
Just a few years ago, Globalization was being hailed as the cure all for the world's economic problems. There were cascades of platitudes about "level playing fields" and "a rising tide lifts all boats." Prosperity for all was on the horizon. It hasn't quite worked out
that way. But it's no surprise. The rich North has used so-called free trade agreements to further pauperize the South. The principle mechanism is massive subsidies to corporate agribusinesses who then dump their grains in Third World countries at below market prices. Farmers in India, Pakistan, Egypt, Mexico, and elsewhere can't compete and face ruin. On another front the big multinationals are trying to patent seed stocks forcing farmers to buy new seeds from them. People in the Global South are organizing to defend their rights.
Vandana Shiva is an internationally-renowned voice for sustainable development and social justice. A Renaissance-type woman, she's a physicist, scholar, social activist and feminist. She is Director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy in New Delhi. She's the recipient of the Right Livelihood Award, the alternative Nobel Prize. Author of many books, her latest is "Earth Democracy."
Alternative Radio is a weekly one-hour public affairs program offered free to all public radio stations in the U.S., Canada, Europe, South Africa, Australia, and on short-wave on Radio for Peace International.
Established in 1986, AR is dedicated to the founding principles of public broadcasting, which urge that programming serve as "a forum for controversy and debate," be diverse and "provide a voice for groups that may otherwise be unheard." The project is entirely independent, sustained solely by individuals who buy transcripts and tapes of programs.
Its "headquarters" is situated to correspond with its position in the mainstream mass media: down an alley, behind a house, on top of a garage in Boulder, Colorado. From this rarefied location, AR's programs manage to reach over 125 radio stations and millions of listeners. AR is part of the non-profit Institute for Social and Cultural Change.
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