20. Feeding the Future: Food Security, Local Communities and Global Cooperation with Saba Sinai

Nice.

Before we dive into the big questions of how do we feed the world, I have a question about something that we hear in pop culture about the way humans exist or live on the planet.

People often refer to us as parasites.

I'd love to know if, as someone who's actually studied parasites, would you draw any parallels between the way that humans are currently living on Earth? Or do you think that's kind of just a silly kind of reductionist way of thinking about our existence? Yeah, I

think it's very cynical, right? Because...

no matter what, like everything relies on something else for a food source.

I think you can become unsustainable in your practices and you can, you know, you can take more than you need to.

I mean, what a parasite does and arguably what any bad infectious agent does, a bad one, and I don't mean bad as in like causing disease, though that's implied.

I mean like in the sense of it's shooting itself in the foot is that it will kill its host, right? So those diseases that are very fatal aren't as transmissible because they don't keep the host viable long enough to then transfer.

And actually, in many cases, there are, I mean, maybe not so much parasites, but particularly viruses and bacteria that which are symbiotic with their hosts.

And we have gut bacteria, we have skin bacteria, that's good for us even, or at least not harmful, because those have evolved to strike a balance.

And I think parasitism, depending solely on something else in order to live, also doesn't always cause death and mortality in the host, but can, and that is... like if a parasite came along and just wiped out a population, for example, then that parasite would not be able to continue to, especially if it was very, I mean, maybe it's too technical.

But anyway, back to your question.

I really think that it's a very cynical, maybe that's a cynical way to look at humanity because, you know, we have the capacity, I think, to be, really good stewards of the environment.

It doesn't mean that we have to be one with nature in the sense of sacrificing technology writ large, but I think we have the capacity to live more sustainably than we do now.

Um, and recognizing also like we are, we are a product of this earth as well.

Um, and so it would then follow that, like, if we're able to, um, if, if that's sort of our biological origin, then we should be able to, to live sustainably with the world, you know?

I think that's a good reframing because interdependence between species is a core feature of a healthy ecosystem.

So

as long

as we as humans or humanity are doing interdependence and being in relationship in healthy ways, that makes it sustainable.

I like that reframing.

Thank you

for indulging my little question there.

That's