Stefani Bardin on Hacking the Food System

[Hacking the Food System is an online conversation exploring how technology, information and data can change the food system status quo. Join the conversation below, on Twitter (hashtag #foodtech), or at out anniversary party.]

Stefani Bardin

Commodity Cropism, a multi-channel video installation, uses the trope of stylized commercials to expose veiled information about three of the largest industrial agriculture crops: corn, soy, and sugar. They are also crops highly subsidized by government funding. The project seeks to arm the public with data left out by loosely monitored food production and labeling systems.

Big business is profiting big time on these commodity crops that when eaten (and processed) in abundance are not only bad for our health but  bad for our environment.

Our government is doing a questionable job of regulating the information that goes on food packaging.  According to the Food And Drug Administration’s Website: “The FDA does not pre-approve labels for food products “

This means that companies can use terms like “all natural” and “good for you” without having any nutritional or scientific merit.

These issues (among countless others) speak to the dysfunction of our food system and are marginalized and obscured by politicians, businessmen and lobbyists whose interests are more in the fiscal sphere than in our health and well being.

It’s my hope that more individuals will also take a stand against some of the really ghastly mechanisms of food production and clear the fields of corporate dominance and government malfeasance in order to return our food system back to the people.

Commodity Cropism from Stefani Bardin on Vimeo.

Don’t miss angel investor Joann Wilson, rancher Bill Niman, and Vertical Farm pioneer Dickson Despommier’s responses to the question.

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