Edible Empire

This episode is a supplementary full interview with Dr Anitra Nelson from Episode 6 of the Edible Empire podcast series. Here, we explore visions for a fairer food system that support producers, ensure diverse food choices, and challenge the intensive nature of current supply chains.

Having heard about the deep history of extraction and exploitation inherent in globalised food supply chains, what does a fair food system look like? How could we ensure sufficient, diverse food choices for all whilst supporting those who produce it? This episode dives into proposed futures that challenge the intensive nature of traditional agrifood systems and the supply chains that deliver it, eventually, to our homes.

We now shift focus toward practical frameworks, hopeful visions, and grassroots models for establishing a more equitable, localised, and sustainable global food system. Here, the discussion moves from macro-level economic theory to community-led action. Degrowth scholar Professor Anitra Nelson details how dismantling profit-driven corporate commodity markets can create needs-based local economies that respect ecological boundaries. 

Resources from this interview:

• https://anitranelson.info/food-for-degrowth/ 
• https://www.routledge.com/Food-for-Degrowth-Perspectives-and-Practices/Nelson-Edwards/p/book/9780367436469 

To view all the links to the websites and documents, visit the show notes on our website.

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This episode is a supplementary full interview with Dr Crystal Bennes from Episode 5 of the Edible Empire podcast series. Here, we explore the social impacts of phosphate extraction from Western Sahara, illegally occupied by Morocco, and its place in the wider machinery of food imperialism.

Phosphate, mined from occupied Western Sahara, makes its way into the farming production systems of a number of major industrialised nations, including dairy farming in New Zealand. This episode traces how global agriculture reshapes distant economies through trade in phosphate fertiliser from the illegally occupied territories in West Africa. Through the story of “white gold”, we uncover how even the purest landscapes are bound into the machinery of food imperialism.

We discuss the environmentally destructive and geopolitically fraught supply chains connecting industrialised agrifood production, like the intensive dairy production in New Zealand, with phosphate mining in the illegally occupied territory of Western Sahara. Researcher and artist Dr Crystal Bennes traces the physical journey of this phosphate rock, revealing how Western agricultural high yields rely heavily on wealth extracted under colonial conditions from the Boo Cra mine, highlighting the profound human and environmental costs borne by displaced Sahrawi populations.

To view all the links to the websites and documents, visit the show notes on our website.

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This episode is a supplementary full interview with Dr Mike Joy and Dr Milena Bojovic from Episode 5 of the Edible Empire podcast series. Here, we explore how New Zealand’s dairy industry links local landscapes to global extraction, ecological harm, and the wider machinery of food imperialism.

New Zealand’s image of clean, green pastures hides one of the world’s most intensive dairy industries. Behind each glass of milk there is a hidden web of global extraction: phosphate mined from occupied Western Sahara, palm kernel imported from deforested Southeast Asia, and polluted rivers flowing through Māori ancestral lands. This episode traces how New Zealand’s dairy boom reshapes both local ecosystems and distant economies, from illegally occupied territories in West Africa to political power in New Zealand. Through the story of “white gold”, we uncover how even the purest landscapes are bound into the machinery of food imperialism.

We discuss the environmentally destructive and geopolitically fraught supply chains connecting intensive dairy production in Aotearoa New Zealand with phosphate mining in the illegally occupied territory of Western Sahara as well as palm kernel from South-East Asia in cattle feed. Freshwater ecologist Dr Mike Joy and Geographer Dr Milena Bojovic detail how New Zealand’s export-driven commodity model creates intense global market pressures for corporate profit and high-yield volume. Mike exposes the catastrophic local consequences of this system, explaining how excessive synthetic nitrogen and fertiliser inputs poison rivers, disrupt aquatic ecosystems, and contaminate drinking water. Milena, meanwhile, unpacks the structural traps that force farmers into continual intensification, which in turn fuels dependence on rare, internationally contested mineral resources. 

Resources from this interview:

• https://ojs.victoria.ac.nz/pq/article/view/9629/8507
• https://people.wgtn.ac.nz/mike.joy 

To view all the links to the websites and documents, visit the show notes on our website.

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This episode is a supplementary full interview with María Alonso Martínez from Episode 4 of the Edible Empire podcast series. Here, we explore the human and environmental costs of the fishmeal and fish oil industry that has decimated fisheries in West Africa in the name of supplying aquaculture feed and cheap, year-round fish.

What connects salmon farming in northern Europe with tomato farming in southern Spain? These two, seemingly distinct food supply chains ensure that our supermarket shelves are stocked with cheap, year-round food. What we don’t see, however, are the hidden links - the overfishing along the coast of West Africa that destroys local communities’ livelihoods and drives migration to Europe; the dangerous journeys by small boat where 1 in 5 people die; the entrapment of migrants arriving in exploitative agricultural labour in Spain’s intensive greenhouses. This interview examines the story of salmon farming - and highlights the hidden costs of this highly commodified food.

Researcher María Alonso Martínez reveals the environmental and social costs of the vast plastic-covered greenhouses in south-east Spain that produce much of Europe’s winter veg. She discusses the exploitation of a vast labour force of migrants who make the perilous journeys from West and North Africa, often dangerous, multi-day trips by small boat. On arrival, many of them work as undocumented migrant labourers, toiling under inhumane conditions within Almería’s vast "Sea of Plastic" to harvest the cheap winter vegetables that stock European supermarket shelves.

To view all the links to the websites and documents, visit the show notes on our website.

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This episode is a supplementary full interview with Dr Aliou Ba from Episode 4 of the Edible Empire podcast series. Here, we explore the human and environmental costs of the fishmeal and fish oil industry that has decimated fisheries in West Africa in the name of supplying aquaculture feed and cheap, year-round fish.

What connects salmon farming in northern Europe with tomato farming in southern Spain? These two, seemingly distinct food supply chains ensure that our supermarket shelves are stocked with cheap, year-round food. What we don’t see, however, are the hidden links - the overfishing along the coast of West Africa that destroys local communities’ livelihoods and drives migration to Europe; the dangerous journeys by small boat where 1 in 5 people die; the entrapment of migrants arriving in exploitative agricultural labour in Spain’s intensive greenhouses. This interview examines the story of salmon farming - and highlights the hidden costs of this highly commodified food.

Dr Aliou Ba of Greenpeace Africa details how this industrial plundering has collapsed local artisanal fisheries and triggered a profound food security crisis in Senegal. This environmental degradation ultimately forces thousands of displaced West Africans to undertake a perilous sea voyage to Spain. 

To view all the links to the websites and documents, visit the show notes on our website.

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This episode is a supplementary full interview with Hazel Healy and Brigitte Wear from Episode 4 of the Edible Empire podcast series. Here, we explore the human and environmental costs of the fishmeal and fish oil industry that has decimated fisheries in West Africa in the name of supplying aquaculture feed and cheap, year-round fish.

What connects salmon farming in northern Europe with tomato farming in southern Spain? These two, seemingly distinct food supply chains ensure that our supermarket shelves are stocked with cheap, year-round food. What we don’t see, however, are the hidden links - the overfishing along the coast of West Africa that destroys local communities’ livelihoods and drives migration to Europe; the dangerous journeys by small boat where 1 in 5 people die; the entrapment of migrants arriving in exploitative agricultural labour in Spain’s intensive greenhouses. This interview examines the story of salmon farming - and highlights the hidden costs of this highly commodified food.

Hazel and Brigitte expose the ecological crises, corporate opacity, and false sustainability narratives surrounding aquaculture and the challenges that face journalists investigating supply chain transparency.

To view all the links to the websites and documents, visit the show notes on our website.

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This episode is a supplementary full interview with Simen Sætre from Episode 4 of the Edible Empire podcast series. Here, we explore the hidden impacts of salmon farming in northern Europe, revealing the human and environmental costs behind cheap, year-round food.

What connects salmon farming in northern Europe with tomato farming in southern Spain? These two, seemingly distinct food supply chains ensure that our supermarket shelves are stocked with cheap, year-round food. What we don’t see, however, are the hidden links - the overfishing along the coast of West Africa that destroys local communities’ livelihoods and drives migration to Europe; the dangerous journeys by small boat where 1 in 5 people die; the entrapment of migrants arriving in exploitative agricultural labour in Spain’s intensive greenhouses. This interview examines the story of salmon farming - and highlights the hidden costs of this highly commodified food.

Simen uncovers the destructive, interconnected global supply chains linking northern European salmon aquaculture to the overexploitation of West African artisanal fisheries. He traces how the booming Norwegian salmon farming industry relies heavily on wild-caught ocean feed extracted from West Africa, exposing the ecological crises, corporate opacity, and false sustainability narratives surrounding salmon aquaculture.

Resources from this interview:

• https://norla.no/en/books/1286-the-new-fish-the-global-history-of-salmon-farming
• https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/735421/the-new-fish-by-simen-saetre-and-kjetil-ostli/

To view all the links to the websites and documents, visit the show notes on our website.

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This episode is a supplementary full interview with Professor Helena Varkkey from Episode 3 of the Edible Empire podcast series. Here, we trace the global impact of the palm oil industry from its indigenous roots to modern supply chains. 

Dr Helena Varkkey then unpacks the political economy of Malaysian production, exposing how entrenched relationships between political elites and conglomerates shield the industry from regulation. Helena critiques the effectiveness of voluntary sustainability certification schemes like the RSPO and debates whether palm oil can ever be truly sustainable at scale.

Resources from this interview:

• https://seapeat.wixsite.com/home
• https://cgsea.org/
• https://umexpert.um.edu.my/helenav

To view all the links to the websites and documents, visit the show notes on our website.

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This episode is a supplementary full interview with Farwiza Farhan from Episode 3 of the Edible Empire podcast series. Here, we trace the global impact of the palm oil industry from its indigenous roots to modern supply chains. 

Farwiza Farhan brings a frontline conservation perspective from Indonesia, documenting how government-incentivised monoculture plantations drive deforestation, threaten endangered species, and violate Indigenous land rights. Farwiza debates whether palm oil can ever be truly sustainable at scale, and highlights the efforts of local communities fighting back against corporate food imperialism.

To view all the links to the websites and documents, visit the show notes on our website.

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This episode is a supplementary full interview with Associate Professor Jonathan Robins from Episode 3 of the Edible Empire podcast series. Here, we trace the global impact of the palm oil industry from its indigenous roots to modern supply chains. 

Dr Jonathan Robins opens by detailing the pre-colonial history of oil palm in West Africa and explaining how European empires weaponised the crop to fuel the Industrial Revolution, establishing structural patterns that mirror today’s agribusiness models. 

Resources from this interview:

• https://www.mtu.edu/social-sciences/department/faculty/robins/
• https://commoditiesofempire.org.uk/about/jonathan-robins/
• https://theconversation.com/profiles/jonathan-e-robins-1227071

To view all the links to the websites and documents, visit the show notes on our website.

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