The Green Revolution: A double-edged sword

In the third episode of Under the Spell season 2, host Michael Avery and Doctor Tinashe Kapuya peel back the scientific veneer of the Green Revolution to reveal the winners and losers in Africa's food systems.

For decades, the story of modern agriculture has been told as a triumph of science over hunger. We are promised that improved seeds, synthetic fertilisers and global integration are the only path to abundance. But as we look at the reality on the ground, we must ask if this progress is designed for the resilience of the farmer or for the profit of the provider.

In this episode, we explore:

The Myth of Neutral Abundance: Why the promise of higher yields often comes with a hidden cost of dependency and debt for the small scale farmer.

Scale vs Virtue: How the drive for industrial efficiency often ignores the local knowledge and social stability provided by traditional farming systems.

The Shadow of Science: Examining why a model that worked for Asia in the 1960s has produced such uneven and contested outcomes across the African continent.

Who Feeds Africa: A critical look at the tension between big commercial agriculture and the smallholder resilience that actually underpins local food sovereignty.

The Ownership of Systems: Understanding how the tools of "progress" can become instruments of control in the hands of global input providers.

This isn’t a podcast about crop yields. It is a deep dive into the political and human structures that dictate who gets to eat and who holds the power over our most basic necessity.

Join us every week as we go UNDER THE SPELL.

In the second episode of Under the Spell season 2, host Michael Avery and Professor Manoel Bittencourt peel back the layers of global finance to examine the true legacy of the World Bank.

For decades, the World Bank has presented itself as a moral guardian of progress and a champion of poverty reduction. However, as the global South continues to grapple with the weight of "conditional" finance, we must ask if these institutions were designed to foster independence or to secure a specific brand of Western technocracy.

In this episode, we explore:

The Birth of Conditionality: How the 1950s shift from short term stability to long term development changed the relationship between lender and borrower forever.

Technocracy vs Reality: The uncomfortable gap between policies designed in comfortable Washington DC offices and the abject poverty found in remote areas like the Karoo.

The Language of Modernisation: Why the narrative of "growth" often masks a far more complex system of population management and financial control.

The Ghost of the Cold War: Understanding the historical roots of the World Bank as a tool for geopolitical alignment rather than purely economic aid.

Who Really Holds the Power: A look at whether development loans shape thriving economies or simply entrench the dominance of the creditors.

This isn’t a podcast about balance sheets. It is a deep dive into the stories that dictate how the world is governed and who is left behind.

Join us every week as we go UNDER THE SPELL.

Is AGI the new Frontier, or the ultimate grand narrative?

In the premiere episode of Under the Spell season 2, host Michael Avery and author David Buckham dive beneath the surface of the AI frenzy to ask the questions the tech world is too breathless to answer.

At the start of 2026, the global economy is effectively a giant bet on Artificial General Intelligence. But as we race toward a world of "emergent minds" and "machine rights," are we witnessing a genuine scientific breakthrough or a recurring civilizational habit of choosing power over principle?

In this episode, we explore:

This isn’t a tech podcast about model updates; it’s a series for those who still value the uncomfortable discipline of thinking.

Join us every week as we go UNDER THE SPELL.

There are many who would argue that humanity is at the apex of it’s progression. However, when you dig deeper into those narratives, as David Buckham did while writing The Spell, you start to realise there are several flaws to that logic. Find out more at thespell.co.za

Professor Gumede shares his thoughts on South Africa’s need to innovate – and how reading books like The Spell can help us to think more innovatively. Visit thespell.co.za for more

The problem with apocalyptic thinking. David Buckham, co-author of The Spell, unpacks the cognitive dissonance of so many common day narratives, from climate change to AI. To learn more visit thespell.co.za.

'The Spell' publisher, Tim Richman, shares his thoughts on a fascinating question: "is the story more powerful than the facts?" He offers a publisher's perspective on the core themes of 'The Spell', the journey of what goes into making a book like this, and the delicate line between history and the truth. To learn more visit thespell.co.za.

Hypocrisy, contradictions, polarisation, opposing narratives – we ask established journalist, Simon Brown, how he makes sense of the world and whether reading The Spell helped. To learn more visit thespell.co.za.

'The Spell' gives a narrative on how humans make sense of themselves through stories. Zolile Zikode notes how the book traces Western thought from the Ancient Greeks to the present day. It shows how politics, religion, and science try to answer one question: What does it mean to be human? This is a read for anyone curious about why societies repeat mistakes and how narratives control human destiny. To learn more visit thespell.co.za.

How are our narratives formed in the modern era? We stop to unpack this hard-hitting topic with Mbali Shamu’s fresh perspective. To find out more about the themes explored in The Spell, visit www.thespell.co.za.