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JOIN FOOD MYTH BUSTERS AND ANNA LAPPE ON FACEBOOK FOR THE ONLINE PREMIERE — Live Q & A with Anna
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Wednesday | October 24, 2012 | US Food Day | 2:30pm ET | 11:30am PT

Can sustainable agriculture feed us in the long term, or is large-scale industrial agriculture the only way to keep the world fed?

That was one of the questions raised during this year’s SXSW Eco. And someone who has spent a lifetime answering this question is Anna Lappé, founding director of the Food Myth Busters Project. She’s also an author and founding principle with her mother Frances Lappé of Small Planet Institute.

She says mounting scientific evidence points to organic and sustainable agriculture practices will feed the world and allow it and its people to thrive.

Food Myth Busters is a set of organizing  tools, films, and website that Lappé says will help people understand what she calls the real story about our food.  The project officially launches this Food Day, October 24^th, with the release of the new Food MythBusters animated video.

View the trailer here.

Large-scale commercial agriculture has been feeding the world for many years. But that method depends largely, if not solely, on chemical intervention: from the use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers on food crops, to injecting antibiotics into livestock to both fatten them and to protect them from their living conditions.

Food produced by these large commercial interests is usually less expensive than food from organic and sustainable operations, but Anna Lappé of Small Planet Institute says once you start to calculate hidden costs, that upside turns upside down.

Costs we don’t think about when we’re getting  two for one deals in the produce aisle include subsidies and crop insurance, both paid for with our tax dollars; damage to the environment from fertilizer  and pesticide runoff; health issues we’re just starting to trace back to unwanted chemicals in our environment and our food.

When you add those costs together, buying cheap food may not be the bargain it first seemed.

It will take a new way of thinking and new behaviors to see change. It will not happen overnight, but there is power in one: if every one incorporated a new and positive action or behavior into their lives once a month — change would happen faster than anyone could ever imagine. Be the one. Do the one.