Frances
Moore Lappé is an American social change and democracy activist, and the author
of 16 books, including the bestselling Diet for a Small Planet, which sold
3 million copies and forever changed the way many people think about food. Published
in 1971, Diet for a Small Planet suggested that famines are not caused
by overpopulation, natural disasters, or lack of technology, but are caused by
human activities -- a lack of democracy and because of the way the world's resources
are distributed. In 1975 she co-founded the Institute for Food and Development
Policy (later called Food First) to further educate Americans about the causes
of hunger and how non-governmental organizations, through grassroots efforts,
can help the poor transform their lives through increased democratic control.
This organization continues to lead the debate about the causes of hunger and
poverty.
Promoting
democracy has always been an important key in Frances Moore Lappé's view of ending
hunger and poverty, so in 1990 she cofounded another organization, the Center
for Living Democracy, to empower ordinary citizens to solve the world's problems
through democratic processes. Currently Frances Moore Lappé and her daughter Anna
head the Small Planet Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a network for research
and education to "bring democracy to life" and the Small Planet Fund,
which supports grassroots democratic social movements around the world.
Frances
Moore Lappé has received numerous awards and honors for her work, including the
1987 Right Livelihood Award (often called the Alternative Nobel Prize) "...for
revealing the political and economic causes of world hunger and how citizens can
help to remedy them.”
