Raj Patel

Economist, Award-winning author, Film-maker and Academic

Raj Patel is an award-winning author, film-maker and academic. He is a Research Professor in the Lyndon B Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin and a Senior Research Associate at the Unit for the Humanities at the university currently known as Rhodes University (UHURU), South Africa. He has degrees from the University of Oxford, the London School of Economics and Cornell University, has worked for the World Bank and WTO, and protested against them around the world. Raj co-taught the 2014 Edible Education class at UC Berkeley with Michael Pollan. In 2016 he was recognized with a James Beard Foundation Leadership Award. He has testified about the causes of the global food crisis to the US, UK and EU governments and is a member of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems. In addition to scholarly publications in economics, philosophy, politics and public health journals, he regularly writes for The Guardian, and has contributed to the Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Times of India, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Mail on Sunday, and The Observer. His first book was “Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System”. His second,”The Value of Nothing”, was a New York Times and international best-seller. His latest one, co-authored with Rupa Marya, is entitles: “Inflamed: Deep Medicine and The Anatomy of Injustice”. His latest documentary, “The Ant and the Grasshopper”, was released in 2022.