Shadowing Practice: The Economics of Eating - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Whether we're conscious of it or not, food sits at the center of human life and society.
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Our entire civilization hinges on the production of food, and for hundreds of years, food has been produced in a way that is leading to breakdown in every sector of human life.
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It is causing biodiversity loss, loss of livelihoods, health decline, human rights abuses, widespread animal abuse,
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climate change, and the collapse of food security in regions all over the world.
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It's becoming increasingly apparent to people everywhere that the industrial production of food is beyond unsustainable.
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In fact, it is one of the key drivers of the polycrisis, which threatens all life on Earth.
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But this system is not going unchallenged.
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All around the world, initiatives to produce food in ways
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that are healthier for both people and planet are exploding in popularity against all odds.
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One of the world's leading figures in the exploration of alternatives to the current, ever more globalized agricultural economy is Helena Norberg-Hodge.
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We all know what basically everybody would want, to have healthy food from farms that are keeping the land healthy.
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But if we don't challenge the economic structures, if we don't look at the economic side of this, it's a constant struggle.
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For almost 50 years, I've been trying to show
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that one of the most strategic things we can do is
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to focus on shifting the food economy away from being dependent on this global empire to rebuild instead more localized regional economies.
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If we focus on changing the market and support systemic change, it is amazing what we could achieve.
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On the bottom up, millions of people are showing
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that it can be changed and that it is being changed
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and they are showing that they can produce more food that heals the ecosystem and that heals people.
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To get the kind of food that we all want, we need to look at the mechanisms that our governments, both left and right governments,
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have been using to support the global at the expense of the local.
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In order to grasp why these mechanisms exist, we need to understand one concept — comparative advantage.
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When the modern economy first began taking shape, governments were convinced that producing a range of things for their region or country was no longer in their interest.
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What was in their interest was to specialize their production for export.
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Over time, this specialization has led to widespread monocropping, leaving countries around the world dependent on a global system of trade.
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So they ensured that we started producing for the global market instead of producing for our local and regional market.
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That path was a way of systematically destroying the small farms,
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providing for regional needs, and instead creating dependence on the global market so that everything now went via that remote,
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distant empire and enriching that empire, instead of enriching our own region or even our own country.
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We have all been entrenched in this system.
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More than that, our governments actively support it.
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They've used our taxes to subsidize and to invest in ever bigger infrastructure,
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bigger and bigger highways to support bigger and bigger giant trucks, bigger and bigger airports, bigger and bigger ports, bigger and bigger container ships.
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And right on the field, supporting larger and larger machinery, more and more chemicals.
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Our governments have supported everything from the research to hybridize seeds,
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seeds that were genetically modified so that farmers could no longer keep their own seeds and use them year after year, which they did for thousands of years.
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They've been progressively removing regulations for the global while increasing regulation at the local and national level,
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squeezing everyone with more regulation and more taxation.
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And that's going to support the global players so that the prices in the marketplace are completely artificial.
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Systematically, farmers have been forced to embrace the models set out by the global economic system just to survive.
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They've been forced to scale up production, forced to get into more debt just to compete with the big players.
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Because our taxes have paid for direct and indirect subsidies for the global traders, they're able to sell their produce at an artificially cheap price.
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Why is it that this tomato is more expensive than this tomato?
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This tomato was grown 20 minutes away.
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This one was grown 3,000 miles away.
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In order for it to show up in the supermarket, it had to go through a vast, globalized supply chain.
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And yet, in spite of all the fuel, the factories, the machinery, the labor, the distance, the refrigeration, and so much more,
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the tomato from the supermarket is cheaper than the one that is local to me.
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Most people today believe
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that the reason why the food in the supermarket is cheaper than it is in the local shop
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or the farmers market is because of efficiencies of scale.
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And of course these large players are going to be able to reduce their price because they're more efficient.
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We have to look at what we mean by efficiency.
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Wouldn't most sane people agree
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that it would be efficient to be able to produce our food using as few inputs as possible,
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working with nature, without polluting the water, without transport and emissions?
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The global food system requires vast networks of energy-intensive supply chains spanning the entire world.
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In 2024, the FAO estimated that the global food system is responsible for $10 trillion of social and environmental costs per year.
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Those are costs that the big agricultural companies are not paying.
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In a sane world, we would consider these costs to be inefficient and wasteful.
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The only way these corporations are able to produce food using more energy, more inputs, more technology, and sell it to us at a lower price than the farmer's market,
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is because their businesses and the infrastructures are being subsidized by our tax dollars.
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They're not just using subsidized fossil fuels, highways, ports and airports, but also the shopping centers and precincts,
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the storage facilities, the labs researching and developing chemicals using industrial monocultural production, even the barcode technology at the supermarket checkout.
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These are all things that we, the public, have paid for through our taxes to the benefit of big business.
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It's an artificial system and the price in the marketplace is a political choice.
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Because of all these hidden subsidies, we've now got insane trade.
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Literally the same product, imported and exported.
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The US exports as much beef as it turns around and imports.
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The UK exports as much butter and milk as it turns around and imports.
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This simultaneous import and export of foods, this redundant trade, clearly has nothing whatsoever to do with meeting human needs and feeding people.
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It's all about profits.
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If we were eating food out of our own region or country even, no multinational would make money.
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Not only do we have countries importing and exporting the same product,
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but we have things routinely sent across the world to be processed because we have an artificially low price for the transport.
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Half of Alaskan seafood is processed in China before being sent back to the United States to be sold.
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Pears are sent from Argentina to be packaged in Thailand to then be sold in the United States.
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Shrimp cotton Scotland are sent to Southeast Asia to be peeled, only to be sent right back to be sold in UK supermarkets.
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While the corporations make money off of global trade, the costs for the rest of us are piling up.
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Commercial ships produce greater than 1 million tons of CO2 per day, and air freight produces 30 million tons of CO2 per day.
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Long-distance transport also means that our food needs additives, packaging, and energy-intensive logistics, such as the massive global cold chain.
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Even still, food from thousands of miles away is not fresh, which means it has less nutrients and is more likely to be processed than local food.
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And on top of that, global trade leads, by necessity, to monoculture, as well as factory farming.
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Worst of all, the global food system obscures the most egregious crimes against humanity, slavery and enclosure.
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All because the distance in the system prevents us from seeing the true cost of what's happening on the ground.
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In the globalized system, we don't see the impact of our actions.
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We are eating food that's been produced on the other side of the world, It's been transported, it's been processed, it's been manipulated.
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We don't know whether it's really good for the planet or for us.
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The costs are made completely invisible and we don't realize
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that we're being fed by bigger and bigger and bigger monocultures that are disastrous.
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They're anti-nature.
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They demand chemicals.
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They demand essentially a system that is so anti-life
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that after a a certain amount of time that land becomes a dust bowl.
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And most of the 99% in the industrialized parts of the world who are not farming are not aware
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that their taxes are subsidizing toxic food from toxic farms,
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destroying their health, destroying the health of the planet.
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They're not aware of that, so they're not being given the information that of course would lead to a major demand to shift the policies.
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We are seeing how vulnerable we are when we're dependent on distant supply chains.
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Not only are we dependent on imported food, to have enough food to eat, but we can't even grow it without external inputs that are imported,
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whether it's the fertilizers or the seeds or the energy.
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And again, we need to look at how governments, left and right, are still supporting supply chains that are ever more global,
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ever more distant, in the name of growth.
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The benefits of shortening the distances between the farm and the fork are countless.
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The beautiful thing is that when the market, the people who are buying the food, are closer to the farm,
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The market exerts pressure towards diversification.
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When we pay attention to the complexity, the diversity, the incredible richness of the natural world,
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and we adapt our food production to those specifics of place, then we produce in a more diversified way,
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a mix of animals, vegetables, fruits, trees, all together.
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When we do that, we shrink the human ecological footprint while we increase the yields per acre.
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How much food we get dramatically increases.
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When you work with diversity in this way, you're not only restoring the agricultural biodiversity,
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but you're starting to enliven and restore wild ecosystems.
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In the soil, on the farm, it provides more jobs for more people.
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It provides more meaningful livelihoods.
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There's a sense of belonging.
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There's a sense of real collaborative structures.
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The social fabric is restored.
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As you move towards the smaller farms, diversified, healthy, healthy for the animals, healthy for the people, for the people.
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You are talking about relationships between humans and animals that are restorative and beneficial both ways.
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You're reducing emissions, you're reducing the need for energy, you're reducing plastic.
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There are far fewer chemicals because in these diversified systems, you don't need them to the same extent.
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But when you look at this, in this more systemic way, it becomes so clear that we have the most magical formula where we can heal,
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literally heal ecosystems while we increase productivity.
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So we can get more out of every bit of land while we reduce our ecological footprint.
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So there is nothing that we can do that would more rapidly heal the planet and heal us
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than shifting that food economy.
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It's an incredible win-win solution.
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There are countless community initiatives all around the world.
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Local shops, subscription farming, box schemes,
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community-supported agriculture, farmers markets, and so much more that are demonstrating the benefits of localizing the food economy.
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Yet, farmers all over the world are struggling day after day and food prices are continuing to rise for consumers.
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There's enormous economic pressure that comes from the multinational giants, but in addition to that…
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There is a remarkably long list of assumptions
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that prevent people from seeing what's going on in the world of food and farming.
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And these narratives not only undermine, but sabotage attempts to build healthy food economies.
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One of the major assumptions is that we need bigger farms, bigger supermarkets, and more technology to feed the world.
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We don't need to scale up production to feed the world.
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We actually need to bring food production back to human scale.
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More people on a small plot of land can produce vastly more than giant machines on a giant farm.
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We need more smaller farms all around the world feeding people within their local region.
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But in order to support these farms, we need to erase another idea from our mind — the idea that local food is elitist.
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If you're concerned with healthy food, you're considered elitist because the prices have been manipulated and local,
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healthy, natural food is more expensive than food that's been transported, processed, manipulated.
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That food is artificially cheaper.
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It's essential that in spite of the high prices, local farmers are supported.
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If we have the means, we have to prioritize supporting our local farmers.
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But more than that, we can't just accept that local food is more expensive than global food.
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We need to change policy so our taxes actually support our local farmers.
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But what we hope everybody will do is to join this movement which is about raising awareness as a priority.
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Small-scale ecological farming needs to be made much more accessible.
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And it needs to be valued in our society.
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And one of the reasons it isn't valued as much as it should be is
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because of one of the worst myths of all, that there are too many people to go back to the land.
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The truth is that we were pushed away from the land.
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Now, on a crowded planet, we need to go back to the land.
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For the first time in our evolution,
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we now have a mandate to try to increase productivity from the land while reducing our ecological footprint.
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When we work with nature, miraculous improvements happen on the land.
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that these improvements must be coupled with the transformation of the market, policy, and the economic structure that supports it for it to be as transformative as it needs to be.
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Labels that say organic, regenerative, biodynamic, and so much more will not be enough to transform the food system.
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Without changing the economics of the food system, we'll remain trapped in an unsustainable model, no matter how good our practices on the ground are.
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Shifting the food economy is one of the most strategic, one of the most beneficial,
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one of the most remarkable win-win strategies that are available to us.
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Is there anyone on this planet who would not want to
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shift taxes to support their local farmers to have local fresh food at a lower price?
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Local and natural everywhere in the world would be cheaper
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if the voter were allowed to have a voice in what kind of economic system they prefer.
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We're seeing that our taxes are going towards things we don't want.
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We can shift them towards the things we do want.
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Taxes, subsidies, and regulations, if they were shifted to support more ecological,
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more equitable, more truly sustainable ways of doing things,
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we would transform the world far faster than we can imagine.
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Thank you.
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Who Is This Video For?
This video is perfect for intermediate to advanced English learners aiming to boost their English speaking practice and discuss complex topics like sustainability. If you’re prepping for IELTS speaking practice or want to sound natural in debates about global issues, the dialogue’s mix of formal terms and conversational flow will challenge and improve your skills. It’s also great for those mastering the shadowing technique—the speaker’s clear, deliberate pace makes it easy to mimic tone and rhythm.
Words & Idioms Worth Stealing
- Polycrisis: A cluster of interconnected global crises (e.g., "Climate change and food insecurity form a polycrisis").
- Monocropping: Growing a single crop over a large area (e.g., "Monocropping harms soil diversity").
- Entrenched: Firmly established (e.g., "Old habits are hard to break when they’re entrenched").
- Artificially cheap: Unnaturally low in price due to external support (e.g., "Subsidies make fast food artificially cheap").
How to Get the Accent Right
The speaker uses a neutral international accent, ideal for shadow speech practice. Focus on stressing key nouns like "biodiversity" (bye-oh-DI-ver-si-tee) and "infrastructure" (IN-fruhk-chur). Notice how she pauses before important points—copying these pauses will make your speech sound more natural. For shadowing technique success, replay short clips (5-10 seconds) and repeat immediately, matching her pace and intonation. Pay attention to phrases like "against all odds"—the rise in pitch on "odds" adds emphasis. With practice, you’ll master both the vocabulary and the rhythm needed for confident English speaking.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | I've been trying · have been using |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | has been produced · has led · They've used |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | has been produced · can be changed · been entrenched |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | one that is · fresh, which means · people who are |
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.