ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights the disputed meanings of a number of key concepts, like progress, development, modernity, growth, and sustainability, and the contested interpretations of phenomena like the Green Revolution, the Dust Bowl, and the advent of industrialized supply chains. It looks at one important aspect of what would be required for such a style of decision making to prevail, how facts are ordered and how evidence is assembled and made available to those responsible for policy. The chapter discusses food paradigms by noting that the emergence of the concept of food sovereignty is situated in a context in which other more general paradigm shifts are underway as the finite nature of the world's resources and the limitations of economic measurement have become increasingly evident. Efforts to dethrone gross national product (GNP) as the dominant measure of countries progress and replace it with a gross national happiness index, as championed by Bhutan and inspired by Buddhist values of spirituality.
