Frances Moore Lappé
(1944-)

American Author & Social Change Activist
World Future Council

birthdate: February 10
birthplace:
Pendleton, Oregon

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.”

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