The information below is subject to change as the course is still being developed. The information will be made definite in June 2026.
What is a sustainable food system? How are sustainable yet productive systems created and maintained and what are the major (societal) obstacles in sustainable food production? Food systems are crucial cultural and economic components of society and have major effects on the environment. Transitioning to sustainable food systems must ensure that cultural, environmental, health, and supply issues are all carefully balanced. These transitions must be facilitated or promoted via integrated food policies that account for different values and power structures and permeating different layers of governance.
This course will introduce students to the concept of food systems, discussing food production, processing, marketing, and consumption; and the activities, repercussions, values, and security issues resulting from local to global aspects of food systems. We will explore the diverse and at times conflicting pressures exerted upon land and seascapes, encompassing global food demand and security, the need for sustainable resource management (both finite and renewable), ecosystem resilience, biodiversity protection, and the potential policy choices to mitigate these pressures. The course will explore these issues using literature and practical experience from various perspectives, together with quantitative measurements such as macroeconomic assessments, and dietary accounting. The course will approach food systems via 5 core themes:
1.- Current status and future of food systems: This theme will introduce the concept of food systems from both the socio-ecological and governance perspectives, which will be made to critically discuss the current food system in terms of sustainability, productivity and profitability. We will delve into the concept of "integrated food policy," encompassing both vertical and horizontal integration. Specifically, we will examine the multi-level governance aspects of integrated food systems, ranging from integrating local to global governance challenges, and the horizontal policy dimensions, incorporating food production, human health, environment, and other food-related domains.
2.- Food system scales: This theme will introduce students to global versus regionally and locally organized food systems including debates surrounding these various perspectives, policies and approaches. Moreover, the theme will explore the role of international trade in redistributing both the burdens and environmental impacts of food demand across borders, delving into the geopolitical dimensions of food systems. This theme will follow the discussions from the Globalization and Environmental Justice course, on risks, pressures, and inequalities in the context of food systems. It will also incorporate dynamic modelling strategies introduced in the Systems Modelling course to assess how these food systems develop and stabilize over time.
3.- Food security and governance: Following theme 2, this theme will address the challenges to local food resiliency. This theme will be discussed in terms of whose security is addressed in different food system scales and interconnectivities, discussing, political, socio-cultural, and socio-economic impacts of food production, consumption, and trade. This theme will follow discussions arising from Ecological Economics course on current economic systems and trade imbalances, together with how these account for the needs of current and future generations of different populations, and concepts of sustainability course when understanding cultural and environmental interactions within the food system.
4.- Impact estimation at various scales and approaches: The course will also explore food system impacts on nutrient imbalances, water depletion, biodiversity loss, and climate change. This theme will apply Linear Algebra concepts introduced in Mathematics for Sustainability for understanding consumer-based impacts of food systems. These global consumption assessments will be contextualized within the local social landscape. Local measurements of food production impacts will also be used to understand uncertainty in food system data and how to contextualize information within this uncertainty (using concepts introduced in the Statistics course).
5.- Toward sustainable food systems: This theme will explore solutions to the current food system and transitions toward sustainability. It involves assessing how value systems, policy initiatives, technological innovations in production and across the food supply chain, as well as a deeper understanding of local dietary needs, can collectively aid in mitigating socio-ecological pressures.