Culture & community | TableDebates

Image: Copernicus Sentinel-2, ESA, Flevopolder by Sentinel-2, Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 IGO (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/igo/deed.en). Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2018.

Support Your Locals: on international solidarity in a resilient and sustainable urban food system

Anke Brons is a PhD candidate at Aeres University of Applied Sciences Almere and the Environmental Policy Group, Wageningen University & Research. Her research focuses on questions of inclusiveness in relation to healthy and sustainable food practices. Dr Sigrid Wertheim-Heck is associate professor global food system transformation in the Environmental Policy Group at WUR, and is professor Food and Healthy Living at Aeres University of Applied Sciences, both in The Netherlands. Her interest in urban food systems informs her agenda on the relationship between urbanisation, food provisioning and food consumption. She is part of TABLE’s board of directors. This blog post is based on a Dutch essay, originally published in the Flevo Campus essay bundle ‘Veerkracht als opdracht’ (Resilience as a mission).

Apples and People

News and resources

Apples and People: The global story of the apple

Apples and People is a digital exhibition telling the stories of apples from around the world and their importance to people and culture. The website includes stories about apples, an apple map, apple art, and written pieces. New apple stories will be released throughout 2021 and 2022; to receive these, readers can subscribe to the mailing list.

Critical Perspectives on Food Sovereignty

Critical Perspectives on Food Sovereignty

This book examines the history of the food sovereignty movement, its links to agroecology and peasant agriculture, and its application in a range of contexts including aquaculture in Bangladesh, the First Nations in Canada, open source seeds, and the politics of food sovereignty in Latin America. Originally published in 2015, the book is available in paperback format as of 2021.

Everybody Eats: Communication and the Paths to Food Justice

Everybody Eats: Communication and the Paths to Food Justice

This book uses case studies of food justice activism to argue that communication is vital for incorporating social justice into food systems and for providing food security.

UN Food Systems Summit: Synthesis of independent dialogues

UN Food Systems Summit: Synthesis of independent dialogues

The UN Food Systems Summit has published a synthesis of hundreds of independent dialogues that are taking place in advance of the Summit. The report identifies ten themes that emerged from the dialogues.

Research methods in digital food studies

Research methods in digital food studies

This book gives an overview of research methods used in the study of the relationship between food and digital and social media. Chapters cover textual analysis of websites and videos, digital ethnography, digital food networks, the influence of apps and social media on food habits, and digital archives and network analysis.

Stories of food systems transformation during COVID-19

Stories of food systems transformation during COVID-19

This report from the Global Alliance for the Future of Food profiles how various food initiatives have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, with the aim of demonstrating that transformative food system change is possible. Case studies include a non-profit distributor of sustainably grown food in Philadelphia, a food bank in Lagos, Fiji’s Ministry of Agriculture and “solidarity kitchens” in Rio de Janeiro.

Civil Eats

News and resources

Is agroecology being co-opted by Big Ag?

This article published by Civil Eats asks whether the concept of agroecology is being co-opted by proponents of marginal improvements to industrial agriculture systems. Some NGOs have introduced the term “junk agroecology” to refer to corporate forms of agroecology that do not inherently require a simultaneous social justice transformation.

Image: 41330, Agriculture Asia, Pixabay, Pixabay Licence

Journal articles

The limits of a technological fix

This editorial in the Nature Food journal discusses the role that technology can and should play in reforming the food system. It argues that while technologies such as cultured meat, precision agriculture, drones and artificial intelligence are expected to contribute to sustainable food security in the future, technology often creates unexpected impacts that are hard to predict and that must be mitigated. Furthermore, it says, ethics and traditional knowledge systems are key to transforming the food system.