Scale | TableDebates

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Podcast episode

Introducing Feed and our first theme: Scale in the food system

We introduce our first theme: Scale in the food system, and its spatial, economic, temporal and moral dimensions.

Image: webroi, Pompeii vessels Italy ruins, Pixabay, Pixabay Licence

The emergence of an international food system - the Mediterranean from the Bronze Age to the Roman period

Dr Kelly Reed is an archaeobotanist with interests in food systems, agricultural development and cultural adaptations to environmental change in the past. She is currently the programme manager for the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food and the Wellcome Trust-funded Livestock, Environment and People (LEAP) project based at Oxford University. Dr Lisa Lodwick is an archaeologist who researches shifts in agricultural production in Iron Age and Roman Europe and the Mediterranean. She is currently a post-doctoral research fellow at All Souls College, Oxford University.

Image: RitaE, Mussels Mussel Seafood, Pixabay, Pixabay Licence

To eat fish or not to eat fish? That is the wrong question

Christina O’Sullivan is the Campaign & Communications Manager at Feedback, where she manages the ‘Fishy Business’ campaign. Feedback is a campaign group working to regenerate nature by transforming the food system. Christina has an MSc in Food Policy from the Centre for Food Policy, City University. She has worked at the Cornell Food and Brand Lab and the Global Centre for Food Systems Innovation at Michigan State University.

Image: Kelly Reed, Reconstructed Neolithic house at Sopot, Croatia

A global movement for localised food and farming: The beginning of agriculture in Europe

Dr Kelly Reed is an archaeobotanist with interests in food systems, agricultural development and cultural adaptations to environmental change in the past. She is currently the programme manager for the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food and the Wellcome Trust-funded Livestock, Environment and People (LEAP) project based at Oxford University.

News and resources

Blog: A global food system is less vulnerable

This blog post by Caroline Grunewald of US think tank The Breakthrough Institute argues that a global food system offers greater resilience against local production failures than a local food system, contrary to narratives that the COVID-19 pandemic illustrates the fragile nature of the global food system and that local food systems are more resilient.

Beef cows in a pasture at sunset. Photo by Stijn te Strake via Unsplash.

City Region Food Systems - Part IIIB - Scale and Production Strategy

This piece is the third and last blog-post in Mike Hamm's series discussing city region food systems. The series has been exploring the value of city-region food systems, obstacles to their development, and possible ways forward. Part I conceptualised the issues, and Part II discussed who the farmer of the future will be and how the United States might be fed in 2050. This last, Part III on scale and production strategy has been split into two so make sure you have read Part IIIA to get the full picture.This is the second of a two-part blog looking at scale and production strategy. In the first, Mike Hamm critiqued the notion that large-scale, conventional agriculture produced largely in concentrated areas is the only way to feed the U.S. and the world. In this piece, he critiques the notion that smaller-scale and alternative production strategies can feed the U.S. population and also considers a middle path of scale and production diversity. He invites your comments, suggestions, and criticisms.This post is written by FCRN member professor Michael W. Hamm, C.S. Mott Professor of Sustainable Agriculture at Michigan State University and Director of the MSU Center for Regional Food Systems. Mike is also a Visiting Fellow of Mansfield College and the Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford.