A number of sustainable agriculture approaches, and their supporting narratives, have been put forward over the decades in attempts to weaken the stronghold of industrial agriculture in the food system. Recent interest has centred on regenerative agriculture, with some of its proponents seeing in its appeal to farmers and corporations an ability to unite disparate agricultural approaches in a manner that might facilitate increasing ambition. In this essay drawing from recent research, Anja Bless compares the genealogical histories of organic agriculture, sustainable intensification, conservation agriculture and agroecology with regenerative agriculture, finding elements within each that resist absorption under the regenerative umbrella.   About the author: Anja Bless is a PhD Candidate at the Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney. Her PhD research is exploring the politics of regenerative agriculture, with Australia as the national case study. A component of this research project is exploring the origins of regenerative agriculture, in particular the social-ecological factors that have driven its rise in popularity and how it fits among existing sustainable agriculture narratives. Anja holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Government and International Relations and Sociology from the University of Sydney, and a Master of Environment (with Distinction) majoring in Sustainable Food Systems from the University of Melbourne.

In this piece, Hatim Rijal and Marwa Akola reflect on the challenges facing Sudan’s food system. They explain the pressures facing different types of agriculture and forestry in Sudan, and explore the potential of agroforestry, specifically alley cropping systems, to provide food while also meeting environmental and social goals. About the authors: Hatim Rijal (MSc. in Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development) is the fundraising officer of the Deriba Center for Environmental Studies (DCES), a Forest Inspector at Forests National Corporation, South Darfur State, and a Co-founder of Sudan Youth Organization on Climate Change (SYOCC). Marwa Akola (MSc. in Nutrition and dietetics) is a clinical dietitian nutritionist, a lecturer in the School of Health Sciences at Ahfad University for Women (AUW), the head of the Research and Studies Unit in DCES, and was recently assigned as a program coordinator for the Public Health Training and Research Unit (PHTRU) in AUW.

Over the past decades, Colombia’s dominant agricultural vision has been that of becoming a food powerhouse: a nation that could “feed the world”. However, while Colombia’s exports of some tropical produce have increased, this expansion overseas has not led to improvements in the living conditions of the millions of people in rural areas who still experience poverty and food insecurity and malnutrition. Agrarian movements have long sought to put forward alternative visions of the food system under the narratives of i) feeding the nation and ii) feeding the village. These alternative visions are based on a more localised approach to agriculture and food consumption that values aspects such as people’s proximity to food production, protection of local environmental resources, urban-rural links and the importance of promoting rural and urban well-being through healthy diets. This essay explores the tensions between these alternative visions of food provisioning. It is written by Dr Felipe Roa-Clavijo, Assistant Professor at the School of Government of Universidad de Los Andes.

The Metropolitan Area of Barcelona is a microcosm of the current international movement towards increasing urban food self-sufficiency, with the aim of promoting both supply chain resilience and social justice. In this blog post, Haley Parzonko reflects on the challenges and opportunities facing the urban agriculture movement in and around Barcelona.

Food insecurity in Africa is one of the continent’s major challenges, exacerbated by the ongoing climate crisis. In this essay, Dr Rejoice Chipuriro reflects on different types of food aid programmes across several countries in Southern Africa. She contrasts short-term food relief with approaches intended to promote longer-term food system resilience, discussing the importance of incorporating local values and knowledge systems.

About the author: Yolie Michielsen is a PhD candidate at Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands. She has a background in cultural anthropology (BSc), consumption sociology (MSc), and philosophy of culture (MA). Her PhD focuses on resistance in the societal transition towards reduced meat consumption. The first part of the thesis, written with co-promotor Dr. Hilje van der Horst (sociologist and human geographer), studies backlash against meat curtailment policies in online discourse.

TABLE's new summary series seeks to break down many of our classic explainers into brief format. You can find the download page for each summary at the links below.

Tanzania’s traditional livestock grazing systems are under pressure. As population growth and economic growth increase demand for milk and meat, farming is also facing the effects of both climate change and the allocation of grazing land to other uses including conservation and urban development.  Dr David Dawson Maleko, lecturer, researcher and consultant at Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania, considers the potential solutions for enhancing milk and meat production in the face of these challenges. He discusses the challenges and trade-offs both of intensifying production and of government-led allocation of new grazing areas to herders.

In this blog post, Tamsin Blaxter and Tara Garnett explore the different ways that protein has acquired cultural associations and connotations over the last one and a half centuries. This draws on our longer report Primed for power, and readers should refer to the full report for more depth on many of the stories mentioned here.