Riana Topan is a campaign manager with Humane Society International/Canada, which together with its affiliates is the largest animal protection organisation in the world. She works to protect farm animals by advocating for higher-welfare policies and regulations, and supports institutions in offering plant-based food options that are better for the animals, the environment, and human health. You can reach her here. ​

This article is written by James Hand, co-founder of Giki Social Enterprise. Before founding Giki in 2017, James spent 20 years in Asset Management, most recently as Co-CIO at Investec with experience in big data, behavioural finance, company research and ESG (environmental, social and governance) investing.

This blog post is by Dr Johanna Jacobi, Senior Research Scientist in the Sustainability Governance Cluster at the University of Bern’s Centre for Development and Environment. Johanna Jacobi is a geographer and biologist who has been living and working in Bolivia for six years. She currently implements research in two projects, one about 'food sustainability' (the topic of this blog), and one about 'high-quality coffee and coffee cherry value chains in the origin countries Colombia and Bolivia'. She is interested in agroecology as a science, a set of practices and a social movement and is also a member of SOCLA (Latin American Scientific Society of Agroecology). One key topic in her research activities has been agroforestry and its role in food security and the resilience of farming systems.

This blog post is written by Wil Nicholson.

This post is written by Hannah van Zanten, assistant professor at Wageningen University, Wageningen, the Netherlands. Her post is based on the paper ‘Defining a land boundary for sustainable animal consumption,’ which was published in Global Change Biology in May 2018. 

In this piece, Helen Breewood introduces the environmental impact nuances behind trending vegan and flexitarian consumption patterns. Helen wrote this post in her personal capacity. Note that the FCRN has no financial affiliation with any of the brands mentioned in this blog.Helen Breewood is a research assistant at the FCRN. She is also a freelance writer and blogs about solving global sustainability issues at The Progress Motive. You can find her on Twitter. 

In this piece, Judy Bankman introduces key elements of disease, diet, and sustainability relevant to the expansion of Western-style consumption patterns.Judy Bankman joined Brighter Green as a research intern in 2013 when she was completing her Master of Public Health at NYU’s College of Global Public Health. Working with Brighter Green allowed her to direct her academic interest into a research and policy-focused project, which linked current public health issues with food systems analysis. Her research culminated in several blog posts that were published by Food Tank and Civil Eats from 2013 to 2014, and ultimately the discussion paper published in October 2017 by Brighter Green, “Chronic Disease, Changing Diets, & Sustainability: The Globalization of Western-style Eating and Its Implications”.

In this piece, Tom Kuehnel introduces the plant protein crop initiatives supported by the Vegan Society within the context of Brexit and protein policies.Tom Kuehnel is an FCRN member and the Campaigns and Policy Officer for The Vegan Society. The Vegan Society is the oldest vegan organisation in the world; its founding members coined the term ‘vegan’ when it was founded in 1944. The Vegan Society works towards a vegan world for the benefit of animals, people, and the planet. You can contact Tom at: tom.kuehnel@vegansociety.com    

In this piece, Adrian Muller takes a look at the qualities and constraints around expanded organic farming systems. His commentary is based on the paper Strategies for feeding the world more sustainably with organic agriculture, published in Nature Communications earlier in November and summarised by the FCRN here. Adrian Muller is an FCRN member and senior researcher at FiBL (Research Institute of Organic Agriculture) and ETH Zurich, Switzerland.