What is food solutionism? And why does it limit us

Episode summary

Why are we drawn to simple fixes for the complex challenge of feeding the world sustainably? Researchers Colin Sage (formerly Cork University) and Garrett Broad (Rowan University) unpack what we're calling "food solutionism"—the tendency to promote single, sweeping solutions, whether high-tech or agroecological, while ignoring context and complexity. They argue for "complicating the narrative early and often", so we can move beyond binary thinking and better understand the trade-offs, limits, and realities behind competing visions for the future of food.

[ Transcript available ]

The Blue Sky Thread that prompted this conversation

About the guests

Garrett Broad

Dr. Garrett Broad is an Associate Professor of Communication Studies and Provost’s Fellow for Sustainability at Rowan University. His research and teaching focus on the role of media and communication in movements for healthy and sustainable food systems. He is the author of the book More Than Just Food: Food Justice and Community Change and serves as president of the board for the non-profit Plant-Based Foods Institute.

Colin Sage

Colin Sage is an independent research scholar now based in Portugal. He is an Affiliated Professor with the Faculty of Nutrition and Food Sciences at the University of Porto, and Visiting Professor at the University of Gastronomic Sciences, Italy. He was previously Senior Lecturer in Geography at University College Cork, Ireland. He is the author of Environment and Food (Routledge, 2012); editor of A Research Agenda for Food Systems (Elgar, 2022), and co-editor of five other books. He was a co-founder of the Cork Food Policy Council and served as its chair from 2013-2019.

About the host

Jack Thompson

Jack Thompson is a food and climate journalist, based in West Africa. He writes for global media outlets such as the Financial Times, The Associated Press and The Sunday Times, and is the editor of TABLE's newsletter Fodder. You can read some of his work here.