Soybeans offer a powerful lens through which to view today’s global food system. Soy is a highly efficient crop that is used in animal feed, oils and processed food, and for direct consumption, yet the same crop is deeply entangled in environmental degradation, land-use change, and geopolitical tension. This raises a central question: why does soy continue to expand, even in places where its social and environmental costs are widely understood? Nowhere is this tension soy's economic benefits and its multiple harms more visible than in Latin America, where soy is transforming landscapes at scale. But what does that expansion actually look like on the ground, and what forces are driving it? This TABLE webinar focuses on Bolivia, one of the fastest-changing soy frontiers in the region, and contrast it with Brazil, a place that is often synonymous with soy production. In Brazil, soy production is large-scale and deeply integrated into global markets. In Bolivia, expansion is more recent, shaped by land access, shifting policies, and weaker enforcement. Looking at them together helps clarify how the same crop can follow different trajectories—and why expansion continues, even when its consequences are widely recognized. This discussion will be led by Matt Abel (Southern Methodist University; Dallas, Texas) and Stasiek Czaplicki Cabezas (Independent Researcher; Santa Cruz, Bolivia).Matt Abel is an economic anthropologist whose work centers on the relationship between environmental governance and shifting global trade regimes with a focus on the Brazilian Amazon. He is an assistant professor of anthropology at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. He is a researcher collaborator with the Rethinking the Global Soy Dilemma project and is conducting fieldwork on Brazil's "Northern Arc" — an effort to transform the Amazon's southern tributaries into a transnational shipping corridor for soybeans and corn.Stasiek Czaplicki Cabezas is a Bolivian environmental economist, focusing primarily on the drivers of deforestation, especially those linked to commodity frontiers (soy and cattle), land tenure dynamics, and public policy. He works as an independent researcher, journalist, and activist, and is currently co-leading a book project on the agribusiness development model in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. He is also an associated researcher from the Centro de Estudios Populares (CEESP) and Catholic University.This webinar is part of Rethinking the Global Soy Dilemma — a Kamprad Family Foundation project at SLU and led by TABLE.

In this Food Thinkers webinar, Jane Davidson will draw upon her experience as a former Welsh Labour politician and author of the book ‘#futuregen - Lessons from a small country’ to provide unique insights into how food features on political agendas. The talk will explain how The Wales Net Zero Challenge Group worked to accelerate climate responses in Wales. The Group’s outputs were published in autumn 2024 with the aim of influencing manifesto commitments for the Welsh General Election in May 2026. A key report focused on food [PDF]. Jane will review the underpinning academic evidence and look at the political parties' commitments as they go into the election on 7th May 2026.Jane Davidson is on a mission to mainstream sustainability. Her knowledge and passion were forged as a Welsh Government minister, university Pro Vice-Chancellor and land restorer. She is author of #futuregen: Lessons from a Small Country, Pro Vice-Chancellor Emeritus at University of Wales Trinity Saint David (UWTSD), Vice-President at Garden Organic, and Patron of the Chartered Institute of Ecologists and Environmental Managers. From 2022-2024, she chaired the Wales Net Zero 2035 Group, reporting in September 2024. From 2011-2019, she led on sustainability at UWTSD. From 2000 - 2011, she was Cabinet Minister for Education, then Environment and Sustainability in Wales where she proposed legislation to put sustainability at the heart of government: the Wellbeing of Future Generations (Wales) Act became law in 2015. She is a RSA Fellow and previous guest faculty on the Executive Education for Sustainability Leadership programme at Harvard University's T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Dates: 26-30 October 2026The global food system has already crossed four of the nine planetary boundaries, making a fundamental redesign of food systems urgently needed. Supporting this transformation calls for dialogue and participatory tools that can bring together diverse perspectives and values. Analog serious games show strong potential to enable inclusive, reflexive and action-oriented processes for food system transformation. This course introduces analog serious games (e.g. board and card games, narrative games) as tools to explore and foster food system transformation and challenges the participants to design new and/or adapt existing games and test them in a final event where they can showcase their prototypes. Participants will design, facilitate and test serious games using real food system case studies, either brought by participants themselves or provided by us. Participants will learn about existing serious games, design, play and facilitate and assess game sessions using multiple approaches, including Q-methodology, visual research methods, and thematic analysis, applying multiple frameworks such as the Nature Futures Framework, multispecies, post growth and boundary crossing frameworks. The course brings together researchers and practitioners working on analog serious games for food systems, covering (co-)design, facilitation, assessment and impact in food system contexts. The teaching team includes members from Wageningen University & Research, the WUR Games Hub, the CiFoS team, Utrecht University, the University of Twente, Oxford University TABLE Debates, Alliance Bioversity International, and the United Nations. The course is supported by both a physical game library, connected to WUR’s Teaching and Learning Centre, and a digital game library, hosted by Oxford University TABLE Debates. After completing the course, participants will be able to understand and reflect on: The role of analog serious games as participatory and reflexive tools for food system transformation and redesign How values, power relations, political and ethical considerations shape dialogue and decision-making in food system transformation processes The use of frameworks for assessing game session (e.g. Nature Futures Framework, multispecies, post-growth and boundary crossing frameworks) The opportunities and limitations of serious games for learning, dialogue and impact in real-world food system transformation contexts In terms of skills and competences, participants will be able to: Design, and/or adapt and prototype analog serious games for food system transformation Facilitate serious game sessions in participatory and transdisciplinary food system contexts, while engaging with multiple perspectives and values Apply multiple methods to assess serious game sessions and outcomes (including Q-methodology, visual methods and thematic analysis) Use conceptual frameworks to support serious game design and assessment for food system transformation Organize and facilitate a game (prototype) session during a showcase event References Andreotti, F., Hordijk, D. J. A., Frehner, A., Muller, A., Mason-D’Croz, D., Herrero, M., ... & van Zanten, H. H. E. (2026). The CiFoS game: a serious game to redesign food systems for human and planetary health. Sustainability Science, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-026-01826-8Hordijk, D. J., Andreotti, F., & van Zanten, H. H. (2025). Food system games for sustainability transformation–A review. Global Food Security, 45, 100864. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2025.100864Andreotti F. (2025) Games at TABLE: A new platform for food system serious games. TABLE food system platform. https://doi.org/10.56661/d1243efe