Food And Sustainability

Sustainability is one of the great problems facing food production today. Using cross-disciplinary perspectives from international scholars working in social, cultural and biological anthropology, ecology and environmental biology, this volume brings many new perspectives to the problems we face. Its cross-disciplinary framework of chapters with local, regional and continental perspectives provides a global outlook on sustainability issues. These case studies will appeal to those working in public sector agencies, NGOs, consultancies and other bodies focused on food security, human nutrition and environmental sustainability.

Food and Sustainability is the first text on this topic to consistently and coherently bring together important concepts from different disciplines to introduce students to a common challenge: food sustainability. The book explores the issues related to our growing demand for food from the perspectives of disciplines ranging from environmental and social sciences, to public health. It examines food as a point of convergence across these disciplines, illustrating the need for a transdisciplinary approach to understand common challenges and opportunities in food systems. The issues discussed are exemplified in several case studies for each chapter, which provide a direct avenue for students to apply the principles and theories set out in each chapter to real-world problems. In addition, 'Food controversy' panels highlight how there is very often no one right answer to the problems being faced, and how different viewpoints and perspectives need to be weighed up alongside each other to come to workable resolutions. Online resources: Food sustainability is augmented by a range of online resources, which include: For students: DT Hyperlinks to extended research readings DT Practice quizzes to support independent study DT Answers to in-text questions. For instructors: DT Downloadable (PowerPoint) figures from the book DT Answer sheets to the end of chapter questions DT Suggested exam questions.

Industrial agriculture is responsible for widespread environmental degradation and undermines the pursuit of human well-being. With a projected global population of 10 billion by 2050, it is urgent for humanity to achieve a more sustainable approach to farming and food systems. This concise text offers an overview of the key issues in sustainable food production for all readers interested in the ecology and environmental impacts of agriculture. It details the ecological foundations of farming and food systems, showing how knowledge from the natural and social sciences can be used to create sustainable alternatives to the industrial production methods used today. Beginning with a discussion of the role of agriculture in human development, the primer examines how twentieth-century farming methods are environmentally and socially unsustainable, contributing to global change and perpetuating inequalities. The authors explain the principles of environmental sustainability and explore how these principles can be put into practice in agrifood systems. They emphasize the importance of human well-being and insist on the centrality of social and environmental equity and justice. Sustainable Food Production is a compelling guide to how we can improve our ability to feed each other today and preserve the ability of our planet to do so tomorrow. Appropriate for a range of courses in the natural and social sciences, it provides a comprehensive yet accessible framework for achieving agricultural sustainability in the Anthropocene.

Civil society organizations are among the most vociferous critics of the modern food system. Yet even after decades of campaigns, governments have largely failed to address health and sustainability issues in an effective way. This volume showcases the research of experts from multiple disciplines who argue that solutions lie not just in lobbying elected officials but in initiatives at the subparliamentary level. Real change will come, they argue, when advocacy groups develop innovative strategies capable of influencing decision makers more resistant to public pressure: business lobbies well connected to government agencies, middle managers, and ministries unused to collaborating across departmental mandates.

This edited volume explores the intersection of learning and food, both within and beyond the classroom, all within the context of sustainability. Taking a broad pedagogical approach to the question of food, it focuses on learning and change in a number of key sites including schools, homes, communities, and social movements, keeping in mind that we need to learn our way out of our current unsustainable food system and in to more sustainable alternatives.

The Economics of Sustainable Food details the true cost of food for people and the planet. It illustrates how to transform our broken system, alleviating its severe financial and human burden. The key is smart macroeconomic policy that moves us toward methods that protect the environment like regenerative land and sea farming, low-impact urban farming, and alternative protein farming, and toward healthy diets. The book's multidisciplinary team of authors lay out detailed fiscal and trade policies, as well as structural reforms, to achieve those goals. Chapters discuss strategies to make food production sustainable, nutritious, and fair, ranging from taxes and spending to education, labor market, health care, and pension reforms, alongside regulation in cases where market incentives are unlikely to work or to work fast enough. The authors carefully consider the different needs of more and less advanced economies, balancing economic development and sustainability goals. Case studies showcase successful strategies from around the world, such as taxing foods with a high carbon footprint, financing ecosystems mapping and conservation to meet scientific targets for healthy biomes permanency, subsidizing sustainable land and sea farming, reforming health systems to move away from sick care to preventive, nutrition-based care, and providing schools with matching funds to purchase local organic produce.--Amazon.

This publication offers a systemic analysis of sustainability in the food system, taking as its framework the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda of the United Nations. Targeted chapters from experts in the field cover main challenges in the food system and propose methods for achieving long term sustainability. Authors focus on how sustainability can be achieved along the whole food chain and in different contexts. Timely issues such as food security, climate change and migration and sustainable agriculture are discussed in depth. The volume is unique in its multidisciplinary and multi-stakeholder approach. Chapter authors come from a variety of backgrounds, and authors include academic professors, members of CSO and other international organizations, and policy makers. This plurality allows for a nuanced analysis of sustainability goals and practices from a variety of perspectives, making the book useful to a wide range of readers working in different areas related to sustainability and food production. The book is targeted towards the academic community and practitioners in the policy, international cooperation, nutrition, geography, and social sciences fields. Professors teaching in nutrition, food technology, food sociology, geography, global economics, food systems, agriculture and agronomy, and political science and international cooperation may find this to be a useful supplemental text in their courses.

Faced with a global threat to food security, it is perfectly possible that society will respond, not by a dystopian disintegration, but rather by reasserting co-operative traditions. This book, by a leading expert in urban agriculture, offers a genuine solution to today’s global food crisis. By contributing more to feeding themselves, cities can allow breathing space for the rural sector to convert to more organic sustainable approaches. Biel’s approach connects with current debates about agroecology and food sovereignty, asks key questions, and proposes lines of future research. He suggests that today’s food insecurity – manifested in a regime of wildly fluctuating prices – reflects not just temporary stresses in the existing mode of production, but more profoundly the troubled process of generating a new one. He argues that the solution cannot be implemented at a merely technical or political level: the force of change can only be driven by the kind of social movements which are now daring to challenge the existing unsustainable order.Drawing on both his academic research and teaching, and 15 years’ experience as a practicing urban farmer, Biel brings a unique interdisciplinary approach to this key global issue, creating a dialogue between the physical and social sciences