Exploring the Future of Farming and Food

Record temperatures around the world are adding urgency to the need for not just a sustainable, but a resilient food and farming system. A reappreciation of the importance for the food and farming industry as both the cause and solution to climate change and environmental challenges is unfolding against a backdrop of societal and scientific debates on how to “keep the food system within the planetary boundaries.”

In this moment, there is no shortage of opinions or solutions being offered by a wide range of actors across the agri-food sector. In the course, “Exploring the Futures of Farming and Food,” we critically explore the diversity of solutions being offered to secure a sustainable and future-proof food system. We lean into the complexity of our global food system, and dive into unfolding debates by asking new questions and searching for diverse perspectives.

Week by week we will explore some of the most pressing questions food system thinkers are asking themselves. Each week we focus on a different question and begin with a lecture on theory, practicals, and a case study from farmers, including those of the Global Network of Lighthouse Farms. The week will close each subject with time to discuss the readings, ask questions, and reflect on the lessons learned of the week in preparation for the final exam.

In addition to this, each week students will work together to develop research questions for food and farming systems research. in a case study of their choice, students are encouraged to work together to learn how to ask the right (research) questions, and how to meaningfully design food and farming systems research.

After successful completion of this course students are expected to be able to:

• State the contemporary discourse on sustainable food production
• Map the diverse societal expectations vis-à-vis sustainable food production
• Explain the lock-ins, trade-offs and interdependencies that actors in sustainable food and farming systems face
• Appraise the diversity of contexts in which sustainability needs to be integrated in food and farming systems
• Develop inter-, trans- and multi- disciplinary approach to research food and farming systems, by learning to ask the right research questions

Assumed Knowledge:

Basic knowledge on agricultural production, and/or environmental sciences.