Musings on sustainable food systems, agriculture vs. agroecology, and more!
It happens that once you specialize in a topic, you get a little jaded about ‘broad overview’ talks. Whenever I go to one of those now, I notice myself mentally playing the ‘food security bingo’ game – what doesn’t the presenter mention? What is emphasized? The point scale in my head looks somewhat like this: Mentions … Continue reading The @WorldResources Institute On How To "Create A Sustainable Food Future"
We often hear about the fact that ‘just producing food is not enough’ if we want to confront the problems of global malnutrition – it also depends on what kind of food we grow and eat. That is the mission of the Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition. They’re a panel of experts … Continue reading How Does Nutrition Fit Into Food Policy? @Glo_PAN
… as you may have guessed if you clicked through here, I´m celebrating Food Day on Friday, Oct 24, with you despite sitting in Brussels at the moment. Why? Well, first of all, because I love any reason to celebrate with Belgian chocolate (check out this post to learn more about how it’s made and … Continue reading Happy US Food Day (Week) from the Land of Chocolate and Fries!
The cool thing about being in Brussels? Showing up at a lunch meeting across the street from your office and have the chief statistician of the FAO and the director of the WFP Brussels office explain how they arrived at estimating the state of food insecurity in the world. I will talk more about the … Continue reading World Food Day: The Numbers #WFD2014
First of all, news! I really want to brush up my Spanish and in particular my vocabulary related to food policy issues, so in the future I will try to include little summaries of the issue at hand in Spanish at the bottom of the post. You’ll be able to access them through a link on … Continue reading Ewwwww Lake Erie – Toledo Drinking Water Ban
… is the new idea of the Swiss company Urban Farmers. All you need is an empty, flat rooftop of an industrial building, and you are in business – the company delivers all you need for a fully-fledged aquaponic farm. You can buy a ‘kit’ that includes enough material for a commercial-size farm, ranging from … Continue reading Like IKEA, Just for a Rooftop Farm…
I may have mentioned that I love maps. Let me repeat – I. Love. Maps. For their simplicity and succinctness of being able to visualize information, maps are unbeatable. This article is pretty amazing – it tells the story of America’s food through 40 maps (and a couple of charts, if we are picky). Spanning the … Continue reading 40 Maps That Explain Food in America
For our last agricultural history lecture, we were fortunate to receive a guest speaker from the department who is involved in a mammoth project of mapping the world’s food systems across time. What an interesting pastime, but what a challenge! This is what I referred to in my last post – one of the off-hand … Continue reading The Pre-Columbian Amazon – A Pristine Rainforest Or Intensive Settlement?
Man, sometimes you just have to catch yourself in moments of pure luck. Like today, after a morning spent in glorious summer weather hammering out the last formatting issues of my thesis, when I was able to attend a lunch seminar (who said there was no free lunch in economics?) with the inspiring Kate Raworth … Continue reading Review: Kate Raworth's 'Doughnut Economics'
On Friday, I was a participant in a seminar hosted by the Royal Swedish Academy of Forestry and Agriculture. The topic was the interlinkages between the newest scientific insights related to climate change and the future of agricultural and ‘green’ growth in general. My take-away thinking back with a bit of distance? We are great … Continue reading Review: "A changing climate – How does it affect Swedish possibilities of green growth?"