WEEK 1
Explain what a food system approach is and what makes it different from a supply chain or a value
chain approach.
Understand the key dynamics, diversity and sustainability challenges of food systems.
Distinguish different theoretical frameworks and methods to investigate food systems.
Understand why sustainability is a political and contested concept.
Lecture 1: IPES-Food (2015) Sustainable Food Systems
The challenge, therefore, is to produce a joined-up picture of food systems and their political economy, and to
do so in ways that reach across the scientific disciplines, and reach beyond the traditional bounds of the
scientific community.
SECTION 1 – A new analytical framework for sustainable food systems.
traces out the contours of a new analytical framework for sustainable food systems.
Such a framework can help to identify synergies and leverage points for implementing solutions aimed at
strengthening the resilience and sustainability of food systems as a whole. This analytical lens seeks to
illuminate the following aspects:
Webs of complex interactions and feedback loops in food systems;
Broad constellations of policies with the capacity to affect food systems;
Power relations and the political economy of food systems;
A multi-scale and holistic understanding of sustainability, as the benchmark of food systems reform.
Webs of complex interactions, synergies and feedback loops
The food systems lens also brings to light reinforcing and balancing feedback loops, tensions between the
different components and flows of food systems, and interactions that are cyclical, multilayered and multi-
scale.
Decisions cannot be neatly categorized as demand-driven or supply-driven; actors at the center of the web may
influence what occurs upstream and downstream.
Broad policy constellations
Food systems refer not only to market transactions, but also to the web of institutional and regulatory
frameworks that influence those systems.
The regulatory frameworks surrounding food safety, and the consumer concerns underpinning them, are
another key factor in shaping contemporary food systems.
Political economy and power relations
Power imbalances, often stemming from economic inequalities, are also a key factor in the way food systems
operate. Power relations at the intra-household and community level, and particularly those formed along
gender lines, can be just as crucial as economic factors in determining the way that food systems function.
The power held by private corporations is also a key factor in establishing dynamics within food systems, and
influencing the governance of those systems. Food systems analysis must acknowledge the resulting shifts in
the locus of power and decision-making, from farmers to retailers and traders, and from the state to the
corporate entities whose power within the food supply chain and intergovernmental policy regimes is growing.
Over recent decades, the focus of agriculture and food policy in many countries has been to encourage
producers to deliver large volumes of commodities for global supply chains, an approach that responded to the
incentives created by international trade and investment policies.
3 challenges facing food systems reform:
1. First, the different components of modern food systems have co-evolved so as to become mutually
reinforcing: each component is difficult to reform alone, and collectively, these intertwined and
entrenched interests represent an increasingly powerful roadblock to reform.
2. A second challenge concerns the task of food systems analysis itself. Detailed assessments of the
power relations, the knowledge politics and the political economy of food systems, from the national
to the global level, must take center stage.
3. The third challenge concerns the difficulties in engaging the actors currently holding dominant
positions in the food systems in this transformative process. Moreover, can seed, agrichemical and
agrifood corporations, as well as the large retailers, viably be engaged in reimagining a future where
business might be sustained, rather than exponentially expanded to meet shareholder profit demands,
and where assumed market and scale efficiencies may need to be questioned?
A multi-scale and holistic understanding of sustainability
,Sustainability must serve as the benchmark for food systems reform, and to reflect the nature of food systems,
it must be defined at the appropriate scales and dimensions. Other environmental impacts of food systems,
however, should be assessed at different geographical scales, and often at the regional scale of the ‘foodshed’.
Beyond environmental dimensions.
SECTION 2 – The new transdisciplinary science of sustainable food systems.
describes the principles of transdisciplinary science that must be applied in order to generate the
types of knowledge that can support the transition to sustainable food systems.
If a new analytical framework for sustainable food systems is to be employed, how should such an analysis
proceed?
- Dismantle boundaries between the disciplines.
- Remove siloes around knowledge.
- Co-produce knowledge with social actors
What is needed is not merely a transmission of knowledge from scientists to policymakers, but rather a multi-
directional flow of knowledge between the worlds of science, policy and practice, with each part of this nexus
informed by the other two. Scientists have realized the need to work in close collaboration with social actors,
and to rely on the specific kinds of knowledge that such actors embody. -> The challenge is now to apply these
approaches systematically to the analysis of sustainable food systems elaborated in Section 1, in order to forge
a new transdisciplinary science of sustainable food systems that fully taps the innovation and knowledge
emanating from the world of practice. This methodological transition is key for five reasons in particular:
1. Single discipline approaches are inappropriate for social-ecological systems.
2. Normative benchmarks and ethical choices cannot be defined by scientists alone.
The setting of normative benchmarks will often be inevitable, and must not be done on the basis of
evidence produced by scientists acting alone. Instead, it must stem from a process that reaches out
systematically beyond the scientific community to encompass various competing visions of what the
problem is, as well as engaging in joint deliberation on how to rank preferences and prioritize different
values. The concept of sustainability must itself be fleshed out through collaborative efforts in order to
reach a strong, collective vision of sustainable food systems to serve as the ultimate goal of reform
proposals.
3. Methodologies embody specific assumptions that must be subject to deliberation. Scientists must
therefore make explicit the assumptions and ethical choices embodied in the methodologies they
choose, allowing these to be challenged and subject to deliberation.
4. Proposals must be based on context-specific and adaptive knowledge in order to succeed.
Policy proposals and the scientific evidence underpinning them will only be relevant to the needs of
reform if they fully take into account the contexts in which they are meant to be implemented.
In short, legitimate policy proposals must go beyond ‘quick fixes’ in order to lead food systems to a
sustainable trajectory, and must be underpinned by scientific processes that involve social actors both
ex ante and ex post.
5. Social actors hold unique knowledge that can catalyze change. Science, policy and practice will
continue to inhabit worlds apart: policy-makers and social actors will continue to compete for
legitimacy, both will continue to ignore warnings from the scientific community, and scientists will
continue to deplore that their prescriptions fall on deaf ears.
SECTION 3 – Knowledge revolutions and persistent paradigms: surveying the landscape of food systems
initiatives.
Finally, it considers previous and ongoing attempts to address sustainable food systems at the
interface of science, policy and practice, in order to identify where initiatives have succeeded, where
challenges remain, and how these energies can be harnessed and combined to support the transition
to sustainable food systems.
Science for sustainability is gradually reinventing itself. The most ambitious transdisciplinary processes have
encountered major obstacles in their attempt to include diverse actors, framings and knowledge types.
The challenges are equally great in terms of applying a holistic food systems lens. Of the array of initiatives at
the science-policy interface, only a handful capture the totality of food systems.
A continued belief that technological innovation can substantially offset climate change continues to drive a
technology-focused research agenda.
,Adaptation to climate change, shifting consumption and waste practices, and reversing the degradation of
ecosystems, have been treated as challenges that sit alongside the primary goal of achieving food security, as if
they were not all inextricably connected.
CONCLUSION:
As new initiatives emerge at the interface of science, policy and practice, fragmentation is a major risk. The
time, money and attention of policymakers is splintered between the various forums and initiatives,
underpinned by their various claims to be the locus of food systems knowledge. The consequences of this
political fragmentation are made worse by the current thematic fragmentation, whereby the focus on its
different pieces prevents us from seeing the puzzle in its entirety. -> The challenge, then, is for these initiatives
to resist the forces pushing towards a narrowing of the analytical lens, and to work together to unify food
governance spaces.
Most of all, these initiatives must recall, reiterate and build on the findings that have emerged from
the most holistic and participatory processes to date. Indeed, the answer to fragmentation is for expert panels,
scientific assessments and research projects to create common reference points and baselines for sustainable
food systems
Food systems initiatives at the interface of science, policy and practice must therefore unify in their
diversity, together tracing out pathways to sustainable food systems. In doing so, conscious and
continued efforts will be needed to build on the transdisciplinary advances of recent decades. This will
ensure that the emerging science of sustainable food systems is informed by the immense knowledge
of practitioners, and appropriated by those to whom it seeks to be useful.
Lecture 2: Scoones (2016) The Politics of Sustainability and Development
Abstract: This review examines the relationships between politics, sustainability, and development. Following
an overview of sustainability thinking across different traditions, the politics of resources and the influence of
scarcity narratives on research, policy and practice are explored. This highlights the politics of transformations
and the way these play out under combinations of technology-led, market-led, state-led, and citizen-led
processes. In particular, this review points to the politics of alliance building and collective action for
sustainability and development. Transformations cannot be managed or controlled, but must draw on an
unruly politics, involving diverse knowledges and multiple actors. This review highlights how politics are
articulated through regimes of truth, rule, and accumulation, and how understanding such political processes
has implications for institutional and governance responses. The conclusion reflects on future research
priorities and the methodological stance required for an effective response to the political challenges of
sustainability and development.
Introduction: But what does this (terms of sustainability and all climate conferences) mean, and how should we
conceive of these much-used buzzwords of our time? How should different actors intervene in what are now
universally regarded as major local and global challenges? How can transformations to sustainability and
development be achieved?
This review focuses on the politics of these processes, drawing out conceptual issues from a diverse,
cross-disciplinary literature. It also focuses on the politics of knowledge—and how issues are framed,
definitions are arrived at, and goals are set—as well as the politics of interests— and how positions are
asserted, commercial-political interests are deployed, and alliances for or against change are formed.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF SUSTAINABILITY THINKING - a brief overview of sustainability thinking across different
traditions and its links to development.
First very technological concept of sustainability, that later has been challenged by the social sciences for a
more holistic notion.
Weak sustainability: natural and human-made capital are substitutable, as long as long-term utility and well-
being are maintained.
Strong sustainability: argue that stocks of natural capital need to be maintained.
Therefore, across these large areas of cross-disciplinary literature (only briefly reviewed here), we
have multiple versions of sustainability: broad and narrow, strong and weak, dark and light green, technical-
economic and political, and more. Some focus solely on environmental change, whereas others take the more
inclusive stance of Brundtland, connecting environmental, social, and economic dimensions. Which version of
sustainability, and so what direction of transformation, is chosen, is of course down to politics. This makes the
, politics of knowledge, interests, and wider political economy contexts central to sustainability thinking. These
are themes that are taken up in depth in the subsequent sections.
BEYOND SCARCITY: RETHINKING RESOURCES - I examine the politics of resources and the influence of the
narrative of scarcity on research, policy, and practice.
Much of the contemporary sustainability debate—from debates about limits to growth to the more recent
discussion of planetary boundaries —has been framed in terms of resource scarcity. Hard look at the political
relations implied in scarcity debates is urgently needed.
In this view, scarcity is not a fixed feature related to the amount of a commodity and its price in a global
market, but has to be understood politically in relation to historically specific patterns and forces of production,
distribution, and consumption. Resources are always constructed; they are generated through social and
political processes and produced by people in different place. Resources as assemblages with varying forms of
sovereignty are not just things, but are wrapped up in social and political relations.
This perspective highlights the importance of restructuring the relationships between resources, the state,
markets, and society. This requires paying attention to how resources are distributed. Scarcity for one person
may be abundance for another. Scarcities are generated not only through absolute limits, but also through
unequal access.
Ideas of social justice become the core of the debate. Resource politics thus becomes more individualized,
within a new politics of sustainable consumption.
TRANSFORMATIONS TO SUSTAINABILITY - This highlights an array of political issues, which are expanded upon
in a discussion of transformations and the way these play out under technology-led, market-led, state-led, and
citizen-led processes, as well as their combinations. The review emphasizes alliance building for sustainability
and development. Before this, the review focuses on understanding the contexts for transformation and the
politics that arise. Drawing on other typologies, four overlapping processes of transformation can be identified ,
each articulating different ways of theorizing transformations and their politics.
Technology-led transformations: Techno-optimists argue that science, technology and innovation would
release us from environmental limits (Ecomodernist Manifesto, have been widely criticized. By contrast, an
alternative technology-focused narrative emphasizes small-scale, appropriate, bottom-up grassroots approach
to innovation. A key argument of them is that for technology to be transformative and sustainable, the process
of technology generation must be accountable and democratized.
Market-led transformations: Market-led solutions aim to get the prices right, resulting in incentives to
conserve, protect, and assure sustainability. Environmental economics aimed to create policies that
internalized the externalities or generated green accounts that incorporated the costs of environmental
damage into national or company accounting. Markets for offsets (of carbon, biodiversity, habitats, even
species) have been created, and payments for ecosystem services schemes have been generated. The New
market relations are badged as the ‘green economy’.
State-led transformations: According to many commentators, sustainability and development are classic public
goods challenges and are not amenable to simple market solutions. Long-run, cross-border collective action
problems often require states to intervene, sometimes as part of a transnational response. However, states
have different histories, capacities, and politics in relation to the environment. State-led transformations
therefore take many forms. E.g. a green entrepreneurial state picks winners, provides funds for the long term
and ensures that green technologies become available on the market, following research and development
investment. Transformations to sustainability in weak states and ungoverned spaces will look significantly
different. And not all states are committed to the greening of economies and transformations to sustainability,
there may be other priorities. So, political economies and their historical contexts therefor really do matter.
Citizen-led transformations: link mobilization, network formation, and institution building for sustainability
transformations. These processes take multiple forms, and can intersect with state and market-led
transformations and, as discussed earlier, may link firmly to the promotion of alternative technologies
emerging from grassroots innovation. E.g. community-based natural resource management slolutions are
advocated in different parts of the world in response to failures of state-led conservation of resources. Green
parties have had limited impact outside the coalition politics of continental Europe. And environmentalism
sometimes remains the preserve of the relatively rich, urban middle class, linked increasingly to an
individualized politics around consumption, lifestyles, and everyday life. In addition, citizen-led actions also take
place outside organized movements. Indeed, sustainability may be part of normal, day-to-day livelihood
practices. Local knowledge important basis for building pathways to sustainability. Can globally connected,
citizen-led movements provide the basis for transformations to sustainability? Translating emancipatory
