Shaking up the Food System

If the COVID-19 pandemic has shown us one thing, it is that we live in an interlinked world. Our global food system is part of this cross-continental web of relations and interdependencies. But how resilient is the global food system against not only unexpected shocks such as COVID-19, but also long-term crises such as climate change? Is it perhaps high time for a shake-up of the global food system?
Led by moderator Aldith Hunkar, The Dutch Research Council (NWO) and De Balie take you on a trip across Africa and South (East) Asia to show how farmers, businesses and policy-makers give their food systems a little shake.

Writer and journalist Jaap Tielbeke, author of the book Een beter milieu begint niet bij jezelf (2020), will wrap up the event by shining his light on the pressing question of responsibility: what is and isn’t yours as an individual, what is your place in the larger system and where can you exert pressure?

Panelists

• Katie Minderhoud currently works as part of the Knowledge Management and Learning team in the Solidaridad Europe office. Her particular expertise is on the landscape approach, with a thematic focus on land governance and food security.
• Nicky Pouw, associate professor in the Economics of Wellbeing at the Governance and Inclusive Development group at the University of Amsterdam. She is the author of Wellbeing Economics. How and why economics should change (2020) where she puts forward a new framework that puts human wellbeing at the centre, instead of economic growth.
• Lia van Wesenbeeck, Director of the Amsterdam Centre for World Food Studies at VU University, Amsterdam. Research interests include the analysis of food dynamics, profiling vulnerable groups, and the inclusion of social and biophysical aspects in economic models. She leads international research consortia, and serves on various national and international boards.

On the ZOOM-wall we travel across the globe with Dr. ir. Flora Chadare (University of Abomey‐Calavi, Benin), Richard Yeboah ( MDF Training & Consultancy Ghana) and Dr Francesco Rampa (head of programma think tank ECDPM).

The event will be kicked off by Corinne Lamain, Senior Policy Adviser at NWO-WOTRO Science for Global Development, where she coordinates the Food & Business Research programme.

This is an online event which can be watched online for free. The livestream will appear here 5 minutes before start time.

Background

These insights and innovations are the results of 75 research projects on food and nutrition security conducted in 27 countries in the past seven years. The output consists of insights about, for instance, the role of indigenous and local foods when confronted with fragility of global value chains due to acute shocks like COVID-19. Or innovations for circular and climate smart agriculture in response to the long-term crisis that climate change is.