About the Seminar

Background

Changes in food production and consumption are key to limiting global warming, soil erosion and biodiversity loss on the one hand and human health on the other. The necessary transformation processes are complex and require both a food system perspective aligning sustainable food production systems with healthy diets and coherent food policies across the different dimensions of agriculture, environment and human health. Thus, we face two societal challenges

to make food production more sustainable and food consumption more healthy, and
to go through a political process of transforming the food system.

These societal challenges of redesigning food systems have important implications for social scientists (including economics). Thus, a thorough rethinking of the role of research in food system transformation is a crucial step.

Objectives

During the EAAE Seminar, we want to offer a platform to reflect the recent contributions of social science to as well as the role of social sciences in this transformation process. Furthermore, an opportunity is given to exchange on the potentials and limitations of different research approaches. The seminar covers theoretical contributions as well as empirical quantitative and qualitative analyses, both on the meta level reflecting the role of research as well as research on more sustainable food systems. The seminar is relevant to the scientific community and to food system stakeholders and decision makers. The seminar will be based on oral presentations in plenary sessions by invited speakers and in parallel sessions with contributed papers.

Topics

Design and facilitation of food system transitions.
Impact assessment of food system transformation.
Interests and values of different types of actors, power imbalances, and the scale dynamics of trans formation processes.
Novel ways of using and combining policy instruments in policy mixes for food system transformation.
Governance approaches to foster food system transformation.
Linking research on food system transformation with capacity building, education and citizen focused co-learning.
Institutional analysis for the identification of driving forces.
Efficiency and effectiveness of food system transformation strategies and food policies.
System approaches, addressing the relations between activities, actors, and outcomes related to food and their evolving patterns in changing environments.
Nexus approaches, addressing the impact that intervention in one sector, e.g. food, could generate on other sectors e.g. environment or health.
Future-oriented approaches, addressing co-benefits and trade-offs, risks, and opportunities associated with food system transformation.
Reflections and experiences on the interactions between agricultural research and society.
Transdisciplinary approaches, implying the enlargement of the areas of overlap and synergies with other disciplines.