The Future of Food in an Uncertain World

Event Date:
2020-07-23T16:00:00
2020-07-23T17:00:00
Event Location:
Connect via zoom
Speaker:
Lenore Newman (Univ. Fraser Valley)
Related Upcoming Events:
Intended Audience:
Undergraduate
Local Contact:

Douglas Scott

Event Information:

As an "accidental" food theorist, with both a science and social science background, I sometimes find myself struggling to understand a paradigmatic split within agricultural thought. On one side, technological advance has allowed us to cheaply and easily feed more people than ever before, but at a cost. The industrial food system is vulnerable, due to its reliance on cheap labour and its long supply chains. On the other side of the coin there are people calling for a more local, community-based food system, but it isn't clear how such a system would provide food year round, and how it would meet the demand of billions of consumers. And though more environmentally benign, so called "alternative" agriculture also struggles to sustainably source labour inputs. In this talk I discuss how agricultural technologies can be used to draw the best from both of these systems, but I also highlight that building a resilient agricultural system is also a social science problem; the public has a strongly held sense of what is "natural" and "green". Solving for the future of food is currently top of mind as we struggle with COVID-19 and as climate change looms over the horizon. I will close with some thoughts on our local agricultural industry, gleaned from my time on the Premier's Food Security Task Force. 

Add to Calendar 2020-07-23T16:00:00 2020-07-23T17:00:00 The Future of Food in an Uncertain World Event Information: As an "accidental" food theorist, with both a science and social science background, I sometimes find myself struggling to understand a paradigmatic split within agricultural thought. On one side, technological advance has allowed us to cheaply and easily feed more people than ever before, but at a cost. The industrial food system is vulnerable, due to its reliance on cheap labour and its long supply chains. On the other side of the coin there are people calling for a more local, community-based food system, but it isn't clear how such a system would provide food year round, and how it would meet the demand of billions of consumers. And though more environmentally benign, so called "alternative" agriculture also struggles to sustainably source labour inputs. In this talk I discuss how agricultural technologies can be used to draw the best from both of these systems, but I also highlight that building a resilient agricultural system is also a social science problem; the public has a strongly held sense of what is "natural" and "green". Solving for the future of food is currently top of mind as we struggle with COVID-19 and as climate change looms over the horizon. I will close with some thoughts on our local agricultural industry, gleaned from my time on the Premier's Food Security Task Force.  Event Location: Connect via zoom