• Podcast episode

    Hunger on our doorstep (Part 2)

  • Banner for the alternative protein webinar with a small model globe, underneath a magnifying glass.
    Resource

    Event Recording: Alternative proteins and better food futures - Environmental Dimensions

  • Provided by Frederico Andreotti for his Essay on Games on TABLE, features images from WUR Games Hub, sent 1 May 2025
    Essay

    Games at TABLE: A new platform for food system serious games

  • An aerial photo of multicoloured agricultural fields. Image by Jean Wimmerlin via Unsplash.
    Project

    Reckoning with Regeneration: AGILE research sprint

TABLE

TABLE works with food system stakeholders to explore the future of food. We focus on the ways in which scientific evidence and social values inform often conflicting visions and arguments for necessary change.
About Us

Themes

Farming

Under what kinds of systems is our food produced? What ideas and contexts drive these systems and how do these systems affect the people and ecosystems involved in them?

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Consumption

What forces interact in the market to influence the availability and accessibility of certain food products? How do consumers view their own power in food supply chains?

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Politics & Paradigms

How does the way governments and other institutions approach food security and sovereignty shape food landscapes?

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Environmental & Social Impacts

What impacts does our food system have on ecosystems, society and the planet? How can we quantify or measure these impacts?

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Food System Transformation

What does the future of the food system look like? Which actors are driving transformation and what visions do they each have for that future?

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Meat, Dairy & Livestock

What is the role of dairy and livestock in our food system? What are the social and environmental impacts of this role and what does a 'good' future look like for animals, people and the planet?

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Our Latest Writing

Provided by Frederico Andreotti for his Essay on Games on TABLE, features images from WUR Games Hub, sent 1 May 2025
Food systems thinking
Food systems thinking / Essay
Games at TABLE: A new platform for food system serious games
Games at TABLE will soon be launched as the first food-systems-focused serious games library to encourage future project collaborations and support food system education, research, and broader transformation. Serious game expert Federico Andreotti provides an overview of serious games around farming and food systems, with three examples of existing serious games designed by students at Wageningen University.Federico is a lecturer and researcher at Wageningen University. He is the game expert of the CiFoS research team, and coordinator of the WUR Games Hub that connects multiple researchers that use games to bridge science and society. Federico’s PhD project was on the co-design and application of serious games for the sustainability transition of farming and food systems; his current research and education focus is on games design and play and participatory research methods to explore futures farming and food systems. Via “Games at TABLE” he aims to foster an international community connecting game researchers and designers across the globe, encompassing social sciences, natural sciences, and design. These partnerships may serve to develop effective strategy games and engage players with agency: decision makers who play and take action to transform systems.https://www.doi.org/10.56661/d1243efe
Making Nature Count: How should we value nature in our food systems?
Politics & Paradigms / Explainer
Natural systems are being degraded at an unprecedented rate, with rapid loss of biodiversity and an average temperature rise of almost 1.5˚C on pre-industrial levels in 2023. Most economists believe that these problems have arisen because the value of nature is not sufficiently considered in policy and economic decision-making, but within the field, different economists disagree about how to express nature's value. This has consequences especially within our food systems.https://www.doi.org/10.56661/d2feedad
Coca and asparagus: How a US drug policy led to soaring water scarcity in Peru
Water management / Essay
Intrigued by a news story about smuggled cocaine seized in a shipment of asparagus, researcher Azam Lashkari explored an unlikely connection between a booming agro-industry in Peru and an international effort to control cross-continental drug trade.Azam is a postdoctoral scientist and mathematical agroecologist at the John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK. Her research is concerning the role of climate change on food production. She uses data and mathematical models to explain and predict crop response to increasing temperature and drought. Beside her main research, she is interested in socio-economic aspects of climate change and human behaviour on environment.
Moving forward, looking back: Indigenous agriculture in Guatemala
Agri-food system / Essay
Growing crops in the mountainous rural areas of Guatemala presents unique challenges, and farmers there rely on a mix of Indigenous practice and new experimental treatments of bio-inputs, infused with micro-organisms. Nathan Einbinder writes about the farmers he met in Guatemala who are innovating collaboratively within their communities to instil resilience and sustainability on their farms.Nathan Einbinder is a lecturer and researcher specializing in agroecology and food systems. Since 2009, he has worked with Indigenous farmers and organizations in the Maya-Achí territory of Guatemala, on issues related to community development, traditional knowledge and soil health, and more recently, homemade biological inputs. This research was conducted while the author was working at the University of Plymouth.Also published in Spanish.https://www.doi.org/10.56661/cf0704b0
Out of sight, out of mind? Addressing the invisibility of aquatic foods in food systems debates
Aquaculture / Essay
Blue food is too often left out of debates on food systems and food security. The physical inaccessibility of aquatic creatures, habitat and resources create their cultural invisibility - meaning their role in solutions goes unexplored, and key issues unaddressed. Learning from the Blue Humanities, IIED Researcher Giulia Nicolini calls on us to think blue food back into food systems - and so into their transformation. This essay draws on IIED’s ‘What about seafood?’ paper and work on aquatic foods. Giulia Nicolini is a researcher at the International Institute for Environment & Development (IIED). She works at the intersection of food and environmental issues, including blue foods and their role in the future of the UK food system. Giulia is also a PhD student in Anthropology at the University of Exeter, based in the Centre for Rural Policy Research. Her doctoral research explores how taste and demand for seaweed as a food are changing in the UK.

Podcasts

Debates about the future of food have become more polarised than ever - and little attention is paid to why people hold genuinely different views. This podcast aims to fill this gap by exploring the evidence, worldviews, and values that people bring to global food system debates.

Projects