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Feed: a food system podcast

    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.

    Season 3 - Should food systems be more natural? (episode 55-) 
    Has food on our plates become... unnatural? Technology has completely changed how we make and eat food. In our next season, we speak with scientists, farmers, technologists and philosophers about how natural our food systems should be. What is a natural farm? a natural diet? a natural landscape? And does 'natural' actually tell us anything about what's good for people and the planet?

    Season 2 - Power in the food system (episode 19-39) 
    Who decides what ends up on your plate? In the second season of Feed, we will explore what power in food systems looks like, who holds that power, who should have more or less power, and how various actors, from governments to eaters, exert their power to shape the food systems that we all depend upon. We speak to farmers, activists, corporations, researchers, media and more.

    Season 1 - Scale in the food system (episode 1-16) 
    Is a local or global food system more sustainable? How big should a farm be? Our first season asked what is the right scale of the food system exploring it through multiple levels - spatial, economic, moral and temporal. You can listen back to the season and let us know what you think on our community forum. This podcast is produced and operated by SLU as part of the ongoing work of TABLE.

     

     

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    Matthew Kessler

    Matthew has worked the last fifteen years working in and around food systems - on farms and in kitchens, labs and classrooms, and most recently in recording studios - to better understand and communicate what is a 'good’, just and resilient food future. Matthew has been with TABLE since 2020, sitting in Uppsala at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. In 2021, he began he hosting, producing, and editing Feed. He has spent five years working on and managing farms, received a BSc in Environmental Studies from Warren Wilson College and a MSc in Agroecology from Norwegian University of Life Sciences. He has a particular interest in what catalyses food systems transformations (e.g. policies, markets, movements, etc.) and who is being served by those changes.

    Samara Brock (Season 1 and 2)

    Samara Brock has worked for over fifteen years in sustainable food systems as a planner for the City of Vancouver, implementing agricultural projects in Cuba and Argentina, and as a program officer at the Tides Canada Foundation funding organizations working on complex conservation, climate change, and food system initiatives. She holds a master's in Community and Regional Planning from the University of British Columbia, and a master’s in Food Culture from the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Italy. She is currently pursuing a PhD at the Yale School of Environment where her research focuses on organizations attempting to transform the global food system.

    We want to hear from you!

    Please let us know what you think of the show. We'd like to hear who you think we should be talking to, and what food system debates you would like us inquire about.

    Do you agree or disagree with something we've presented something on the show? Or do you think a different framing would be more appropriate? Please let us know.

    You can record yourself in a quiet room or send us an e-mail to podcast@tabledebates.org and we may bring your perspective into a future episode.

    The logo for Feed, a food systems podcast by TABLE.

    Episodes

    Ep16: Charles Godfray and Pat Mooney debate the future of food systems

    At what scale should future food systems operate when it comes to growing sustainable food, reducing biodiversity loss, and employing different technologies?

    Ep15. What scale for the food system? (Season 1 Recap)

    Are local or global food systems more sustainable and resilient, and is that even the right question to ask?

    Ep14: Elin Röös, Johan Karlsson and Robin Harder on exploring values in food systems models

    How do our values influence what we ask from and how we interpret food systems models?

    Ep13: Felipe Roa-Clavijo on "Feeding the village, nation, or world"

    What underlies the different Colombian agri-food systems narratives to feed the village, the nation or the world?

    Ep12: Sophia Murphy on "Getting the global rules right"

    What needs to change in order for international food trade to meet the different needs of nations and peoples across the globe?

    Ep11: Klara Fischer on why "technology is not scale-neutral"

    Why do smallholders in sub-Saharan Africa adopt, adapt and reject different technologies?

    Vincent Ricciardi on Challenging Assumptions

    How much of the world's food is actually produced by smallholders? Do small or large farms have higher yields? Vinny digs into the data...

    Ep9: Jessica Duncan on "We eat, drink and breathe food policy"

    Should we always be seeking consensus in food system debates?

    Ep8: Brent Loken on "It's not so simple"

    How can shifting diets reduce biodiversity loss and why we shouldn't bet on a single solution to transform food systems

    Ep7: Elena Lazos Chavero on Scale, Seeds and Sovereignty

    Who benefits from traditional "super foods" being sold in high-end grocery stores and what does the food sovereignty movement in Mexico stand for today?

    Ep6: Jamie Lorimer on the Probiotic Planet

    How can the tiniest of actors, microbes, potentially have huge impacts on food and other systems?

    Ep5: Jennifer Clapp on Commodifying Food

    Has the increasing commodification of food and financialization of the food system left us more vulnerable to food crises?

    Ep4: Sahil Shah on Scaling Seaweed

    What role can seaweed and different technologies play in building a resilient food system? What are the tradeoffs when scaling?

    Ep3: Lauren Baker on Connecting Local and Global Scale to Place

    How do people and organisations work to transform the food system at both the local and global scale?

    Ep2: Rob Bailey on Chokepoints and Vulnerabilities

    Is the system of global food trade, where 25% of all agricultural products are traded internationally, a resilient or vulnerable one?

    Ep1: Ken Giller on the Food Security Conundrum

    Why does agricultural research often fall short of addressing food insecurity challenges in sub-Saharan Africa?

    Introducing Feed and our first theme: Scale in the food system

    We introduce our first theme: Scale in the food system, and its spatial, economic, temporal and moral dimensions.