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Start here - A tour of the TABLE website

 

About TABLE

Read about TABLE's mission, approach, team and funders here.

 

Dialogue resources

TABLE has a community discussion platform where everyone is welcome to ask questions, post information, and start discussions about food sustainability.

You can also comment underneath any TABLE web page, and the latest comments will appear on the home page so that you can see what is happening across the entire site.

(TABLE’s Google Group, an email-based discussion group with ~500 members, has now migrated over to the community forum.)

TABLE is on social media: Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

 

Power project

TABLE's current work theme is: Power in the food system: what’s powering the future of protein? In this work theme we are using protein as a case study to explore some of the debates about power in the food system. We are looking at some of power’s obvious manifestations - governmental, geopolitical, or corporate power, for example. But there are also other less tangible forms of power we want to explore, which still have a profound influence on how different stakeholders think about food and what they want for the food system – the power of the cultural, moral, or educational norms that subtly shape our thinking, our lives and our food provisioning systems.

Outputs from this theme are available on the power webpage.

 

Scale project

TABLE’s first project - Scaling the system: Should the future of food be global or local? - took a closer look at the arguments, values and assumptions that underpin debates around globalisation and localisation in the food system, doing so through the involvement of a wide range of food systems stakeholders in a process of interviews, dialogue and discussion. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has intensified the attention to the scale at which livestock and other agricultural products are produced and shipped around the world. Though the goals of reducing hunger, mitigating the impacts of climate change, and building a fair food system future for all are shared by most people, the appropriate scale at which the food system should function – for example whether nations should increase food self-sufficiency or increase international trade, or if small- or large-scale agriculture is to be preferred, remains deeply contested.

While there are certainly strong differences in opinion, attention is often focused on the most extreme arguments within the debate, glossing over a broad and rich spectrum of moderate, nuanced and regional views that lie within the parameters of simplistic “localist” vs. “globalist” positions. 

Our key outputs from the scale project are:

  • What scale for the food system? Moving beyond polarised debates. This report reflects on the key areas of agreement and contention about scale in the food system
  • TABLE launch event: including a conversation between Charles Godfray (Oxford Martin School) and Pat Mooney (ETC group) on how localised or globalised the food system should be and reflections from the TABLE community
  • Podcast series: 14 conversations on scale, a recap episode summarising our findings and an episode where Pat Mooney and Charles Godfray debate the future of food systems.

 

Podcast

The Feed podcast engages in dialogue with those who are trying to transform the food system. Subscribe on your preferred platform (SpotifyApple podcastGoogle Podcast, etc.) and share the podcast with your friends and colleagues! Episodes released on Thursdays. For more information or to make suggestions for future podcast episodes, contact Matthew.

Recent episodes include:

 

TABLE explainers: free educational resources on food sustainability

Our TABLE explainers are peer-reviewed, free educational resources on key food systems concepts. They offer accessible introductions to the most important ideas for understanding food system sustainability. These were previously published on the Foodsource website as Building Blocks and Chapter. TABLE explainers include:

 

TABLE and FCRN projects and reports

The TABLE website hosts projects and reports previously published by the FCRN, which carried out integrative research into food systems and sustainability, as well as recent TABLE publications.

View other publications here, including:

 

Blog posts

Our blog series showcases viewpoints from across the TABLE community. Read the latest blog posts here. Blog posts that were previously published on the FCRN website are also featured on the TABLE website.

 

Letterbox

In each Letterbox series, people who hold differing points of view on a contentious food system topic exchange short letters, outlining their views and responding to the arguments of the other. Our first Letterbox series is Cultivating genetically modified organisms in Ethiopia. Three additional letterbox series are now available.

 

Research library

Each Fodder summary of a journal article, report or news story goes into our extensive research library, which contains thousands of summaries searchable by keyword and category. Each research library item is associated with keywords, which can be clicked on to view more related content. See for example deforestation.

Research library items include:

 

Glossary

Our Glossary gives definitions of terms that are used in resources on the TABLE website. We are in the process of linking each glossary item to relevant items from across the TABLE website.

 

Newsletter

TABLE’s weekly newsletter, Fodder, summarises the latest research, reports, news, job opportunities and events on food sustainability. We have over 4000 subscribers.

 

Jobs and events

Our jobs and events boards are regularly updated and advertise the latest food sustainability jobs, events, courses, competitions, funding, calls for abstracts and opportunities from other organisationsTo advertise an item of your own, please email us.

     

    Contact us

    If you have questions or suggestions, please get in touch. You can use the Drift app by clicking the speech bubble icon at the bottom right of your screen, or you can email us.

     

    FAQs

    What is the food system? What is the difference between food sovereignty and food security? How is the food system contributing to greenhouse gases and so to climate change? For these and other questions, please check out our FAQs.

    Planten