Sustainable Food Systems

FaculteitFaculty of Geosciences

NiveauMaster

Studiejaar2026-2027

Beschrijving

Course goals

Please note: the information in the course manual is binding.

This interdisciplinary course provides you with a holistic perspective of the food system, with a focus on understanding the interlinkages between local food production systems, the wider global food system and local and global sustainability challenges. After completion of the course, the student is able to:

Critically discuss and reflect on current themes and debates related to (sustainable) food systems
Understand and map complex food systems at multiple levels and scales (from farm to fork)
Analyse how current food systems impact the natural and social environment, and how those impacts are related to sustainability issues
Identify leverage points for solutions to these sustainability issues from a systems perspective
Communicate options for a transition to sustainable food systems to policy makers

Content

Our current globalized food system is often at the core of the pressure on sustainable development goals such as life on land, life below water, and water and sanitation, while failing to meet goals such as zero hunger and no poverty.
Understanding the causes of the current unsustainable situation and developing solutions to stimulate a transition towards sustainable food systems requires a thorough understanding of the food system at various scales. Current sustainability challenges of the food system are related to the production and consumption of food, changing economic markets, changing socio-cultural relations with food and the private and public policies that regulate change in each of these areas. These different components of the food system are interdependent across regions, sectors and scales. This complexity requires students and practitioners to develop a systemic perspective on the food system and identify how they can leverage change in the food system that achieves synergies across SDGs.
In this course, you will learn about the complexity of these globalized food systems and how these systems are related to sustainability issues from a broad interdisciplinary range of lecturers from UU and guest lecturers from outside academia. In interaction with the lecturers and fellow students, you will critically reflect on current food system themes and sustainability issues and analyse these issues in depth for a food system of your choice. For your food system you will furthermore design solutions to a sustainability challenge from a systems perspective and present those solutions in a scientific report and summary for policy makers.

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