In Week 4’s Tuesday Talks, Professor Monika Zurek (Governing Body Fellow, Environmental Change; Lead of the Food System Transformation Group at the Oxford Environmental Change Institute) looked at the global food system and why it’s so hard to reform. Paul Sullivan (General Manager for Reuben College’s catering partner, BaxterStorey) then showed us what change can look like in practice.
The global food system
Professor Zurek described the global food system as a ‘super wicked problem’. Simply, it’s very complex and there’s no single path to ‘solving’ it.
Food is tied to many other challenges, such as climate change, transport systems, and animal welfare. If we try to address one issue, it’s quickly tied to others. Change will need coordinated effort across all sectors.
We also thought about what ‘food security’ means. The UN defines this as a situation where everyone, at all times, has access to enough safe and nutritious food for a healthy life.
We tried to think of a country that was food secure, but no country fits the definition! Food is produced in large quantities globally, but it is unevenly distributed. There is an overproduction of food that is then exported to wealthier nations.
The global food system also directly harms global ecosystems and environments (which includes humans), and the intensification of agriculture in recent decades has fueled severe environmental harm. It’s not just about individual choices: the systems that we live within often determine the food-related options available to us.
The food on College tables
Paul Sullivan took the focus from global systems to day-to-day decisions at College. BaxterStorey crafts highly environmentally and socially sustainable food, and Paul gave us practical examples.
He went through the meal we were being served for the talk, which was packed full of locally sourced vegetables - even pudding(!) - and used produce that would otherwise be food waste because of its appearance. It included homemade focaccia, pinto bean houmous, tempura cod cheeks and burnt butter crumble.
Paul highlighted the need for creativity and ongoing effort to support more socially and environmentally sustainable food production and sourcing. We were glad to get a literal taste of this at dinner.
Where does responsibility fall?
Over our meal, we grappled with some big questions:
- Whose responsibility (the government, the private sector, or consumers) is it to put in the most work to change the global food system?
- Who should pay for that change (financially or otherwise)?
Many of us looked to governments to have a larger role in regulating the private sector, therefore changing the food choices available to consumers.
