Sustainable Food Systems Thinking

3 units

Planning a more sustainable future and an equitable and heathy present requires us to critically examine the current food system and to understand the key challenges it faces in a world of rapid urbanization, population growth, and climate change. What does the future of food look like, and how are food visionaries working to change that future now? In this course, students will learn to articulate the multiple facets of the food system and how they intersect with frameworks of sustainability, history, health and nutrition, policy, technology, culture, food activism, and biodiversity. We examine our own personal food behaviors to illuminate challenges at the individual level so that we can begin to scale up solutions. We will study the approach of change makers in this field and look at ways to integrate food-systems thinking into multiple aspects of both personal life and professional practice. This course fulfills the Social Science General Education requirement for University College undergraduate students.