Shaking up the Food System

This is an online event. You can watch along online for free. The livestream will appear here 5 minutes before start time. Would you like to make a contribution for watching? We have made donating easy with iDeal!

If the COVID-19 pandemic has shown us one thing, it is that we live in an interlinked world. Our global food system is part of this cross-continental web of relations and interdependencies. But how resilient is the global food system against not only unexpected shocks such as COVID-19, but also long-term crises such as climate change? Is it perhaps high time for a shake-up of the global food system?

Led by moderator Aldith Hunkar, The Dutch Research Council (NWO) and De Balie take you on a trip across Africa and South (East) Asia to show how farmers, businesses and policy-makers give their food systems a little shake. The evening will build on the findings of a synthesis study on the results of he 75 Food & Business Research projects, in particular the article on ‘African Indigenous Foods’ and the article on ‘Opportunities and Barriers of Circular Agriculture’.

Writer and journalist Jaap Tielbeke, author of the book Een beter milieu begint niet bij jezelf (2020), will wrap up the event by shining his light on the pressing question of responsibility: what is and isn’t yours as an individual, what is your place in the larger system and where can you exert pressure?

Our panelists are:

• Katie Minderhoud currently works as Learning Advisor Solidaridad Europe office. Her particular expertise is on the landscape approach, with a thematic focus on land governance and food security. 
• Nicky Pouw, associate professor in the Economics of Wellbeing at the Governance and Inclusive Development group at the University of Amsterdam. She is the author of Wellbeing Economics. How and why economics should change (2020) where she puts forward a new framework that puts human wellbeing at the centre, instead of economic growth.
• Wijnand van IJssel is a senior policy officer at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He specializes in the domain of food & nutrition security, rural development and environmental management in the framework of Dutch development cooperation.
• Rob Lubberink worked as a postdoctoral researcher on the GCP4 OSMARE project of Wageningen University. He is now an independent researcher. He currently works together with local support organizations in Malawi to develop a remote rapid response intervention to stimulate smallholder resilience in times where social distancing is the “new normal”.

On our ZOOM-wall we travel across the globe with Dr. ir. Flora Chadare (University of Abomey‐Calavi, Benin), Richard Yeboah (MDF Training & Consultancy Ghana), Julius Caesar Ssemyalo (Project Manager Uganda, Solidaridad Eastern and Central Africa), Charity Chelangat (Oxfam Uganda) and  Dr Francesco Rampa (head of programme think tank ECDPM).

The event will be kicked off by Corinne Lamain, Senior Policy Adviser at NWO-WOTRO Science for Global Development, where she coordinates the Food & Business Research programme.

Background
The evening will build on the findings of a synthesis study on the results of the 75 Food & Business Research projects, in particular the article on ‘African Indigenous Foods’ and the article on ‘Opportunities and Barriers of Circular Agriculture’. The output consists of insights about, for instance, the role of indigenous and local foods when confronted with fragility of global value chains due to acute shocks like COVID19.  Or innovations for circular and climate smart agriculture in response to the long-term crisis that climate change is.