An 8 min interview with Ken walker, one of the co-editors of of Environmental Policy Failure: The Australian Story. He discusses why policies have failed and what needs to be done.

Australian Environmental Policy Failures - Ken Walker

Global biodiversity is severely threatened, including that which we depend upon for food as the 2019 landmark report on the State of the World’s Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture showed.  The Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (CGRFA)at the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation is the only permanent intergovernmental body that specifically addresses biological diversity for food and agriculture. Here, the Commission’s Secretary, Dr Irene Hoffmann discusses what this biodiversity is and what it means for food and agriculture, its gender dimensions and what needs to be done to address this dramatic decline.

Safeguarding the biodiversity necessary for food and agriculture - Dr Irene Hoffmann

The latest, massive, 3675 page report on Mitigation of Climate Change from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was published on 4 April 2022. Dr Jo House, Reader in Environmental Science and Policy at the University of Bristol, is a lead author of chapter 7 on Agriculture, forestry and other land use (AFOLU), discusses some of the findings in this interview. Now is the time to act on these findings.

Agriculture, forestry & land use role in mitigating climate change - interview with Dr Jo House

Interview with Pavan Sukhdev, the study leader of the study leader of The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) project at the Sustainable Food Trust's conference on True-Cost Accounting in Food and Farming, 6 December 2013.

Pavan Sukhdev on true cost accounting and the biggest corporate free lunch

People don’t eat nutrients but foods. A simplistic, reductionist and outdated focus on nutrients obscures the reality of people’s diets and lifestyles on health and plays into the hands of the food industry suggests Dr Gyorgy Scrinis, Associate Professor of Food Politics and Policy in the School of Agriculture and Food, University of Melbourne. In this conversation he explores the reasons why the dominant way malnutrition is divided into three apparently separate types is unhelpful. He suggests it leads to a misguided focus on nutrients rather than the complex factors shaping people’s diets. He discusses the role of ultra processed foods promoted by major food industry players play in undermining people’s health and warns against the new focus on the gut microbiome succumbing to a nutrient reductionism.

It's time to talk foods and diets not nutrients and rethink malnutrition says Dr Gyorgy Scrinis

Dr Vivian Ribeiro explains how combining a wide range of data can make transparent where commodities, such as soya, palm oil, beef and timber, are going from and to, who is trading them and their links to deforestation.

Trase - Making commodity flows transparent and their role in deforestation

Prof Guliz Ger on changing consumption for sustainable societies

In this interview Nick Weir, one of the founders of the Open Food Network in the UK, explains what it is, how it works and why it matters for producers, citizens, a fair more resilient food future and greater food security.

The Open Food Network aims for shorter fairer more resilient supply chains - Nick Weir

UK economist Henry Leveson-Gower, speaking personally, discusses why different economic models, infrastructure and cooperation among farmers is needed for agroecology and regenerative farming to flourish. He is also working on getting trials going of local food currencies as a way to help tackle food poverty.

Agroecology needs new economic model, infrastructure & local food systems - Henry Leveson-Gower

Dan Parker, CEO of Veg Power,  brings his 25 years experience in food advertising and marketing to the challenging task of creating a culture where eating veg is the norm for primary school children. He shares his experiences and Veg Powers of what works and doesn't work for children and parents as well as farmers, the conundrums they face and ends this interview with a shocking story and key question for all politicians in England and other countries where children can't get enough to eat.

How to get children eating more vegetables - Dan Parker, CEO Veg Power

Emile Frison is senior advisor to the Agroecology coalition, a recently founded group. In this interview he explains their aim to make agroecology mainstream in transforming food systems, the core principles that make agroecology a whole food system approach, how a study of a million Indian farmers shows this approach can improve both productivity and returns for farmers. He also discusses the push back from vested interests as more and more people recognise it as the way forward.

Coalition aims to Make Agroecology mainstream says Emile Frison

In these two talks Harriet first looks at food system transformation from the perspective of food regimes. She defines food regimes and their transitions, then discusses them since since the mid 19th century, and the current contradictions that may lead to a new regime. In her second talk, draws on the example of Southern Ontario. She discusses how in today’s rapidly urbanising world, food systems need to be reconfigured on afro-ecological grounds and reflect new urban, cosmopolitan realities.

2. From food regimes to embedding food in territories - the case of Southern Ontario, by H Friedmann

In these two talks Harriet first looks at food system transformation from the perspective of food regimes. She defines food regimes and their transitions, then discusses them since since the mid 19th century, and the current contradictions that may lead to a new regime. In her second talk, she draws on the example of Southern Ontario. She discusses how in today’s rapidly urbanising world, food systems need to be reconfigured on afro-ecological grounds and reflect new urban, cosmopolitan realities.

1. Food regimes and their transformation, by Harriet Friedmann

Dr Devinder Sharma is an Indian food and trade policy analyst. He trained as an agricultural scientist (he holds a Master’s in Plant Breeding & Genetics), became a journalist then left to research on policy issues concerning sustainable agriculture, biodiversity and intellectual property rights, environment and development, food security and poverty, biotechnology and hunger, and the implications of the free trade paradigm for developing countries. In this conversation he discusses the devastation facing Indian farmers, the need for a shift in farming practices and public policy to ensure their future and how he and the late M S Swaminathan worked to keep intellectual property rights out of farming.

Devinder Sharma on the devastation faced by Indian farmers and a potential solution

An interview with the founder and chairman of Company Shop, John Marren, and what led him from developing Company Shop to setting up Community Shop.

From Company Shop to Community Shop - an interview with John Marren

Martin Palmer, secretary general of the Alliance of religions and conservation, urged the Extinction and Livestock conference in London on October 5-6 2017 to recognise we are working with a false story that we are the most important species. He sees the need to extend compassion to all species and recognise humans have no right to extinguish others.  He also discusses how the religions could use their money to influence more sustainable practices.

Forget the false story that humans are the most important species - Martin Palmer

As the UK comes to terms with its future outside the EU, Elsa Firbanks, who has worked in the business of exporting food from the UK for many years, discusses  what is actually involved in doing so. As in so many things the devil is in the details - as those struggling to figure out Britain's future outside the EU are finding.

Trading food - it's harder than you think and then there's Brexit! - interview Elsa Fairbanks

This is one of a set of interviews with some of the speakers at the Global Gastroeconomy Summit in Istanbul on 29th March 2018. These are part of my blog about the summit. Please listen to them in the order they are embedded in the blog.

Marisa Henderson - UNCTAD, gastronomy and the creative economy

In the first of two interviews, Kazim Gurel, president and CEO of Kutas Food Group takes us on a tour of the world's biggest oregano processing facility in Izmir, Turkey. In the tour he describes the process by which herbs are cleaned and processed ready for use by other businesses, whether in consumer packages or by the food and catering industries.

Take a tour of the world's largest oregano processing plant with Kazim Gurel

In this second of two interviews, Kazim Gurel, president and CEO of Kutas Food Group discusses how the business started, what it does today, the challenges of  avoiding adulteration of products and various trends.

How Kutas Tarim became the world largest oregano processor - interview with CEO Kazim Gurel

Prof Phil Haygarth of the Lancaster Environment Centre explains why phosphorous is important for food production, where it comes from, some of the problems with it and the risks that much phosphorus that’s locked up in the soil might, with our changing climate, end up in the sea to the detriment of marine life

Phosphorus - good for crops, bad for marine life:  an interview with Prof Phil Haygarth

In this interview, Jacob Phelps of the Lancaster Environment Centre stresses the importance of the huge diversity of tomato varieties in Mexico, why they need to be saved, shared and their role in improving commecially grown tomatoes in the face of climate change.
Photo: Tomato of one of the "riñón" varieties, collected on a farm in Oaxaca and growing in a greenhouse for agronomic studies. Credit: G.Toledo

Saving and celebrating Mexico's many endemic tomoato varieties - Jacob Phelps

Greg Garrett from the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) talks to me at the Chatham House conference on a Sustainable Food Future about GAIN's work to help finance nutritious food businesses, especially in Africa.

Financing for nutrition businesses in the developing world - an interview with Greg Garrett

In this interview, Andrew Whitley brings us up to date with what's happened on his farm in the Scottish Borders and the Scotland the Bread campaign following the death of his wife in 2018. I visited the farm in 2015 and you can take a tour of it on my blog at the time: https://geofftansey.wordpress.com/2015/10/09/changing-the-foodsystem-with-bread-and-agroforestry-andrew-whitley-in-the-scottish-borders/

Scotland the Bread moves on with Andrew Whitley

One of the world's leading experts on potatoes, Prof Anton Havercort, author of the 'Potato Handbook - Crop of the Future' discusses potatoes' importance in the world today and prospects for their future in the face of climate change and new genetic technologies.

Potatoes - crop of the future says Anton Haverkort

Joyce D'Silva, emeritus ambassador for Compassion in World Farming (CIWF), discusses how their work has developed over the years, its impact on how animals are kept and treated as sentient beings in this interview. She also discusses the health, climate change and the impacts of new approaches to eating are having and CIWF's work on supporting regenerative agriculture in which livestock are treated humanely.

Compassionate meat eating - less and better respecting sentient animals says Joyce D'Silva

Bob Orskov is a livestock researcher who’s worked with small farmers around the world for decades. He looks at farming holistically to help small farmers and travels extensively to promote sustainable, resource efficient farming systems.

Interview with Dr Bob Orskov

What we eat and drink has a history. And when it comes to some ubiquitous things like sugar and coffee, as well as plantation-based commodities, slavery lies at the heart of that history. In this interview historian, professor James Walvin, discusses the role slavery has played in creating today's food systems.

Slavery lies behind today's diets says historian James Walvin

Dr Clare O'Grady Walshe discusses the findings of her research into seed sovereignty in the face of globalisation and the dangers for the world involved in its loss, in particular for poorer farmers in developing countries. She contrasts how new laws were made in Kenya and Ethiopia and the different outcomes for the balance between commercial and farmers interests. She see lessons  European and North American countries could learn, the need to untangle the complex international regimes and restrictive rules and notes the importance of conservation through use for future seed and food security.

Seed Sovereignty under threat yet needed more than ever - says Dr Clare O'Grady Walshe

Food insecurity has increased greatly during the COVID-19 pandemic and was rising before it. Creating food security for all is a key challenge that the high-level panel of experts (HLPE) of the Committee on Food Security of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation has been grappling with. In this conversation, HLPE member, Professor Jennifer Clapp, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Global Food Security and Sustainability at the University of Waterloo, discusses the meaning of food security (0-10'30"), the impact of COVID-19 (10'30"-16'12"), issues arising for the Food Systems Summit (16'12"-25'08") and the challenges to current trade, finance,  industry,  research, structures posed by the need to achieve food security for all and reach the Sustainable Development Goal of Zero Hunger and achieve sustainable farming systems.

How to create food security post COVID-19 and reach zero hunger - Jennifer Clapp

Curator, Food Systems Academy. Working for fair, healthy and sustainable food systems

Popular tracks by Geoff Tansey