Food Systems and Water

Food production leads to major global environmental change impacts and with increasingly affluent consumption patterns in light of a growing population, these impacts are expected to further increase in the near future. The world faces a massive challenge to increase the sustainability of the current food system and at the same time ensure healthy diets, increase food security, and support rural communities while addressing climate change and safeguarding biological diversity. Food systems are highly interlinked with water. To address this enormous challenge, a thorough understanding of the functioning of food systems and its linkage to water is required, ranging from the production of food to the choices underlying consumption patterns and the value chains that connect these.

We will discuss the different components of a food system by focusing on water and its interactions and feedback in the food system. Besides aiming at an understanding of the food system as a whole, the course will address the ways in which food systems vary across the world and how they change with time, ranging from local subsistence systems to globally connected supply/value chains.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

By the end of this course, students will understand:

• existing concepts available to represent food systems;
• components of food systems and their interactions with water;
• the role of food production through land use and water use;
• the role of supply- and value-chains in the food system;
• how food systems connect producing and consuming regions, often over large distances and with substantial sustainability impacts;
• different methods and approaches for assessing and evaluating food system sustainability related to water.

ABOUT INSTRUCTORS

Dr. Christian Levers, Assistant Professor at the Department of Environmental Geography at the Institute for Environmental Studies from Vrije Universiteit

MsC Ana Clara Cassanti, Junior Lecturer in Sustainability at the Department of Water and Climate Risk at the Institute for Environmental Studies from Vrije Universiteit

CERTIFICATION

This course is a part of the certificate program named ‘WE are Water Eduction (Myanmar)’. Learn more about the program here.