Postgraduate Course: Future Food Systems (Online) (EFIE11491)
Course Outline
| School | Edinburgh Futures Institute |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
| Course type | Online Distance Learning |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | The course will explore the importance of sustainable and resilient food systems for achieving healthy people, environments, and animals. Students will be encouraged to focus on food systems using a systems approach that connects individual food practices with impacts on environmental sustainability, human nutrition, and animal welfare. |
| Course description |
This course will introduce students to the vital importance of food systems to a sustainable and habitable planet. Food systems represent complex networks linking natural resource systems with socioeconomic systems that drive supply and demand.
In this course, students will examine key stages of the food system: production, aggregation, processing, distribution, consumption, and waste. We will critically reflect on the challenges of provisioning a growing population and their consumption demands, and the impacts of agricultural practices on the environment. A systems perspective is adopted to explore the multiple connections between activities of food production, processing, distribution and consumption, and the biophysical and socio-economic drivers of change. Throughout the course students will be encouraged to focus on themselves as actors within the food system and how their consumption practices are shape and are shaped by the wider food system. A range of geographical and culture contexts will be explored to identify challenges and opportunities for transformation of food system sustainability and health.
Reflective activities will be present in the first assessment and throughout the workshops to explore.
Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI) - Online Hybrid Course Delivery Information:
The Edinburgh Futures Institute will teach this course in a way that enables online and on-campus students to study together. To enable this, the course will use technologies to record and live-stream student and staff participation during their teaching and learning activities. Students should note that their interactions may be recorded and live-streamed (see the Lecture Recording and Virtual Classroom policies for more details). There will, however, be options to control whether or not your video and audio are enabled.
You will need access to a personal computing device for this course. Most activities will take place in a web browser, unless otherwise stated. We recommend using a device with a screen, a physical keyboard, and internet access.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2026/27, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 0 |
| Course Start |
Semester 1 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Lecture Hours 15,
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 3,
Supervised Practical/Workshop/Studio Hours 2,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
176 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
The course will be assessed by means of the following components:
1) Food Diary and Reflection (20%)
Students will produce a food diary that is either real (as a recollection of their week as a synchronous recording or a previous diet). This diary can follow any format, but the 7-day diary entries should not exceed 200 words per day or 1400 words in total. Students are encouraged to record food and their reflections on the social, cultural, psychological, political, and/or environmental challenges associated with following or adopting a sustainable diet.
Learning Outcomes Assessed by Component: 2
2) Portfolio: Transforming Local Food Systems (80%)
Students will design a 1,00 word intervention to promote sustainable food systems along a commodity chain, within a local community, through a national policy, or through a plan promoting sustainable production or consumption.
Learning Outcomes Assessed by Component: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 |
| Feedback |
Feedback on any formative assessment may be provided in various formats, for example, to include written, oral, video, face-to-face, whole class, or individual. The Course Organiser will decide which format is most appropriate in relation to the nature of the assessment.
Feedback on both formative and summative in-course assessed work will be provided in time to be of use in subsequent assessments within the course.
Feedback on the summative assessment(s) will be provided in written form via Learn, the University of Edinburgh's Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate a critical understanding of the structures and networks constituting food systems and the socioeconomic and environmental drivers of change.
- Evaluate the role of food systems in mitigation and adaptation to climate change.
- Develop a critical awareness of socioeconomic and biophysical divers of change effecting different actors and practices within food systems.
- Research and plan the implementation of an intervention that reimagines a component of the food system.
- Students will develop independent critical reflective skills that identify existing challenges and potential solutions associated with food systems.
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Reading List
Essential Reading:
Duncan, J, Carolan, M, & Wiskerke, JSC (eds) (2020) Routledge Handbook of Sustainable and Regenerative Food Systems, Taylor & Francis Group, Oxford.
Kneafsey, M., Maye, D., Holloway, L. and Goodman, M.K. (2021) Geographies of Food: An Introduction. Bloomsbury: London.
Recommended Reading:
Eden, S., Bear, C. and Walker, G., (2008) Mucky carrots and other proxies: problematising the knowledge-fix for sustainable and ethical consumption. Geoforum, 39(2), pp.1044-1057.
Rockström, J., Thilsted, S., Willett, W., Gordon, L., Herrero, M., Agustina, R., Covic, N., Forouhi, N.G., Hicks, C., Fanzo, J. and Kebreab, E., 2023. EAT-Lancet Commission 2.0: securing a just transition to healthy, environmentally sustainable diets for all. The Lancet, 402, pp.352-354.
Willett, W., Rockström, J., Loken, B., Springmann, M., Lang, T., Vermeulen, S., Garnett, T., Tilman, D., DeClerck, F., Wood, A. and Jonell, M., (2019) Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT-Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems. The lancet, 393(10170), pp.447-492.
Further Reading:
Ivanovich, C.C., Sun, T., Gordon, D.R. and Ocko, I.B., 2023. Future warming from global food consumption. Nature Climate Change, 13(3), pp.297-302.
Lindgren, E., Harris, F., Dangour, A.D., Gasparatos, A., Hiramatsu, M., Javadi, F., Loken, B., Murakami, T., Scheelbeek, P. and Haines, A., 2018. Sustainable food systems - a health perspective. Sustainability science, 13, pp.1505-1517.
Monbiot, G., 2022. Regenesis: Feeding the world without devouring the planet. Penguin: London.
Wilson, M., Gathorne-Hardy, A., Alexander, P., & Boden, L. (2018). Why Culture matters for planetary health. The Lancet Planetary Health. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(18)30205-5 |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Food Systems,Agriculture,Sustainability |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Jonathan Hillier
Tel: (0131 6)51 7300
Email: Jonathan.Hillier@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Yasmine Lewis
Tel:
Email: yasmine.lewis@ed.ac.uk |
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