Food Systems, Nutrition, and Health Seminar

Over 80% of the US population lives in urban areas; by 2050, close to 70% of the whole world will do the same. Urban food systems can promote community health but also face many challenges.

Systemic inequities across communities, low wages for food chain workers, expensive real estate, limited city zoning, polluted soils and water, compromised growing sites, and complicated supply chains are all compounded by increasing climate disasters. Food prices are rising along with food insecurity.

So, what are the solutions? How can urban food systems instead support functional ecological systems, strong livelihoods, and just opportunities that promote food security and food sovereignty? How can the challenges be addressed and overcome to result in stronger health, sustainability, and equity outcomes?

In this seminar we will dig into urban food systems, including communities, soils, agriculture, markets, and more as you engage with leaders at the forefront of addressing these challenges and opportunities.

Printable Schedule and Poster

• Speaker schedule (pdf)

Recorded Sessions

Click title to watch recording of the session.

Food Rescue Innovation

Winter 2022

The food and agriculture organization estimates that each year, one-third of all food produced in the world for human consumption is lost or wasted. Not only does this impact global food security and climate change, but it is also evidence of the incredible economic and environmental waste within the food system. Addressing the issue of food loss and food waste has the potential to generate a “triple win”. At the economic level, reductions in food loss and waste can save money for farmers, companies, and households. Wasting less food also means we can feed more people, creating enhanced food security. And reductions in food waste can alleviate pressure on climate change through efficiencies in water, land, and energy use. Recently, there has been a modern movement around food loss and waste reduction, centered around the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 12.3, which calls for halving the rate of food loss and waste by 2030. How can we achieve this aggressive goal? This quarter’s seminar welcomed experts and innovators from the private, public, and non-profit sectors at the forefront of addressing the real challenges of food loss and food waste at all parts of the food system, while considering creative approaches that harness collective behaviors and human motivation to catalyze change.

Printable Schedule and Poster

• Speaker schedule (pdf)

Recorded Sessions

Future of Food Systems

Autumn 2021

There is growing urgency for our food systems to be more sustainable, resilient, and equitable. But how? Food systems are too-often implicated in perpetuating health inequities, climate chaos, and diminishing biodiversity. Competing solutions to these challenges are being considered locally and globally, across often-complicated supply chains and impacted by various public health, social, ecological, and economic drivers. Should farms and food systems feed regional or international communities; should they be large or small, uniform or diverse? What are the outcomes for our climate, human and ecological health, justice and equity? Which technologies and processes of engagement should be prioritized? While solutions may not be binary, choices must be made to nourish a growing human population on a finite Earth. This quarter;s seminar welcomed experts and practitioners who are at the forefront of addressing these challenges and considering different possibilities for the future of food systems.

Printable Schedule and Poster

• Speaker schedule (PDF)

Recorded Sessions

Food Supply Chains During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Winter 2021

As the COVID-19 pandemic emerged in early 2020, images of dumped milk and plowed-under crops, empty grocery store shelves, and lengthy food bank lines shocked the nation. While there are no nationwide shortages of food, inventory and availability of various staples have been affected, and food prices and food insecurity are on the rise, especially impacting Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities. Many food system laborers are from BIPOC communities and continue to be adversely affected as farmworkers, meat plant workers, and long distance truckers face compromised work environments. The food service industry has been crippled, and food packaging and distribution has shifted to accommodate household servings instead of restaurant and bulk orders.

“Food supply chains” have now become part of everyday conversations as the stress of the pandemic raises questions about the sustainability, resilience, and inequities of our food system. Food supply chains include the sectors and labor supporting food production, processing, transportation, distribution, and access. Linear representations of supply chains often belie the extended, complicated realities of interconnected national and global food systems. As food supply chains continue to be impacted by COVID-19 among other global challenges, it is essential to learn about opportunities to increase sustainability, resilience, and equity. Applying a systems perspective to these questions were the focus of this quarter’s seminar and discussion.

Printable Schedule

• Speaker Schedule (pdf)

Recorded Sessions

Growing Resilience and Equity: Food Systems Amid the Dual Pandemics of COVID-19 and Systemic Racism

Autumn 2020

The dual pandemics of COVID-19 and systemic racism are illuminating health equity, food equity, and structural vulnerabilities across the food system. COVID-19 impacts have amplified the inherent racial and economic inequities of our globalized and industrialized food supply chains. The lowest paid and most vulnerable workers have either been laid off or deemed essential and subject to unsafe working conditions; viral outbreaks continue to spread amongst farm workers and meat processing workers; market channels are disrupted; and food insecurity is rising alongside food waste. These challenges disproportionately impact Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities, who are already most affected by environmental and climate injustices. This quarter’s seminar showcased researchers and organizers working at the confluence of these crises for positive and impactful change. Sessions highlight challenges as well as transformation, hope, and potential for resilience and equity to take root across the food system.

Printable Schedule

• Seminar Schedule (pdf)

Recorded Sessions

• Growing a More Sustainable, Equitable Future for Communities of Color: The Black Farmer’s Collective and Yes Farm –  November 10, 2020. Director Ray Williams and Program Manager Hannah Wilson from Yes Farm with the Black Farmers Collective
• Why Voting Matters to Food Systems – November 3, 2020. Navina Khanna, Director of HEAL Food Alliance
• Codeveloping Culturally Relevant Messages for Farmworker Safety and Health in the COVID-19 Pandemic Project – Presented October 27, 2020. Elizabeth Torres, Research and Project Coordinator for El Proyecto Bienestar (EPB) and Research Coordinator, Northwest Communities Education Center/Radio KDNA, and PNASH, UW
• Examining the Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Food Systems, Food Security, and Food Access in Washington State – October 20, 2020. Adam Drewnowski, Professor of Epidemiology and Director of Nutritional Sciences Program and Center for Public Health Nutrition, UW
• Food Systems Shock and Stresses and the Need for Food Systems Analysts: the IFSTAL Response – October 13, 2020. John Ingram, Leader of Interdisciplinary Food Systems Teaching & Learning (IFSTAL) and Associate Professor, Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford
• Intersections of Racial Equity and Food System Resilience – October 6, 2020. Yona Sipos, Assistant Teaching Professor, Nutritional Sciences Program and Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences, Core Faculty for Food Systems, Nutrition, and Health, UW

Food Systems in the Age of Climate Change

Winter 2020

Every aspect of the food system is impacted by and has an impact on climate. Greenhouse gas emissions and contributions to climate instability or resilience are determined by what we eat, how that food is produced and harvested, how far it travels, and whether the food is wasted or resources are recovered. Climate change impacts which foods will grow and be available, their nutritional outcomes, and the occupational health of front-line agricultural workers.  This quarter’s seminar welcomed local and regional experts to explore such climate impacts in the context of the Pacific Northwest, alongside the quest for climate justice and food system resilience.

Printable Schedule

• Seminar Schedule (pdf)

Recorded Sessions

• Food on Campus: UW Sustainability Plans and Initiatives –  on March 3, 2020. Project and Purchasing Specialist Casey Crane and Assistant Director for Residential Life Clive Pursehouse, UW.
• Closing the Loop: Regenerative Animal Agriculture and Meat –  February 25, 2020. Nicole Witham, the statewide coordinator for the WSU Food Systems Program (moderator); Matthew Cox from Green Bow Farm in Ellensburg, WA; Mericos Rhodes from Spoon Full Farm in Thorp, WA; David Haakensen from Jubilee Farm in Carnation, WA
• Growing for Change: Agricultural Adaptions for Urban to Rural Systems – February 18, 2020. David Montgomery, Earth and Space Sciences, UW; Julie Johnson, Landscape Architecture, UW; and Yolimar Rivera Vazquez, Food & Farms Coordinator, Ecotrust
• Labor & Climate: Climate-Related Occupational Impacts on Agricultural Workers – February 4, 2020. Maria Blancas, PNASH Center and Environmental & Forest Sciences at UW.
• From the Ground Up: Climate Impacts of and on our Soils – January 21, 2020. Sarah Collier, Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, Nutritional Sciences Program, UW; Brittany Johnson, College of the Environment.
• Oceans and Cliate: Understanding Impacts on Aquatic Food Systems –  Presented January 15, 2020. Jan Newton, Applied Physics Laboratory, Washington Ocean Acidification Center, UW
• PNW Food Systems in the Age of Climate Change: Mitigation, Adaptation, and Resilience. Presented January 7, 2020. Jeremy Hess, Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences, Global Health, Emergency Medicine, CHanGE, UW

• Autumn 2019 – Food Justice: Intersections of Identity & Place
• Winter 2019 – Aquatic Food Systems, Nutrition, and Health
• Autumn 2018 – Cultivating Sustainable Food Systems to Improve Nutrition, Health, and Equity
• Winter 2018 – Aligning Food Systems with Nutrition and Health
• Autumn 2017 – Water, Food, and Nutrition Security
• Winter 2017 – Food Equity and Population Health
• Autumn 2016 – Feeding Nine Billion: Climate, Nutrition, and Population Health
• Winter 2016 – Food Entrepreneurs
• Autumn 2015 – Food, Culture, and Society
• Winter 2015 – Global Nutrition and Food Justice
• Autumn 2014 – Sustainable Food and Nutrition Security
• Winter 2014 – Marketing Food, Nutrition, and Health