Postgraduate Course: Innovation in Sustainable Food Systems (PGSP11400)
Course Outline
| School | School of Social and Political Science |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | The sustainability and resilience of food systems is increasingly coming into question, not least following the Covid-19 pandemic, but also in the face of climate change impacts. Food systems are complex and involve a vast range of stakeholders, including individual consumers, large food processing companies, farming units and the natural and social environments surrounding them. This course seeks to take an innovation lens to the food system and examining the various ways of understanding how innovation takes place, and what factors influence the direction of innovation for a more sustainable food system. We consider theories such as Rogers theory of Innovation, Agricultural Innovation Systems, Co-innovation, Multi-level perspectives and Responsible Research and Innovation |
| Course description |
Ensuring food supplies in a sustainable and equitable manner in the face of climate change driven events is one of the key challenges facing societies in the 21st Century. While often posed as a production led innovation challenge, at least as important are the societal contexts, including changing patterns of consumption. This course considers sustainable food systems and food security from a wide range of perspectives, examining farming as a social practice, as commercial food production, as a contribution and challenge to environmental policy and as an integral part of sustainable and healthy consumption. Innovation is examined in both its scientific and social aspects. An extensive resource list allows student to follow their own interests and apply the concepts presented in the lectures in different contexts.
Outline Content
1 Introduction: setting the context
Setting the scene, tracing issues around food production, highlighting the multiple challenges and the need for social and technical innovation. Introducing concepts such as regenerative agriculture, agroecology and sustainable intensification.
2. Bringing change into food systems
How does innovation happen in food systems and what are some of the practical challenges involved.
3. Farmers and scientists: knowledge exchange
This session examines some of the theories of knowledge flow between farmers and researchers. The concept of Diffusion of Innovation and Good Farmer are introduced.
4. Farmers and environmental impact: scales of change
Environmental issues are often best dealt with at the level of the ecologically relevant unit rather than at the level of individual farms. The implication is that multiple farmers need to work together, for example in a river catchment. This session examines the issues raised by different scales of environmental impact, including climate change.
5. Agricultural Innovation Systems
Farms do not exist on their own, but as parts of wider innovation systems, including suppliers, intermediaries and food companies, and of course regulations. This session examines agricultural as innovations in the context of systems, and introduces concepts of path-dependence and lock-in 6. Resilience
The covid-19 pandemic brought the importance of resilience in food systems into sharp focus. But there has been a much longer-term concern about the resilience of food systems. This lecture introduces resilience thinking.
7. Sustainable food production systems
Food often moves from farm to 'fork' along complex global supply chains. This session examines some of the ways in which global supply chains have responded to the challenges of sustainability, such as standards and block chain
9. Alternative food networks
This session examines a range of alternative food networks, including approaches that focus on shortening food supply chains (e.g. farmers markets, community supported agriculture) and emerging novel ways of producing food in and for cities. The concept of Multi Level Perspective is introduced as a way of understanding system-level change.
9. Farm livestock and people
Farming livestock involves a close relationship between farm staff and farmed animals. In this session we explore some of the complexity in this relationship and the implications this has for innovation. While ethical considerations are important, the focus of this lecture is on the social aspects.
10. Sustainable consumption
This session focusses on sustainable consumption, bringing healthy diets, food miles and food waste into focus.
The course is taught through lectures and workshop/seminar activities. The workshops or seminar activities are intended to give case studies or practical exercises related to the material in the taught component. The case studies and further reading material provided is also intended to broaden the range of perspectives to different situations and countries. The course is interdisciplinary and open to students with backgrounds in social sciences, natural sciences and the humanities, no prior knowledge of agriculture or innovation studies is presumed.
|
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
|
Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
|
| Academic year 2024/25, Available to all students (SV1)
|
Quota: 35 |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Lecture Hours 20,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
176 )
|
| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
|
| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Coursework: 100%
Consisting of a 1000 word policy briefing (20% marks) and 3,000 word final essay (80% marks).
|
| Feedback |
Feedback on the policy briefing will be available in time to inform the final essay. Students will have the option of submitting a 500 word formative essay outline in preparation for the final essay.
The essay question will be broadly framed to allow students to focus on an area that is of particular interest to them.
|
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate critical awareness of the range of social contexts within which food production operates and the challenges of knowledge exchange within food production systems
- Demonstrate extensive, detailed and critical knowledge of different dimensions of sustainable food production systems and the implications for innovation.
- Demonstrate ability to identify, conceptualise and offer new and creative insights into innovation in food production systems.
- Demonstrate ability to communicate using appropriate style and language for different audiences within a food production system.
- Demonstrate ability to take responsibility for their own work.
|
Reading List
Reading list
Benton, T.G. & Bailey R., (2019) The paradox of productivity: agricultural productivity promotes food system inefficiency. Global Sustainability 2, e6, 1¿8.
Heron, T., Prado, P., West, C. (2018) Global Value Chains and the Governance of ¿Embedded¿ Food Commodities: The Case of Soy. Global Policy 9(S2): 29-
Oreszczyn, S., Lane, A. and Carr, S. (2010) The role of networks of practice and webs of influencers on farmers¿ engagement with and learning about agricultural innovations. Journal of Rural Studies 26:404-417.
Stephens, N., Di Silvio, L., Dunsford, I., Ellis, M., Glencross, A., Sexton, A. (2018) Bringing cultured meat to market: Technical, socio-political, and regulatory challenges in cellular agriculture. Trends in Food Science & Technology 78:155-166 DOI: 10.1016/j.tifs.2018.04.010
Darnhofer, I. (2021) Farming resilience: from maintaining states towards shaping transformative change processes. Sustainability 13(6):3387 DOI: 10.3390/su13063387
Mylan, J., Morris, C., Beech, E., Geels, F.W (2019). Rage against the regime: Niche-regime interactions in the societal embedding of plant-based milk. Environmental innovation and societal transitions 31:233-247. DOI: 10.1016/j.eist.2018.11.001
Díaz-Méndez, C. & Lozano-Cabedo, C. (2019) Food governance and healthy diet An analysis of the conflicting relationships among the actors of the agri-food system. Trends in Food Science & Technology https: doi.org/10.1016j.tifs.2019.08.025 |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Ann Bruce
Tel: (0131 6)50 9106
Email: |
Course secretary | Mrs Casey Behringer
Tel: (0131 6)50 2456
Email: |
|
|
University Homepage