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LU0092

Global food systems and food security

This course introduces students to global food systems and the challenges of ensuring food security for all in a world of climate change, globalization, shifting demographies and new technologies. Food constitutes a major product in the contemporary global commodity value chain and this course provides students with analytical tools so as to be able to grasp and analyze the effects of global forces on local food production, on marketing, transportation and consumption of food.

Information from the course leader

Dear all

The course 'Global Food Systems and Food Security' starts on Thursday 25 March. All teaching and seminars of the course will be online, transmitted through the communication tool Zoom. We will use the same Zoom link and password throughout the entire course

The lectures will be held on Mondays 10.15-12.00 and 13.15-15.00 and the seminars on Thursdays (except when an occasional lecture or seminar clashes with a holiday). There will also be a couple of extra lectures on Tuesdays.

You will be divided into either a morning or afternoon seminar group on Thursdays.

The literature are uploaded on Canvas, except for the books that you have either to purchase or borrow. See the literature list.

The schedule, the reading instrructions for each week, as well as the literatuer list are also uploaded below this text.

Welcome!

Örjan and Kristina

Global Food Systems and Food Security:
Schedule and reading instructions

Spring semester 2021

Örjan Bartholdson
orjan.bartholdson@slu.se

Kristina Marquardt

kristina.marquardt@slu.se

The course runs 11 weeks and consist of two lectures (4 hours) and one seminar per week.

Lectures will be held on Mondays 10.15-12.00 and 13.15-15.00, except for the first week, which starts with an introduction and two lectures on Thursday 25 March. Seminars will be held on Thursdays. Exceptions to this pattern depends on the occurrence of public holidays.

All lectures and seminars will be held on Zoom.

The main lecturers on the course are:
Örjan Bartholdson, a Swedish anthropologist, whose research mainly has been focused on rural and urban issues in Latin America, including issues of deforestation and food production in the Amazon. He is also the course convener.

Kristina Marquardt is Associate Professor in Rural Development. Her research focuses on smallholders' diverse and dynamic land uses for food production, agrarian change, forest transitions and maintenance of ecosystem services in the landscape. She has researched during many years in Peru and Nepal. Kristina is also assistant course convener.

Kjell Hansen, a Swedish-Norwegian ethnologist, who is an expert on issues of rural development, governance and social theory. Kjell has researched on various aspects related to rural development in Sweden.

Adam Pain, a British scholar, who is an expert on development, food security and global food systems. Adam has researched extensively in both Africa and Asia.

Theme 1: Food and Water Security

Week 12: 25 March – 26 March: Introduction of the course
Thursday 25 March

09.15 - 10.00
Presentation of the course

Course convener: Örjan Bartholdson

10.15-12.00

Introductory lecture, Presenting the concepts global food systems and food security.

Discussants: Adam Pain, Kjell Hansen and Örjan Bartholdson

Required reading

Christoplos Ian and Adam Pain (eds). (2015) Chapter 1: Introduction. Chapter 2: Food Security and Food Crisis. New Challenges to Food security. From climate change to fragile states. Routledge. Pages 1-38

Clapp, Jennifer (2016) Chapter 1: Unpacking the World Food Economy. Food. Polity Books (2nd edition). Pages 1-25.

Hall, Derek. Chapter 1: Introduction. Land. Cambridge. Polity Press. Pages 1-23.

McMichael, P (2013) Chapter one: The Food Regime Project. Food Regimes and Agrarian Questions. Agrarian Change and Peasant Studies Series, Practical Action. Fernwood Publishing. Pages 1-20.

Ó Gráda, Cormac (2009) Chapter 1: The Third Horseman: Famine: A Short History. Princeton University Press. Pages 1-44.

Pain, Adam & Hansen Kjell (2019). Chapter 1, 2, 3, 4: Rural Development. New York & London: Routledge.

13.15-15.00
Food and water security and the dynamics of change: historical examples

Lecturer: Adam Pain

Required reading

Clapp, Jennifer (2016) Chapter 2: The Rise of a Global Industrial Food Market. Food. Polity Books (2nd edition). Pages 26-60

McMichael, P (2013) Chapter two: Historical Forms of the Food Regime. Chapter four: Food Regimes and the Agrarian Question. Food Regimes and Agrarian Questions. Agrarian Change and Peasant Studies Series, Practical Action. Fernwood Publishing. Pages 21-40, 62-83.

Ó Gráda, Cormac (2009) Chapter 3: Prevention and Coping. Chapter 5: Markets and Famine. Chapter 6: Entitlements: Bengal and Beyond: Famine: A Short History. Princeton University Press. Pages 61-89; 159-194.

Scott, James, C (2017) Introduction: A Narrative in Tatters: What I Didn't Know. Chapter 4: Agroecology of the Early State. Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States, Yale University Press. Pages 1-35; 116-149

15.15-16.30

Discussion of the meaning and content of global food systems and food security.

Discussants: Adam Pain, Kjell Hansen and Örjan Bartholdson

Friday 26 March

10.15-12.00, 13.15-15.00
Discussion seminar

Week 13: 29 March – 1 April: Food and water security and the case of Afghanistan

Monday 29 March

10.15-12.00
Food and water security and the dynamics of change: globalisation

Lecturer: Adam Pain

Required reading

Christoplos Ian and Adam Pain (eds.). (2015) Chapter 10: Poverty, food security and local water conflicts in southern Zambia. New Challenges to Food security. From climate change to fragile states. London: Routledge. Pages 184-199

Clapp, Jennifer (2016) Chapter 2: The Rise of a Global Industrial Food Market. Chapter 5: Financialization of Food. Food. Polity Books (2nd edition). Pages 26-60; 133-169

McMichael, P (2013) Chapter six: Crisis and Restructuring. Food Regimes and Agrarian Questions. Agrarian Change and Peasant Studies Series, Practical Action. Fernwood Publishing. Pages 109 - 130

13.15-15.00
National Food Systems: the case of Afghanistan:

Lecturer : Adam Pain

Required reading:

Christoplos Ian and Adam Pain (eds). (2015) Chapter 3: Scenarios for global agriculture and food security towards 2050: A review of recent studies. Chapter 4: Strengthening food security through human rights: A moral and legal imperative and practical opportunity. Chapter 7: Food insecurity in fragile states and protracted crises. Chapter 9: Food insecurity and agricultural rehabilitation in post-conflict northern Uganda. Chapter 12: Social inequality and food insecurity in Nepal: Risks and responses. Chapter 14: Food security and insecurity in Afghanistan. New Challenges to Food security. From climate change to fragile states. Routledge. Pages 39-84, 123-140, 166-183, 221-240, 258-278

Pain, Adam & Hansen Kjell (2019). Chapter 3. Rural Development. London: Routledge.

Thursday 1 April

10.15-12.00, 13.15-15.00
Discussion seminar

Week 14: 6 April – 9 April. Food crisis and flex crops.

Tuesday 6 April

10.15-12.00
The 2008 Food Crisis: the case of Afghanistan

Lecturer: Adam Pain

Required reading

Pain, Adam & Hansen Kjell (2019). Chapter 5. Rural Development. London: Routledge.

Sen, Amartya. 1981. Poverty and Famines. Essays on Entitlement and Deprivation. Chapter 1-2: Poverty and Entitlement, 4: Starvation and Famines, 6: The Great Bengal Famine. Oxford. Clarendon Press. Pages: 1-23, 39-85

Land, T (2010) Crisis? What Crisis? The Normality of the Current Food Crisis. Journal of Agrarian Change, 10 (1): 87-97

13.15-15.00

The introduction of so called flex crops.

Lecturer: Adam Pain

Required reading

Borras et al. 2014. Towards Understanding the Politics of Flex Crops and Commodities. Transnational Institute (TNI) Agrarian Justice Program.

Borras et al. 2016. The rise of flex crops and commodities: implications for research. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 43, 1, 93-115

Thursday 8 April

10.15-12.00,

13.15-15.00
Discussion seminar

Week 15: 12 April – 16 April. From subsistence to cash crops

Monday 12 April

10.15-12.00
Smallholder farming systems – contentions and combinations of subsistence and cash crops. The case of San Martín Peru. understanding farming systems.

Lecturer: Kristina Marquardt

Required reading

Marquardt K, Pain A, Bartholdson Ö and L Romero Rengifo (2019). Forest dynamics in the Peruvian Amazon – understanding processes of change. Small-scale Forestry. 18(1), pp 81-104. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11842-018-9408-3

13.15-15.00

Smallholder landscapes - land use practices and dynamics of change. The case of Nepal.

Lecturer: Kristina Marquardt

Required reading

Marquardt K, Pain A and Khatri D B (2020). Re-reading Nepalese landscapes: labour, water, farming patches and trees. Forests, Trees and Livelihoods: 29:4. 238-259.
DOI:10.1080/14728028.2020.1814875

Thompson M and Warburton M (1985). Uncertainty on a Himalayan Scale. Mountain Research and Development, Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 115-135.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3673250

Thursday 15 April

10.15-12.00

13.15-15.00
Discussion seminar

Theme 2: Markets, commodity chains, local impacts and resistance

Week 16: 19 April – 23 April. Global food chains and markets.

Monday 19 April

10.15-12.00
Markets and the commodification of agriculture

Lecturer: Örjan Bartholdson

Required reading

[Clapp, Jennifer (2016) Chapter 2: The Rise of a Global Industrial Food Market. Food. Polity Books (2nd edition). Cambridge: Polity Press ]

Gregory, C.A. 2000. Chapter 1: The value question. Savage Money. The Anthropology and Politics of Commodity Exchange. London: Routledge

Minola, Giulia & Adam Pain. 2015. Peeling the Onion. Social Regulation on the Onion Market, Nangarhar, Afghanistan. Economic & Political Weekly, February

Pritchard, Bill; Gracy C.P; Godwin, Michelle 2010: The Impacts of Supermarket Procurement on Farming Communities in India: Evidence from Rural Karnataka. Development Policy Review, 28

13.15-15.00
Global Food Chains: From production to consumption: wheat, rice, soy beans, coffee, etc

Lecturer: Örjan Bartholdson

Required reading

Topik, Steven, A. Wells. 2012. Chapter 3: Commodity Chains. Global Markets Transformed 1870-1945. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Pages 113-259

Thursday 22 April

10.15-12.00, 13.15-15.00
Discussion seminar

Week 17: 26 April – 29 April. The effects of markets and migration on local life-worlds.

Monday 26 April

10.15-12.00
International markets and local effects

Lecturer: Örjan Bartholdson

Required reading

Mintz, Sidney W. Introduction, Chapter 1, Chapter 2. Sweetness and Power. The Place of Sugar in Modern History. .New York. Penguin Books. Pages xv - 73.

Nützenadel, Alexander (2008) Chapter 9: A green international? Foods market and transnational politics, 1850-1914. Chapter 12: Postcolonial paradoxes: the cultural economy of African Export Agriculture. Chapter 14: Before Fair Trade Empire, Free Trade and the moral economies of food in the modern world. Food and Globalization. Consumption, Markets and Politics in the Modern World (ed. Nützenadel, Alexander, Trentmann, Frank). Oxford. Berg. Pages: 153-172, 215-234, 253-276

13.15-15.00
Rural livelihoods and political systems. Mobility and migration.

Lecturer: Kjell Hansen

Venue: Lecture room J

Required reading

Gould, William T. S. 2009. Chapter 6: Migration and Development. Population and Development. London: Routledge. Page 154 - 190

Kelsall, Tim. 2011.Going with the Grain in African Development. Development Policy Review 29.

Pain, Adam & Hansen Kjell (2019). Chapter 8. Rural Development. London: Routledge.

Tuesday 27 April

10.15-12.00
How to work with certifications and social and environmental sustainability

Lecturer: Kristina Bjurling
Sustainability manager on the wholesale corporation Axfood

Thursday 29 April

10.15-12.00, 13.15-15.00
Discussion seminar

Week 18: 3 May – 7 May. Social and cultural contexts of food insecurity and organized resistance

Monday 3 May

10.15-12.00
The social and cultural context of food insecurity: the case of Brazil.

Lecturer: Örjan Bartholdson

Required reading

Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. 1992. Chapter 1: O Nordeste: Sweetness and Death. Chapter 2: One hundred years without water. Chapter 4: The madness of hunger. Death without Weeping. The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil. Berkeley. University of California Press. Pages 31-97, 128-166

13.15-15.00
Popular resistance and change. Social movements and NGOs

Lecturer: Örjan Bartholdson

Required reading

Hall, Derek. 2013. Chapter 6: Social movements. Land. Cambridge. Polity Books. Pages 139-166.

Hilhorst, Dorothea Chapter 1: Introduction: The politics of NGO-ing. Chapter 2: Damning the dams: Social movements and NGOs The Real World of NGOs: discourses, diversity and development. London. ZED Books. Pages 1-50.

Lechner, Frank, J., Boli, John (2005) Chapter 7: Transforming World Culture: The anti-globalization movement as cultural critique. World Culture. Origins and Consequences. Oxford. Blackwell Publishing. Pages 153-172

Pain, Adam & Hansen Kjell (2019). Chapter 8. Rural Development. London: Routledge.

Thursday 6 May

10.15-12.00

13.15-15.00
Discussion seminar

Week 19: 10 May – 12 May. Rural institutions and their global and regional contexts.

Monday 10 May

10.15-12.00:
Rural institutions: the state vs. the private sector

Lecturer: Kjell Hansen

Required reading

Clapp, Jennifer. 2016. Chapter 3: Agricultural Trade Liberalization. Chapter 4: Transnational corporations. Food. Cambridge. Polity Books (2nd edition). Pages 61-132

McMichael, Philip 2013: Chapter 3: The Corporate Food Regime. Chapter 6: Crisis and Restructuring; chapter 7: The Food Regime and Value Relations: Which Values? Food Regimes and Agrarian Questions. Halifax. Fernwood Publishing.

Pain, Adam & Hansen Kjell (2019). Chapter 6. Rural Development. London: Routledge.

13.15-15.00

World System and World Culture Theories: International division of labor, consumption and political ecology

Lecturer: Örjan Bartholdson

Required reading

Mintz, Sidney W. Introduction, Chapters 3 - 5. Sweetness and Power. The Place of Sugar in Modern History. .New York. Penguin Books. Pages 74 - 214

Harvey, David. 2006. Notes towards a theory of uneven geographical development. Spaces of Global Capitalism. Towards a theory of uneven geographical development. London. Verso. Pages 69-116.

Wednesday 12 May

10.15-12.00, 13.15-15.00
Discussion seminar

Theme 3: International policy as food security frameworks

Week 20: 17 May – 21 May. Global institutional frameworks

Monday 17 May

10.15-12.00
Global institutional frameworks: WB, IMF, WTO, EU, etc. How international agreements frame food systems

Lecturer: Kjell Hansen

Required reading

Bernstein, H., 2006. 'Is There an Agrarian Question in the 21st Century?' Canadian Journal of Development Studies, 26 (4): 449–60.

Chang, Ha-Joon. 2009. Rethinking public policy in agriculture – Lessons from history, distant and recent. Journal of Peasant Studies, 36, 3, 477-515

Clapp, Jennifer 2016: Chapter 4, 5, 6: Food Cambridge: Polity Press. Pages 96-200

Pain, Adam & Hansen Kjell (2019). Chapter 7. Rural Development. London: Routledge.

13.15-15.00.
Food in a globalized world

Lecturer: Kjell Hansen

Required reading

Benson, Peter & Fischer, Edward F. 2007. Broccoli and Desire. Antipode.

Tsing, Anna. 2012. Unruly Edges: Mushrooms as Companion Species for Donna Haraway. Environmental Humanities. Vol.1: 141-154

Thursday 20 May

10.15-12.00, 13.15-15.00
Discussion seminar

Week 21: 24 May– 28 May. Bureaucracies and meat and fish commodities.

Monday 24 May

10.15-12.00

Hybrid bureaucracies and territories. Entrepreneurs and social trust

Lecturer: Kjell Hansen

Required reading

Graeber, David. 2006. Beyond Power/Knowledge- an exploration of the relation of power, ignorance and stupidity. The Malinowski Memorial Lecture, 2006. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory. Pages 105 – 128

Gupta, Akhil 1995: Blurred Boundaries: The Discourse of Corruption, the Culture of Politics, and the Imagined State. American Ethnologist 22.

Lund, Christian 2006: Twilight Institutions: Public Authority and Local Politics in Africa. Development and Change 37

Pain, Adam & Hansen Kjell (2019). Chapter 9. Rural Development. London: Routledge.

13.15-15.00.
The ethnography of pork production

Lecturer: Örjan Bartholdson

Required reading

Blanchette, Alex. Introduction and Part 1. 2020. Porkopolis. American Animality, Standardized Life & the Factory Farm. Durham. Duke University Press. Pages 1 – 72.

Tuesday 25 May

10.15-12.00
COVID-19 and the destabilised seafood system: Tracing global seafood commodity chains from producers in Thailand to markets

Lecturer: Alin Kadfak

Required reading

Marschke, Melissa, Vandergeest, Peter, Havice, Elizabeth, Kadfak, Alin, Duker, Peter, Isopescu, Ilinca, MacDonnell, Mallor. 2020. COVID-19, instability and migrant fish workers in Asia. Maritime Studies. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40152-020-00205-y

13.15-15.00
Herding cattle in the mid-West: The ethnography of a cowgirl.

Lecturer: Andrea Petitt

Required reading
To be announced later

Thursday 27 May

10.15-12.00
13.15-15.00
Discussion seminar

Week 22: 31 May – 4 June: Land and food security

Monday 31 May
10.15-12.00

The effects of migration on food production in rural Nepal

Lecturer: Dil Khatri

13.15-15.00

Summing up of the course
Discussants: Örjan Bartholdson, Kristina Marquardt and Kjell Hansen

Week 22 Home exam
Deadline Sunday 6 June, 23.59 pm

Literature
You will only have to purchase the books marked with a *.
Please, note that some literature might be added to the list and some may be changed or omitted.

Compulsory course books

* Clapp, Jennifer (2016) Food. Cambridge. Polity Books (2nd edition).

* Christoplos Ian and Adam Pain (eds). (2015) New Challenges to Food security. From climate change to fragile states. Routledge.

* Hall, Derek. 2013. Land. Cambridge. Polity Books.

* Mintz, Sidney W. Introduction, Chapter 1, Chapter 2. Sweetness and Power. The Place of Sugar in Modern History. .New York. Penguin Books

* Pain, Adam & Hansen Kjell (2019). Rural Development. New York & London: Routledge.

Excerpts of Books:

Blanchette, Alex. Introduction and Part 1. 2020. Porkopolis. American Animality, Standardized Life & the Factory Farm. Durham. Duke University Press.

Gregory: The value question (chap 1: Gregory C.A. 2000: Savage Money. The Anthropology and Politics of Commodity Exchange. London: Routledge

Gould, William T. S. 2009: Chapter 6: Migration and Development. Population and Development. London: Routledge (pp 154 - 190)

Harvey, David. 2006. Notes towards a theory of uneven geographical development. Spaces of Global Capitalism. Towards a theory of uneven geographical development. London. Verso. Pages 69-116.

Hilhorst, Dorothea Chapter 1: Introduction: The politics of NGO-ing. Chapter 2: Damning the dams: Social movements and NGOsThe Real World of NGOs: discourses, diversity and development. London. ZED Books. Pages 1-50.

Lechner, Frank, J., Boli, John (2005) Chapter 7: Transforming World Culture: The anti-globalization movement as cultural critique. World Culture. Origins and Consequences. Oxford. Blackwell Publishing. Pages 153-172

Nützenadel, Alexander (2008) Chapter 9: A green international? Foods market and transnational politics, 1850-1914. Chapter 12: Postcolonial paradoxes: the cultural economy of African Export Agriculture. Chapter 14: Before Fair Trade Empire, Free Trade and the moral economies of food in the modern world. Food and Globalization. Consumption, Markets and Politics in the Modern World (ed. Nützenadel, Alexander, Trentmann, Frank). Oxford. Berg. 153-172, 215-234, 253-276.

Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. 1992. Chapter 1: O Nordeste: Sweetness and Death. Chapter 2: One hundred years without water. Chapter 4: The madness of hunger. Death without Weeping. The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil. Berkeley. University of California Press. Pages 31-97, 128-166.

Sen, Amartya. 1981. Poverty and Famines. Essays on Entitlement and Deprivation. Chapter 1-2: Poverty and Entitlement , 4: Starvation and Famines, 6: The Great Bengal Famine. Oxford. Clarendon Press. Pages: 1-23, 39-85

Scott, James, C (2017) Introduction: A Narrative in Tatters: What I Didn't Know. Chapter 4: Agroecology of the Early State. Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States, Yale University Press. Pages 1-35; 116-149

Topik, Steven, A. Wells. (2012) Global Markets Transformed 1870-1945. Chapter 3: Commodity Chains. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Pages 113-259

Wolf, Eric (1973) Chapter 3: China. Peasant wars of the twentieth century. New York. Harper Torchbooks.Pages 103-158.

Wolf, Eric (1982) Europe and the People without History. Part Two: chapter 7: The Slave Trade. Berkeley. University of California Press. Pages 195-231

Articles:'

Bartholdson, Örjan (2017) How to Talk Back: The impact of bureaucracy and brokers on a community based forest management project in the Brazilian Amazon. Forum for Development Studies

Benson, Peter & Fischer, Edward F. 2007. Broccoli and Desire. Antipode.

Bernstein, H., 2006. 'Is There an Agrarian Question in the 21st Century?' Canadian Journal of Development Studies, 26 (4): 449–60.

Borras et al 2014. Towards Understanding the Politics of Flex Crops and Commodities. Transnational Institute (TNI) Agrarian Justice Program.

Borras et al, 2016 The rise of flex crops and commodities: implications for research. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 43, 1, 93-115

Chang, Ha-Joon. 2009. Rethinking public policy in agriculture – Lessons from history, distant and recent. Journal of Peasant Studies, 36, 3, 477-515

Graeber, David. 2006. Beyond Power/Knowledge- an exploration of the relation of power, ignorance and stupidity. The Malinowski Memorial Lecture, 2006. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory. Pages 105 – 128

Gupta, Akhil 1995: Blurred Boundaries: The Discourse of Corruption, the Culture of Politics, and the Imagined State. American Ethnologist 22.

Kelsall, Tim 2011: Going with the Grain in African Development. Development Policy Review 29.

Land, T (2010) Crisis? What Crisis? The Normality of the Current Food Crisis. Journal of Agrarian Change, 10 (1): 87-97'

Lund, Christian 2006: Twilight Institutions: Public Authority and Local Politics in Africa. Development and Change 37

Marquardt K, Pain A, Bartholdson Ö and L Romero Rengifo (2019). Forest dynamics in the Peruvian Amazon – understanding processes of change. Small-scale Forestry. 18(1), pp 81-104. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11842-018-9408-3

Marquardt K, Pain A and Khatri D B (2020). Re-reading Nepalese landscapes: labour, water, farming patches and trees. Forests, Trees and Livelihoods: 29:4. 238-259.
DOI:10.1080/14728028.2020.1814875

Minola, Giulia & Adam Pain 2015: Peeling the Onion. Social Regulation on the Onion Market, Nangarhar, Afghanistan. Economic & Political Weekly, febr. 2015.

Marschke, Melissa, Vandergeest, Peter, Havice, Elizabeth, Kadfak, Alin, Duker, Peter, Isopescu, Ilinca, MacDonnell, Mallor. 2020. COVID-19, instability and migrant fish workers in Asia. Maritime Studies. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40152-020-00205-y

Pritchard, Bill; C.P. Gracy & Michelle Godwin 2010: The Impacts of Supermarket Procurement on Farming Communities in India: Evidence from Rural Karnataka. Development Policy Review, 28.

Thompson M and Warburton M (1985). Uncertainty on a Himalayan Scale. Mountain Research and Development, Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 115-135.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3673250

Tsing, Anna. 2012. Unruly Edges: Mushrooms as Companion Species for Donna Haraway. Environmental Humanities. Vol.1: 141-154

Course evaluation

The course evaluation is now closed

LU0092-40106 - Course evaluation report

Once the evaluation is closed, the course coordinator and student representative have 1 month to draft their comments. The comments will be published in the evaluation report.

Additional course evaluations for LU0092

Academic year 2023/2024

Global food systems and food security (LU0092-40156)

2024-03-20 - 2024-06-02

Academic year 2022/2023

Global food systems and food security (LU0092-40064)

2023-03-22 - 2023-06-04

Academic year 2021/2022

Global food systems and food security (LU0092-40119)

2022-03-24 - 2022-06-05

Academic year 2019/2020

Global food systems and food security (LU0092-40043)

2020-03-25 - 2020-06-07

Academic year 2018/2019

Global food systems and food security (LU0092-40095)

2019-03-26 - 2019-06-09

Syllabus and other information

Grading criteria

Grading criteria for the course 'Global Food Systems and Food Security' of the Master's Programme; Rural Development and Natural Resource Management.
Course code LU 0092.

Course learning objectives

The aim of the course is to provide students with an understanding of global food chains, i.e. how food is produced, sold, distributed and apprehended on global and local levels. The course discusses how food systems are linked globally, while food production simultaneously is part of local livelihoods. The course deals with questions of global balances and imbalances in production and consumption with a specific focus on how food systems are integrated into social, cultural, and political contexts. The course provides students with abilities to analyze the challenges caused by climate change as well as economic, political and social challenges as well as what is needed to establish food security. The course gives students knowledge and capabilities needed for further studies as well as professions centering on global food systems and food security.

After finishing the course students should be able to:

- understand and analyze production and marketing of agricultural products on regional a global levels, and understand how the global and the regional is intertwined;

- understand and analyze the historical transformation of agriculture from subsistence to industry, and the effects of these transformations on producers and communities;

- understand and analyze how international political relations and the globalization of markets have influenced food production, marketing, transportation and consumption;

- understand and analyze the importance of food security and its dependence on ecological, economic, political and social factors;

- understand and discuss the social theories needed to analyze global changes in food production, marketing, transportation and consumption.

Examination and demands for approval (grade 3):

The course is graded through a written home exam. The students are required to obtain a minimum number of points to pass the examination.

In order to pass the course students must also participate actively in weekly discussion seminars.

Comments to the grading criteria:

Using the learning objectives as a frame, the following areas of assessment are being used to evaluate the quality of the exam:

The ability to combine empirical material/descriptions with analytical reasoning

The ability to analyze

The ability to coherently understand and deal with complex questions

The ability to describe and analyze the importance of theorizing for understanding the complexity of global food systems and food security

The ability to produce a scientific and well-written text

The grading criteria should be regarded as comprehensive descriptions of different levels of quality. The assessment of the totality is the most important factor. This means that single weaknesses within one area to be assessed may be balanced by strengths in other areas. The grading criteria specifies the minimum level to achieve a specific grading level (3 - 5).

Grading criteria

3. In writing: be able to account for different aspects of and perspectives on global food systems and food security, according to the specified learning objectives of the course.

Participate actively in weekly discussion seminars.

4. In writing: be able to account for, compare or evaluate different aspects of and perspectives on global food systems and food security, according to the specified learning objectives of the course.

Participate actively in weekly discussion seminars.

5. In writing: be able to account for, compare, evaluate and theorize on different aspects of and perspectives on global food systems and food security, according to the specified learning objectives of the course.

Participate actively in weekly discussion seminars.

Litterature list

  1. Literature list Kommentar: Dear all The literature list and instructions are found at the end of the schedule.

Course facts

The course is offered as an independent course: Yes Tuition fee: Tuition fee only for non-EU/EEA/Switzerland citizens: 27500 SEK Cycle: Master’s level (A1N)
Subject: Rural Development
Course code: LU0092 Application code: SLU-40106 Location: Uppsala Distance course: No Language: English Responsible department: Department of Urban and Rural Development Pace: 100%