The Ecology of Food

Overview & Synopsis

Written to mark the tenth anniversary of the UNESCO Chair in World Food Systems, this multidisciplinary collection of short, digestible expert essays offers a uniquely rounded introduction to the key contemporary issues around sustainable nutrition. The book consists of a clear, five-part structure in which economists, historians, sociologists, physical biologists, and others present a series of reflections on what food is, how it functions in our socieities, how we understand it, and how this has changed over time. Along the way, we discover how current global policies and agro-practices feed into all of this, and we find that reconsidering our nutrition amounts to reconsidering our societies. All authors are leaders in their fields, and all hail from the research organizations that co-lead the UNESCO Chair, including CIRAD, INRAE, Institut Agro, IRD and Ciheam-IAMM, making this an ideal introductory resource for postgraduates, practitioners, and others interested in food studies and global food systems. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.