Food Systems and Sustainability (ÜWP) - Detailseite

The MSc course “Food Systems and Sustainability” covers the structure, dynamics, and sustainability of global food systems through a diverse mix of lectures, labs, and computer exercises. It provides an integrated view of global food systems, encompassing environmental and social impacts, economic considerations, governance, and consumption aspects. Students will assess system dynamics, shocks, and transformation pathways, and explore pathways toward more sustainable and equitable futures.

Food production is a major driver of global environmental change. With a growing global population and increasingly affluent consumption patterns, the environmental impacts of food systems are projected to intensify in the coming decades. The challenge is to transform food systems towards more sustainable outcomes, including ensuring healthy diets, improving food and nutrition security, supporting rural livelihoods, mitigating climate change, and preserving biodiversity. Meeting this challenge requires a comprehensive understanding of how food systems function from agricultural production and value chains to consumption patterns and the socio-economic and environmental contexts in which they operate.

In the Master's course “Food Systems and Sustainability”, we will provide students with an in-depth understanding of the structure and dynamics of food systems, and how these can be evaluated from a sustainability perspective. The course explores the different components of food systems and emphasises the interactions, trade-offs, and feedbacks that occur within and between them. We take a systems-level perspective to examine the diversity of food systems across the globe, ranging from local subsistence-based systems to highly global supply chains and their interconnectedness. Finally, we will explore how food systems have evolved over time in response to socio-economic, environmental, and technological changes, and discuss alternative futures for food systems and their sustainability. The course will featrue a mix of interactive learning formats, including quantitative and qualitative lab exercises, group work, case studies, and structured reading discussions, to support students in applying concepts and methods to real-world examples.

Literature will be handed out in the preceding week.

Oral exam

This ÜWP is designed for students from geography, economics, and agricultural sciences with experience in quantitative methods.