Project Details
Projekt
Reimagining Food Systems for Climate Change Adaptation, Mitigation, and Social Justice
Applicants
Raymond Ayilu, Ph.D.; Professor Dr. Achim Schlüter
Subject Area
Agricultural Economics, Agricultural Policy, Agricultural Sociology
Human Geography
Human Geography
Term
since 2024
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 539512198
Low-cost fossil fuels have enabled an explosive growth of food production. Although this has enhanced economic growth and human well-being, the negative consequences of the shift are now evident in climate change, which is disproportionately increasing food security risks for vulnerable groups. Low cost, highly processed foods are displacing traditional foods, resulting in undernutrition and malnutrition. Displacement of Indigenous Peoples and other disadvantaged groups to marginal lands has increased their susceptibility to increasingly extreme climate change events, such as droughts, flooding, and heat waves. Marginalization has led to greater risks of economic and gender-based exploitation, impoverishment, and food insecurity.We propose a mitigation and adaptation strategy to reduce harmful emissions from food production and use Indigenous knowledge to enhance food security for vulnerable populations. The Reimagining Food Systems (RFS) project brings together Indigenous, local, and inter-disciplinary knowledges to test circular economy and other integrative approaches to small fish, wild rice, and traditional medicinal foods. The application of integrative approaches, principles of distributive justice, and closed-loop environmental design will reduce climate change impacts and associated socio-economic externalities.RFS investigates the potential effectiveness of interdisciplinary interventions in two inter-related thematic areas: 1) Indigenous circular bio-economy strategies to fish and other “foods as medicine”; and 2) harnessing small fish to directly meet the needs of vulnerable groups. With the experience of Indigenous peoples as the starting point, Theme 1 brings ethical and practical insights of Indigenous knowledge about sustainability and food security. Theme 2 highlights the biological and nutritional potential of small fish to further climate adaptation and justice. The design of the RSF project and the interdisciplinary composition of the team will lead to an innovative range of linked interventions. These include support for extreme climate resistant food sources, shorter value chains to benefit rural and remote Indigenous communities, women fish traders and marginalized consumer groups, integrated food production systems, institutional realignments to promote direct human consumption of nutritious traditional foods, and interactive, digital, cultural-twin educational tools for truth, reconciliation, and social justice.
DFG Programme
Research Grants
International Connection
Canada, Norway, United Kingdom, USA
