Our food system in times of a climate crisis – conclusions from a lecture series
Almost exactly one year ago Elena had the idea to organize a public lecture series together. The plan was to organize lectures that cover different aspects of the impact of our food choices on the climate and biodiversity loss crisis we are facing today.
The motivation for our own lecture series
The inspiration for this series grew from our joint time as students at the agricultural science faculty at ETH. Throughout these years, we were often confronted with questions and insecurities about the climate impact of our food choices by friends and family. Very often, these questions covered topics that have been answered quite clearly by science, but this scientific consensus did not seem to have reached the public awareness yet. At the same time, we have clearly seen during our time at ETH that a change in our food system which incorporates these insights is crucial to fight the current climate crisis and to adapt our agricultural system to the challenges that come with the looming crisis. We are both very well aware that this change needs to be systemic and politically guided. Still, we both think that general information is essential to create the public support needed to realize political measures creating this much needed system change. The two of us have developed into a great team during the last couple of years, as we are both very enthusiastic about reaching a broader public with interesting facts about agriculture and our food system, and we started planning our own lecture series about the topic.
The organization of our own lecture series
In a first step we defined the topics we wanted to cover in our lectures. The second step was then to invite experts and distinguished practitioners to give insight into their respective fields. We were lucky to be able to gain experts from a range of different backgrounds. A list of all the speakers invited can be found in Box 1. We then organized six evenings with different topics, hosting two different experts each evening. While the lecture series started with a general introduction to the impact of agriculture and our food system as they relate to climate change, the topics of the remaining evenings were more specific. Their foci ranged from genome editing to food waste, from seasonality and regionality to plant protection and from the lack of diversity in crop production to the climate impact of our meat consumption. While the individual topics ended up being very distinct for each event, the joint aspect of all lectures was the context it was presented in: Every expert tried to assess the importance of his or her field in the context of the current climate and biodiversity loss crisis.
Box 1: List of the expert speakers
As two young women in the agricultural sector it was very important to us to reach equal representation of men and women in our board of experts and we are happy that we reached that goal in five of the six lecture evenings. An overview of the experts can be found below.
Anna Schöpfer & Rahel Bösiger, Biovision
The impact of Covid-19
As with almost everything in the year 2020, our lecture series was also heavily affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. Following a long interruption between March and September we were lucky enough to obtain the support and technical expertise to help us adapt to the situation and continue the lectures during the second Covid-19 wave in Switzerland. As the situation intensified, we transitioned from live events to live-streams of our in-presence events and finally concluded the lecture series with a lecture on plant protection fully online. Due to this technical flexibility graciously provided by our excellent support, we were able to reach 50 – 100 people each evening with interesting and helpful facts about the state-of-the-art in agriculture and agricultural science.
A picture taken on our first event in March 2020 - right before a global pandemic turned all our lives upside down for a while.
A decrease in foodwaste and livestock as the basis to face future food system challenges
Despite the broad range of topics and backgrounds of the experts, one single conclusion was drawn on all evenings during this time: Facing the current challenges of an ever-intensifying climate crisis and an ever-increasing world population, every field on its own can contribute to decreasing the climate impact and improving sustainable intensification of agricultural production. There are a number of innovative solutions currently being offered in different fields, such as genetically modified crops with a potential for increased productivity, focusing on seasonal and regional vegetables for a reduced carbon footprint, and a commitment to organic plant protection. However, no impact will matter if the two biggest issues, namely the excessive consumption of animal products and the amount of food waste, are not addressed first. All experts invited agreed that a fundamental change in those two behavioral patterns is the basis on which all other improvements need to build upon. In other words: a reduction of livestock and a less wasteful food consumption are the fundamental building blocks of a more resilient and sustainable food system.
Plans for the future
Being able to share this knowledge with so many people and having experts solidifying this conclusion lecture after lecture, motivated us so much, that we are now planning to continue with our project to reach a broader public awareness of the impacts of our food system on the climate crisis. We are looking forward to many more interesting questions and substantial discussions and want to use the opportunity to thank all of you who supported us during the last year.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Miriam Leimgruber just finished her master’s degree in agricultural science at ETH. During her studies she mainly focused on plant science and plant-soil interactions with a general interest in agroecological concepts. During this time, her intrinsic motivation for the subject never changed: contributing one small steppingstone towards a more resilient and sustainable food system. In her free time, she likes to be active outdoors and think about how to incorporate agroecological concepts in her city garden.
Elena Kost is currently finishing her master thesis in agricultural science at ETH. Since her bachelor her interests got caught by soils, their chemistry, biology and sustainable cultivation. During this time, her desire and motivation to create more awareness for a more sustainable food system grew immensely. She loves to spend her free time on mountains, exploring nature and planning more interesting events with Miriam.