Sara Stevano (University of the West of England) and Lotta Takala-Greenish (University of the West of England and University of Johannesburg)

Diets are changing globally, as agricultural and food systems have become globalised and created new forms of food production, distribution, and trade. The nutritional implications are seen in rising obesity and non-communicable diseases alongside, particularly in the Global South, the persistence of food insecurity and undernutrition. However, the study of food and diet quality has not been well integrated within the functioning of agricultural and food regimes. Apart from a thin body of literature in the field of global public health and critical nutrition study, detailed explorations of the links between the quality of food, diet and health outcomes with the systems of food provisioning are lacking. This panel draws together studies that shed light on how the organisation of food production, distribution and trade shapes food quality and health narratives.

This episode features Panel 1 of the Workshop on ‘Political Economy Approaches to Food Regimes.’ This one-day workshop, was organised by the SOAS University of London Food, Nutrition and Health in Development Research Custer and brought together topics in contemporary food regime studies examined from a political economy perspective. Topics included inequality and food security, the state and food sovereignty, food regimes and the politics of conflict and financialisation of food.

Paper One: ‘Concentration of power in production: the missing link in developing soy agro-processing’ by Dr Lotta Takala-Greenish (University of the West of England, UK, and University of Johannesburg, South Africa)

Paper two: ‘Food (Ine)Quality: Consumption of Packaged Foods and Nutrition Narratives’ by Dr Sara Stevano (University of the West of England, UK)

Organiser: SOAS University of London Food, Nutrition and Health in Development Research Custer

Event Date: 19 January 2018

Released by: SOAS Economics Podcast