Future Food Systems professorship group

The aim of the Future Food Systems professorship group is to accelerate the transition to sustainable food systems. Making the system more sustainable is not sufficient: a transition is needed in the way we produce, value and consume food. The research group works on intervention strategies as well as new business models. 

Food is an important part of our culture and well-being, but food is also related to global sustainability challenges needing urgent attention:

• globally, there are growing concerns about human health due to the increase in food-related diseases alongside persistent food insecurity
• The boundaries the planet can cope with in terms of climate change, biodiversity, freshwater use and nitrogen and phosphate cycles are being exceeded
• Food waste
• Social injustice concerning wages and working conditions in food chains (e.g. FAO, 2019; IPCC, 2019)

It was recently estimated that the social health, economic and environmental costs of the global food system are $12 trillion; 20% more than the market value of all food systems (Pharo et al, 2019). This alone clearly indicates that making the current food system more sustainable is not enough. Achieving the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals requires a complete rethink about the way food is produced, valued and consumed. 

The Future Food Systems professorship group is based on three related pillars:

• Practical research into the dynamics in current and future food systems at different scales
• Participatory exploratory studies of a future with sustainable food systems
• Exploring transition processes leading to system-based intervention strategies and new business models that can accelerate these processes

The Food Transition Coalition (Transitiecoalitie Voedsel) is a permanent partner. This network organisation has more than 200 members from the business community, knowledge institutions, social organisations and local, provincial and national government authorities. The mission is to ensure a transition to a sustainable food system; healthy people on a healthy planet.

Professor Frederike Praasterink is secretary of a National Science Agenda (NWA) Consortium called 'Transition to a sustainable food system’ (Transitie naar een duurzaam voedselsysteem), which involves more than 35 partners from all kinds of universities and parties in the field. This programme was launched in March 2021, and will run until 2025.

She also holds a number of social roles: 

• Guest lecturer at Nyenrode Business University, lecture series Sustainability for the food & agribusiness; and Change Management.
• Council member (agri-food) of the Provincial Council for the Living Environment in North Brabant
• Member of the Social Advisory Council of the Dutch Forestry Commission in North Brabant

PJ Beers leads the project 'Knowledge for Earning Capacity: Cash to the Cycle', a collaboration between HAS Green Academy, Van Hall Larenstein, Inholland, Aeres, Hanze University of Applied Sciences Groningen and Hogeschool Windesheim. Commercial partners include: ZLTO, Rabobank, Flynth, ABAB and many others.

In addition, the resrearch group participates under PJ's leadership in the CropMix project, an NWA project of Wageningen University and numerous other research and commercial partners, aimed at researching and strengthening all kinds of mixed crops, such as strip cultivation, food forests and pixel farming.

PJ is president of the Green Protein Alliance, an association of plant-based protein producers and their partners that strives for a more plant-based diet.

Reports, summaries and articles

View all reports, summaries and articles of projects from the professorship in Greeni