AURORA Webinar Series “Socio-ecological Metabolisms and Sustainable Governance of Mediterranean Food Systems"
The AURORA project strives to contribute to sustainable development of agri-environmental systems and, ultimately, to food security and resource-efficient and environmentally sound agricultural production in the MENA region. The AURORA project launched in 2021, and will continue for a period of four years. As a way to advertise and raise attention to the theme of the project early on, the project partners are organizing a series of five webinars throughout the first year. The webinars will host external academic experts and practitioners on relevant topics concerning the social-ecological analysis of agri-environmental systems in the MENA region.
You are required to register to the Zoom link to access the webinar. You can register from here: https://uni-kassel.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJAvcO2grz8iEtE5gObVRPeelX4wWH5AyQy9
KEYNOTE:
Socio-ecological Metabolisms and Sustainable Governance of Mediterranean Food Systems by Professor Manuel González deMolina
The way in which food is organized in our societies is a major source of very severe environmental impacts and the direct cause of hunger and malnutrition on a global scale. Rich countries are particularly responsible, as the case of Spain shows. To approach the functioning of Spanish food system, a metabolic analysis is performed and its impact is measured by the assess of virtual land embodied in the diet of Spaniards. There is a growing consensus that this way to organize the food regime is not viable and that there is a serious risk of food collapse. Building a food system based on sustainability is therefore an urgent task.
But the search for a sustainable food system implies a change in the current food regimen dynamics that can only come from social agents by means of institutional mediation. For years, agroecology has been developing strategies for scaling out agroecological experiences. However, the current institutional framework blocks the growth of these experiences, relegating them to the sidelines. The main challenge facing agroecology is to expand the scale of agroecological experiences, building an alternative food system and challenging the hegemony of the corporate food regime. This goal will only be possible through social mobilization focused not only on agricultural production or distribution but also on food consumption, weaving social alliances that promote change.