Lessons from the past and the future of food

ABSTRACT

Perspectives from the recent and ancient past are largely underutilized in modern sustainability or food systems studies. However, information about regional crop histories and land use systems through time can add essential value and context to debates concerning future agricultural strategies and food security. In particular, archaeological and anthropological research can provide long-term perspectives on adaptive solutions and agricultural resilience that could support strategies for sustainable agriculture, especially in developing countries. This paper explores this debate within a food systems framework and highlights the need for researchers to work across disciplines and sectors to share knowledge, exchange ideas and create solutions in order to meet the challenges of feeding the world in a healthy, equitable, sustainable and resilient way.

KEYWORDS:

• Archaeology
• anthropology
• food security
• food systems
• sustainability
• resilience
• underutilised crops
• land use

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank everyone that participated in the conference ‘Lessons from The Past: Archaeology, Anthropology and The Future of Food’, held at the Oxford Martin School, Oxford on 23 August 2018 and organized by Kelly Reed and Philippa Ryan. The conference was supported by the Oxford Martin School programme on the Future of Food, the Global Challenge Research Fund (GCRF) and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), as part of the “Nubian traditional knowledge and agricultural resilience, crop choices and endangered cultural heritage project” (P. Ryan grant no. AH/R004536/1, held at the British Museum. http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/research_projects/all_current_projects/sudan/amara_west_research_project/nubian_agricultural_knowledge.aspx) as well as the Association for Environmental Archaeology (AEA). A special thank you to Charles Godfray, John Ingram, Dorian Fuller, Mark Nesbitt, Neal Spencer and Caroline Cartwright for their support and advice.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council [AH/R004536/1].

Notes on contributors

Kelly Reed

Kelly Reed is the Programme Manager for the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food, which links together existing research on the food system at Oxford and supports new interdisciplinary research that addresses the challenges of feeding the global population sustainably, healthily and equitably. A substantive part of this work involves project managing the Wellcome Trust funded Livestock, Environment and People (LEAP) Project, which aims to understand the health, environment, social and economic effects of meat and dairy consumption to provide evidence and tools for decision makers to promote healthy and sustainable diets.

Kelly is an archaeobotanist with interests in food systems, agricultural development, cultural adaptations to environmental change and global sustainability. Her work focuses predominantly on the reconstruction of past diet and subsistence strategies in the Balkans from the Neolithic to the Late Middle Ages (6000 BC – 16th Century AD). She is particularly interested in exploring how archaeology and anthropology can help inform current food systems issues, especially as they are tools well-suited to investigating food security and agricultural development over different time frames and under different challenges.

Philippa Ryan

Philippa Ryan is a Research Fellow in Economic Botany at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, where her research specialization includes ethnobotany, traditional agriculture and food. Previously, she worked at the British Museum as an ethnobotanist and archaeobotanist. Between 2013-2016 Philippa was Principal Investigator for the AHRC funded ‘Sustainability and subsistence systems in a changing Sudan’ project which investigated ancient and recent crop changes; and following this in 2018 of a ‘follow-on’ AHRC GCRF project Nubian traditional knowledge and agricultural resilience, crop choices and endangered cultural heritage.