Sustainable Food Security: Food Access

Food access: Learn about food supply and food security

Have you ever considered that you’re not the only one who decides what food ends up on your plate? In this environmental studies course, you’ll explore how key actors at household, local, national and international levels negotiate and make choices on access to food. You will understand why the choices you make have been predestined. And you will learn what it takes to provide access to a safe and nutritious food supply every day.

For whom?

This introductory course is taught by instructors with decades of experience in university teaching and real life projects about access to food all over the world. This course will be beneficial to students, food and nutrition policy makers, development practitioners and trainers at international, national, household and individual level.

Wageningen University is specialized

The University of Wageningen offers an excellent combination of conducting research worldwide and educating in the area of ‘healthy food and living environment’. The institute ranks among the top Dutch universities and has scored the third place in the Times Higher Education (THE) World Ranking 2017 for research performance. Learn from professors who have gained decades of experience from both teaching at a specialized university and real life projects about access to food worldwide.

XSeries

This MOOC is part of the XSeries programme Food Security and Sustainability, which learns you more about how we can feed the world with its growing population and wealth in a sustainable way. The other courses in this XSeries are Sustainable Food Security: Crop Production and Sustainable Food Security: The Value of Systems Thinking.

Week 1: Setting the scene
Introduction to food access as one of the pillars of global food security

Week 2: Households accessing and allocating food
Introduction to social and economic determinants shaping access to food between and within households

Week 3: Traders arranging food access in local markets
Introduction to distribution and trading food at the local level

Week 4: National policy makers governing food access
Introduction to food policy and how political choices at the national level affect access to food

Week 5: Negotiators setting international trade rules for food access
Introducing the role of international trade for food access and its economic, social and cultural implications

Week 6: connecting the ingredients
Integration of levels and actors