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This course draws on the concept of “food politics” – the political, social, cultural and economic conflicts surrounding food – to debate some of the common public controversies surrounding the production and consumption of food around the world.
Learning objectives
- Academic research, including the search for, assimilation and synthesis of the latest academic sources in food and agriculture
- Argumentation and speaking skills: the construction of an analytical, accurate and well-presented oral argument, based on the latest scientific evidence in both natural and social sciences.
- Reading and critical thinking: how to identify the key arguments and evidence used in a piece of writing and critically appraise these.
The course is organized around class debates. Each class will cover a specific topic or question related to food and agriculture, which one student will argue for and another will argue against. Topics include ‘hot issues’ in food politics, such as:
- The use of agricultural biotechnology
- Genetically modified organism
- Big food and big agriculture
- The political economy of food and hunger
- Food choices and the omnivore’s dilemma
- Nutrition, diets and public health
- Food movements and food advocacy
- Food and the environment
The debates are followed by a discussion with the whole group and the latest evidence on the topic is presented by the lecturer.
The course includes a field trip to the Forum for the Future of Agriculture in Brussels, the yearly high-level conference on the future of food and agriculture founded by the European Landowners' Organization and Syngenta. Speakers at the event include politicians, businesses, farmers, NGOs and journalists.
Modalités
1h intro session + 8x 2h debate sessions + fieldtrip
The sessions are organized around class debates. Each class will cover a specific topic or question related to food and agriculture, which one student will argue for and another will argue against. Students sign up for specific topics during the first class.
Debate format
Each class will cover a specific topic or question related to food and agriculture, which one student will argue for and another will argue against (see debate planning document on iCampus). Each debating student gets 3 rounds of 5 minutes each, in turns, to present his/her arguments. After each round, the debaters get 3 minutes to prepare a rebuttal, combining both their own arguments and responses to the arguments raised by the opponent.
As debaters you will have to prepare your argumentation through a 2-pages long ‘position paper’, which will draw on the latest scientific evidence supporting your claims. The position papers have to be uploaded through iCampus, 48h before each session.
The remaining students play the role of the ‘judges’. Following the presentation of the arguments, they ask the debaters questions which feed into the debate. At the end of the debate, students anonymously evaluate the performance using the standardized grading form (available on iCampus). When grading your fellow students, remember that the overall task of debating is more important than your own opinion on the subject or on the specific outcome of the debate.