Sustainable Food: Production and Consumption

About this tour

Norway has evolved from being one of the poorest countries in Europe into one of the richest in the world, due to the discovery and exploitation of oil and gas. Over the last 50 years, the Norwegian diet has followed the same path and moved from very simple food towards an abundant food availability. While the country is slowly challenging its economic model, a new food movement has emerged in Norway, and most specifically in Oslo. Entrepreneurs, policy makers, restaurants chefs, and consumers are constantly inventing more sustainable and healthier food culture.

This Study Tour is designed to give you a greater understanding of food sustainability solutions from a European context through a range of visits to public institutions, companies, NGOs, and farms. You learn to identify different food actors, responsible for a more sustainable food transition. You gain greater insight into the role of communities, governments, and businesses in creating and implementing technology and standards for greater food sustainability.

The tour starts in Oslo with visits to urban farms, restaurants, and food processing companies within the city, as well as food tasting reflections. We then travel into nature to learn more about the interaction between local farmers and one of the largest national parks in Europe.

About this tour

Our long Study Tour brings us to the Netherlands, one of the leading countries in the transition towards a sustainable food system. We will explore the ways in which the highly innovative approach to food production has made the Dutch the second largest net food exporter in the world, surpassed only by the US (No small feat for a country with just 17 million people and one-third the landmass of the state of New York).

With Amsterdam as our home base, we will explore the importance of city-region food systems and citizen-driven food production in the city. You will tour the city to find the many innovative ways Amsterdam is working to reduce food waste and implement circular modes thinking in the food system.

We will also journey beyond the capital city and travel to the world-renowned Westland region, which comprises of around 10,000 acres of greenhouses devoted to the production of vegetables and flowers. There, you will visit state-of-the-art production facilities which allow for continuous innovation and the production of more food with fewer resources and a lower environmental footprint.

About this tour

Situated right in the heart of the Mediterranean, the Italian island of Sicily has a long history rich with cultural and food traditions. Today though, that tradition is threatened. In contrast to northern Europe, southern Europe is experiencing damaged traditional crops due to climate change. Unable to continue producing foods that have grown there for centuries, Sicilian food producers have been forced to innovate their growing methods or to shift production to more tropical produce such as mangos and avocados. On this tour, you will travel to the largest island of the Mediterranean to see for yourself how this new generation of Sicilian cultivators are adapting to a new environment and how these changes are affecting local crops and food culture.

Throughout the tour, you will investigate the challenges of food agriculture in a time of climate change and draw comparisons between issues faced in northern and southern Europe. You will visit both large-scale agricultural sites producing fruits and vegetables for the global food system as well as small-scale farms with a focus on regeneration and sustainability. Both productions face the challenges of water scarcity and increasing temperatures, but tackle it with different methods. Elsewhere on the island, you will learn about the unique geography that comprises the volcanic history of Sicily, engage in the debate over natural wines vs. wines grown in the traditional manner, and investigate social and cultural issues that arise from farming and migration. Throughout your journey, you will consistently revisit the notion of what is authentic and traditional food in the Sicilian region and what it means for that to change.

About this tour

On this week-long Study Tour, our classroom moves from Copenhagen to the Spanish region of Catalonia. The Mediterranean diet is known for being healthy, with regional products and a proud food culture. But little is said about the huge export of vegetables, and what the last 50 years of meat production and agriculture have done to the soil, ecosystems, and sea life. Our adventure starts in the busy food Mecca of Barcelona. Here we will visit traditional food markets as well as new sustainable and biodynamic vegetable sellers. As we dig into the urban, sutianable food culture of Barcelona, we will hear how the municipality of Barcelona takes care of the food waste of its inhabitants, and visit local restaurants.

With Barcelona as our base, we will then travel out into the more peri-urban areas where food and wine production have thrived in this warm climate. We see the theories of the course come to life as we follow sustainable thinkers, chefs, farmers, agronomists, artists, and entrepreneurs in search of the ethic taste for food. We study humans’ relationships with food, consumers’ understanding of the footprint of food production, and their thoughts about the food waste we leave behind us.