By 2050, there will be ten billion people to feed. Already, the food supply faces major challenges related to the environment, climate, and health.
Scientists at Wageningen from various disciplines, ranging from agricultural and nutrition experts to philosophers, are researching partial solutions. Their stories are compiled in the book ‘Ten Billion Mouths,’ edited by food thinkers Jeroen Candel and Ingrid de Zwarte.
Not long after political scientist Jeroen Candel and historian Ingrid de Zwarte were introduced to each other on the Wageningen campus in September 2019, a plan for a book was underway.
And one year after their first meeting, ‘Ten Billion Mouths’ is now available in bookstores. It contains 41 groundbreaking ideas from 80 Wageningen scientists about healthy and sustainable food in the future. Topics range from eating algae and insects to reducing food waste, and from making better choices in supermarkets to combating hunger in developing countries.
Candel and De Zwarte, both university lecturers, enjoy translating their research findings for a broader audience. For example, De Zwarte, who works at the Chair Group of Agricultural and Environmental History, previously wrote a book about the Dutch Hunger Winter during the final months of World War II.
Political scientist Candel is a columnist at Foodlog, a news platform covering topics such as nutrition, agriculture, and food policy. Candel: “We enjoy doing this, but we also see it as an important societal task for the university to be visible in the public debate.”