IFSTAL Blog
IFSTAL - An Introduction to Food Systems
By Taneeja Ram & Hannah Beard
As students of the MSc in Environmental Bioscience in a Changing Climate here at Warwick, we spend a lot of time looking at the science of our planet. But when it comes to the food on our plates, science is only one piece of a much larger, messier puzzle. That is why we decided to join IFSTAL (Interdisciplinary Food Systems Teaching and Learning).
For those who haven’t heard of it, IFSTAL is an interactive training programme designed to tackle a massive global issue: the systemic failings of our food environment. With billions of people globally facing either hunger, nutrient deficiencies, or obesity, and with food production degrading the natural resources it relies on, we need a new way of thinking. IFSTAL brings together students from different universities (including Oxford, Reading, City St George’s, LSHTM, RVC, SOAS, and Warwick) to build a workforce skilled in "food systems thinking."
"On a sunny Saturday in October, we attended our first in-person session: Workshop 1 - Exploration of Food Systems, in Oxford."
Read on for a Q&A with Tan and Hannah to understand more about the day.
Q & A: The IFSTAL Experience
1. Why did you decide to take on the IFSTAL course on top of your current MSc workload?
Hannah: It's definitely a commitment, but I felt it was necessary. In our MSc, we look heavily at the biological and environmental impacts of climate change. However, food security isn't just about whether a crop grows in a drought; it's about politics, economics, culture, and supply chains. IFSTAL seemed like the perfect bridge between my technical science degree and the real-world policy context.
2. This was the first in-person workshop. How did you find the experience of a 6-hour Saturday session?
Tan: I'll admit, giving up a Saturday for a six-hour session sounded daunting at first, but the day honestly evaporated! It wasn't a case of 'death by PowerPoint'; we were thrown straight into the deep end learning by doing through a variety of exercises, after some meet and greets and some introductory lectures. Staff and students alike seemed so engaged, encouraging me to really pay attention.
Time went by the fastest during the several group exercises. We were grouped with students from other universities and tasked with solving a specific food system issue of our choice. An interesting challenge! Trying to align a variety of perspectives to find a solution was a real brain workout, but that challenge is exactly what made it so rewarding. It was so interesting to hear the work others had done, or what they had read or were interested in. Between the lively debates and frequent breaks, I learned far more and met more people than I would have in a standard lecture.
3. What was the biggest technical skill you learned during the workshop?
Hannah: We learnt about "Rich Pictures". It sounds like an art class, but it's actually a rigorous systems thinking tool. The idea is to draw a situation (like a failing food supply chain) without trying to structure it too early. You include everything: the actors, the conflicts, the environment, and even the emotions involved. We tend to often categorise things quickly, but this method forced me to step back and look at the "messiness" of the whole web before trying to fix it.
4. IFSTAL is "Interdisciplinary" by name. Did you feel that during the session?
Tan: Definitely. Coming from our MSc in Environmental Bioscience, Hannah and I are used to looking at things through a scientific, biological lens. Suddenly, we were in a room with students studying policy, economics and social sciences from places like Oxford and SOAS.
It became clear quite quickly that science is really only one part of the system. You realise that a solution that makes perfect sense biologically won't work economically or socially. This is the interdisciplinary element: solving one part of the problem may create new problems in another part of the system, requiring as many perspectives as possible. This is what IFSTAL is trying to do. It challenged me to step out of my comfort zone and see the food systems as a web of connecting parts that may involve perhaps every single human being on Earth, rather than just a scientific or agricultural process.
5. How does this workshop relate to your specific MSc in Environmental Bioscience?
Hannah: It has helped to ground our course material. We study how climate change affects biological systems, but IFSTAL showed us the feedback loops. For example, food production drives climate change, which in turn degrades the resources needed for food production. Seeing this mapped out visually in the workshop made the urgency of our MSc studies feel much more real. It helped me see where a bioscience intervention might succeed, and where it might fail because of a social or economic barrier we hadn't considered. It also demonstrated the need for an interdisciplinary approach. Meeting students from different courses at different universities showed a whole different approach to this complex topic.
6. Now that you've completed Unit 1 and the first workshop, what do you hope to achieve by the end of the programme?
Tan: Beyond just finishing the modules and getting a rounded view of the food system, my main goal is to grasp drawing boundaries around issues in a system. During the workshop, my group struggled to simply define the issue we were trying to solve - it kept getting broader and broader! This made drawing our RICH picture, a tool for mapping complex problems, really difficult.
By the end of the programme, I hope to get much better at deep collaboration so I can work together more effectively with people who have different perspectives from different fields or parts of the world from me. I want to be able to come up with innovative, achievable solutions for UK and global food security. Most importantly, I want to ensure I can bring the environmental problem to the forefront of the food security conversation, I think it is a key perspective that needs a strong voice.