Internship: the role of dairy in a sustainable diet

There are many definitions of a sustainable diet. A sustainable diet should not only be sustainable, but also be nutritious and healthy. Furthermore, in order to insure compliance, attainability is also an important aspect.

Sustainability, health and attainability all are very broad, overarching terms. In order to create a better understanding of those terms one should break them down in smaller more concrete determinants. E.g. sustainability can be determined by CO₂ footprint, land use, water use, animal welfare, ……
In order to understand the role of dairy in a sustainable diet it is important to understand how dairy does score on the different determinants of sustainability. Furthermore, it is important to understand the influence of the dairy production process (from grass to glass) on the different parameters of sustainability.

Once the position of dairy in the sustainability landscape is defined, it is important to include other elements such as health, nutrition, food availability, habits, affordability etc. By taking all those elements together you can determine the position of dairy in a sustainable diet.

Research Questions:

What is the role of dairy in a sustainable diet?
Which sustainability issues are relevant for food?
Which sustainability issues have priority in food policy?
How does dairy score on the different parameters?
How can the sustainability performance of dairy be improved?

Required skills/expertise:

Experience with literature research
Ability to work cross-disciplinary
Knowledge of sustainable food production and agriculture

Contact Person:

Cécile Singh-Povel (Cecile.Singh-Povel[at]frieslandcampina.com), +31 (0)646911347
Sanne Dekker (Sanne.Dekker[at]frieslandcampina.com), +31 (0)6 17959000
Contact Els Hegger (els.hegger[at]wur.nl) from the Rural Sociology group for questions about supervision.

Practicalities: