WANTED: BSc Thesis Student

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Feeding 9 billion by 2050?: A critical review of international policy proposals

Food security was thrust back onto the international agenda in 2008 when the FAO declared that for the first time, more than 1 billion people were going hungry. At this moment of enhanced crisis, others looked ahead and asked if we have trouble feeding the world’s 7 billion people now how will we feed the estimated 9 billion in 2050? This focus on feeding 9 billion by 2050 resonated with international policy actors who responded with multiple strategies to potentially address this problem.

This BSc thesis will undertake a systematic literature review of the problem framings and policy proposals that have been advanced to address this challenge.

The thesis student is expected to:

  • Develop a related research question
  • Undertake a systematic literature review
  • Map the framings of the policy problem
  • Map the proposed solutions
  • Select key policy documents for deeper analysis
  • Undertake a critical analysis of these documents to arrive at a conclusion about the policy implications related to the discourse of “feeding 9 billion by 2050”
  • Write up process as a BSc thesis in Rural Sociology

Interested?
Contact Jessica Duncan jessica.duncan@wur.nl

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About FoodGovernance

Jessica Duncan is Associate Professor in Rural Sociology at Wageningen University (the Netherlands). She holds a PhD in Food Policy from City University London (2014). Jessica’s main research focus concerns the practices and politics of participation in food policy processes, particularly the relationships (formal and non-formal) between governance organizations, systems of food provisioning, the environment, and the actors engaged in and across these spaces. More specifically, she maps the diverse ways that actors participate in policy-making processes, analysing how the resulting policies are shaped, implemented, challenged, and resisted, and she theorizes about what this means for socio-ecological transformation. Participation and engagement is at the core of her approach. In turn, she is active in a broad range of local, national and international initiatives with the aim of better understanding participation processes with a view towards transitioning to just and sustainable food systems. She is involved in several research projects including ROBUST, HortEco & SHEALTHY. Jessica is published regularly in academic journals. She recently co-edited the Handbook on Sustainable and Regenerative Food Systems (2020). Her other books include Food Security Governance: Civil society participation in the Committee on World Food Security (2015) and an edited volume called Sustainable food futures: Multidisciplinary solutions (2017). Jessica has received several awards for her teaching and in 2017 she was awarded Teacher of the Year for Wageningen University (shortlisted again in 2018 and 2019, longlisted in 2020). With the funds she has received for these awards she launched a story-telling workshop for students and faculty, with storytelling trainer, Emma Holmes. Jessica is on the Editorial Board of the journal Sociologia Ruralis and is an advisor to the Traditional Cultures Project (USA). She is a member of the Wageningen Young Academy and sits on the Sustainability Board of Experts at Wageningen University.

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