Dalla Lana School of Public Health

As a longstanding researcher in IDRC’s Ecohealth tradition¹ and global health research mentor², I appreciated being part of the review panel for this research competition. The rationale and opportunities for co-benefits through multi-sectoral food system change are well iterated by Fanzo and colleagues³, the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition⁴ and Willett and colleagues⁵, all cited by different awardees.  Similarly, much has been written about potential mechanisms for inter-sectoral approaches to food system change, as in the policy analysis conducted by Parsons & Hawkes⁶ for the European Union. 

Yet how best to conceptualize and design research of such inter-sectoral approaches which can itself contribute to food system change is a daunting prospect for researchers at whatever career stage. I remember working on a mixed methods proposal to examine urban agriculture contributions to food security and nutrition, while co-teaching population health intervention research.  I openly admitted how hard designing such complex research was, so the graduate students and we debated the pros and cons of different research foci, framings, aims, methods and designs for our different research proposals. My thoughts here about ways to nurture researcher journeys which contribute to food system change are rooted in such dialogue. I shall orient my reflections around four key choices emerging researchers and their mentors face: discipline/sector(s), level(s), stance, and expectations.

Which disciplines/sectors to involve?

The panorama of sectors which need to be involved in agri-food systems transformation⁷ provides a breath-taking spectrum of research opportunities. For many researchers, their disciplinary backgrounds and institutional locations overly influence both mentors and mentees choices.  For example, a suite of proposals which I reviewed for this competition had difficulty moving beyond their agricultural and nutritional science strengths to engage with other sectors, while the accepted proposals in this compendium do involve multiple sectors.

Fortunately, Immersion in transdisciplinary teams can help trainees expand understandings of which sectors and disciplines are important. For example, undergraduates from multiple disciplinary backgrounds doing their honours thesis placements with an agriculture for health and environment project in the Ecuadorian Andes described the expansion of their conceptual frameworks and  methodological tools⁸.  In producing policy recommendations for emphasizing nutritional benefits and decreasing environment and health risks associated with urban agriculture in Kampala, masters⁹ and doctoral¹⁰ students contributed their disciplinary methodological expertise to a multi-sectoral research project. Ways of expanding sectoral horizons, and the associated theoretical and methodological approaches include sets of short intensive courses promoting collaborative learning for both trainees at various career stages¹¹ and their mentors¹². 

What scales or levels to span?

Given the multi-level nature of food systems with numerous links across levels, scoping the levels upon which to focus is a difficult one.  Household procurement and consumption practices (Chuma Banji Chinzila, this compendium) is a focus which Ecuadorian former doctoral students, now colleagues, have found helpful¹³. Linkages among food systems, health risks and environments can also be assessed through populations of households using existing data sets (as per Kanchana Wickramasinghe, this compendium) or generating primary data in conjunction with members of producer households. The latter approach was adopted by Peruvian masters trainees and research staff in working with small scale farmers¹⁴ and in Ecuador with members of agroecological associations¹⁵. Agroecology, as promoted by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (see Community of Practice (CoP) on Family Farming and Agroecology), aims to apply “regenerative ecological principles to agricultural practices…and integrates these practices with environmental, social and economic priorities to contribute to sustainable food systems”¹⁶. Such an approach spanned households and communities, much like Ranaivo Andriarilala Rasolofoson’s proposal (this compendium) to engage with forest communities in community nutritional interventions.

The municipal level, the focus of Jenny Melo Velasco (this compendium) is highly appropriate, given the increasing proportion of populations living in cities. Related is that by David Smith (this compendium) who plans to explore multiple levels of drivers and barriers to inclusive governance of urban food markets. My own engagement with trainees and researcher-practitioners in East Africa¹⁷ and Toronto¹⁸ highlighted the complexity of such work, so a brave venture for doctoral or post-doctoral studies. Interestingly, provincial-state examinations are missing, but more national examinations of food systems (Bianca Carducci and Tebogo Thandie Leepile this compendium) will be important contributions, depending on the extent to which the data sets that these researchers access adequately include indicators of environments, particularly those relevant to agri-food systems.

What stance to take?

In keeping with decolonizing perspectives¹⁹, global health research must increasingly be collaborative, as emerging researchers engaged in intensive summer institutes articulated well²⁰. Nevertheless, many researchers regard themselves primarily as observers (Chuma Banji Chinzila in this compendium) or analysts (Kanchana Wickramasinghe in this compendium) whose subsequent knowledge transfer will inform policy makers.

Researchers interested in making change during their research often employ action research approaches, so that changes occur during research implementation, as per Ranaivo Andriarilala Rasolofoson’s proposal (this compendium). Such was the approach adopted by Peruvian masters and early doctoral students in a project evaluating transformations in horticulture²¹. A particular form is participatory action research, used by an IDRC Agropolis awardee working with Senegalese peri-urban farmers²².  Melo Velasco (this compendium) proposes such a collaborative approach in developing a toolbox to improve local food systems as a primary goal of her work.

Increasingly, emerging researchers are being called upon by oppressed communities to become critical allies for change²³. I have supervised doctoral students who have struggled incorporating such a stance after their field work. More conducive has been earlier adoption by doctoral students who worked with migrant agricultural workers from Mexico and the Caribbean in critical allyship throughout their doctoral research. They joined coalitions, participated in campaigns, and navigated complex health and migration systems with migrant workers, informing their research on global food system transformation²⁴.

With what expectations of impact(s)?

Proposal writing seems to require imagining changes in understanding, practice and policy that over-reach the bounds of what any particular research project, program or even field can reasonably influence.  As were the majority of applicants in the competition, I was once an emerging researcher rooted in positivist traditions, who expected more rapid uptake of our findings. In fact, it took years from our earliest work modeling improved health and reduced environmental contamination among farmers²⁵ through subsequent intervention research with masters and doctoral trainees and post-doctoral fellows²⁶²⁷ to eventually inform social movements and persuade policy makers in Ecuador to make changes in agricultural pesticide regulation for health and environment²⁸.

Adopting constructivist paradigms helps, as do two of the emerging researchers in this compendium (Chuma, Leepile, Rasolofoson).  Yet the embedded political ecology of knowledge, elucidated by a former post-doctoral fellow²⁹, needs to be more overtly recognized given the global forces of extractivism³⁰ and financialization³¹ affecting our agri-food systems. Together these forces, and the corporate actors behind them, currently make difficult the kinds of food system transformations needed to meet the 2030 SDG global goals³², particularly since the majority of food is produced by small scale farmers³³. Active monitoring by researchers and others can contribute, as per Bianca Carducci’s and Tebogo Thandie Leepile’s proposed works in this compendium.

Future directions

Given the challenges which global food systems will offer into the foreseeable future, emerging researchers and their mentors will face ongoing decisions in evolving contexts.  Agility will be key to seizing opportunities, and perseverance to seeing the kinds of transformations needed to realize co-benefits for health and environment. At the same time, humility is needed as we collaborate with civil society movements and elected governments to make changes in governance and priorities to take up our research and have the impacts we and our proposals promise. 

Take a look at some awardees’ experiences on engaging with different disciplines relating to the co-benefits of health and environment