
Food and Water Security
Registration Fee
Learner Engagement
Course Dates
Offering Number | Course Start Date | Course End Date |
---|---|---|
1 | 01/03/2021 | 28/03/2021 |
Short Course Description
Food security is one of the most pressing dilemmas of our time. Around the globe, approximately 2 billion people experience some form of food deprivation each day. One in ten people suffers from some form of food insecurity in Canada. This has led scholars to question why food insecurity exists in an ostensibly food secure country. The literature on food security and climate change has also grown exponentially over the past several decades in large part as a response to world events such as the Green Revolution and other forms of industrial agricultural development since the 1970s. Despite the advances in research and technology, we still possess inadequate knowledge of the dynamics causing the onset of food insecurity, and significant disagreement persists among scholars concerning the best way to ameliorate food insecurity.
Drawing upon the food security literature and current events in the media, this survey course will encourage learners to build a new understanding of food security, water shortages in agricultural production, and climate change challenges in agriculture. We will introduce policy tools and case studies illustrating the effects that climate change has on agriculture which will be useful and applicable to individual cross-disciplinary learning.
Audience
This course examines the inter-dynamics of food security, water, and climate change through a social sciences perspective. It is designed for professionals and specialists from a variety of sectors, along with academics. Individuals seeking to understand the effects of climate change on our food supply and its social ramifications would especially benefit from taking this course, including (but not limited to):
Agriculturalists (industrial producers’ associations, small-scale farmers, market gardeners, fisheries, and livestock professionals), agrologists, agricultural economists, environmentalists, and related environmental fields, educators and researchers, rural development managers, policymakers, concerned citizens, and community leaders
Course Modules
Food Security and Food Insecurity
Water and Food Security
Climate Change and Food Security in the Future
What Does it all Mean and What Can We Do?
Course Outline
Course Design Statements
- ✓ Online
- ✓ Included indigenous perspectives
Instructor

Dr. Joanne Taylor
Dr. Joanne Taylor is an environmental anthropologist and political ecologist and received her PhD from the University of British Columbia Okanagan in the Department of Community, Culture, and Global Studies. Funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), Dr. Taylor's doctoral research investigated food security and food sovereignty in the traditional lands of the Ktunaxa First Nation and the Creston Valley of British Columbia during catastrophic climate change and the renegotiation of the bilateral Columbia River Treaty. Joanne is currently a SSHRC Post-Doctoral Fellow at The University of British Columbia Okanagan in the Department of Economics, Political Science, and Philosophy where she is conducting research in agricultural adaptation to climate change in the Cariboo and Okanagan Regions of B.C. She continues to explore the effects of climate change on food systems. Joanne lives in Kelowna, BC with her family and enjoys skiing, hiking, yoga, gardening, cooking, and traveling within B.C.