Where One Health Meets Food Systems Teaching and Learning: Expanding Skillsets for Food System Transformation

Abstract

Food systems are often described as the single biggest contributor to complex global health challenges for people, animals, plants, and the environment through pollution, ecosystem degradation, greenhouse gas emissions, land and water use, chemical use, unhealthy and unsafe diets, animal welfare concerns, infectious disease risks, and biodiversity loss. The collaborative, multisectoral, transdisciplinary and systems-focused nature of One Health allows it to make important contributions to these problems by, for example, mitigating disease across animal and human populations or reducing antimicrobial resistance. In this case study, we explore how the combination of food systems literacy and One Health skills can give postgraduate students a valuable foundation to engage in further opportunities for One Health in food systems and thereby contribute to positive change. Areas for potential expansion of One Health in food systems are presented. The example of the Interdisciplinary Food Systems Teaching and Learning (IFSTAL) programme and the MSc course One Health: ecosystems, humans and animals are used to discuss the value of the combination of One Health and food systems skills. © The Authors 2023