Feed: a food systems podcast

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has disrupted global flows of fossil fuels and fertilizers. But what does a shipping route in the Middle East have to do with the price of food? How are farmers coping? And what does this disruption tell us about our food system’s dependence on fossil fuels and synthetic fertilizers?

Synthetic fertilizers tie food production to fossil fuels, leaving farmers exposed to price shocks and geopolitical disruption. In this episode, food systems experts unpack the risks of that dependence, the alternatives already taking shape, and how philanthropy can help build more resilient food systems.

Two years after the original Fuel To Fork podcast series, we return to the connections between food and fossil fuels to ask what has changed – and whether our food systems are any better prepared for the next shock.

Want to share your reflections on the episode? Send us an email or voice memo to podcast@tabledebates.org

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/episode107

Listen to Fuel to Fork

Listen to Feeding 1 in 6: China and the Future of Food

Guests

• Anna Lappé, Global Alliance for the Future of Food
• Jennifer Clapp, IPES-Food
• Lisa Tostado, Center for International Environmental Law
• Joanna Larson, Prairie Gates Farm

Episode produced and edited by Matthew Kessler. Music by Blue dot sessions.

What if the future of plant-based food isn't about faking meat, but inventing something entirely new? We go inside a student hackathon at Wageningen University (WUR) and follow the winning concept from whiteboard sketch to test kitchen to campus cafeteria. Along the way, food scientists and student organizers weigh in on the potential for the food industry to not always try to imitate meat.

This episode was produced in collaboration with Wageningen Alt Protein Project (WAPP).

Want to share your reflections on the episode? Send us an email or voice memo to podcast@tabledebates.org

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/episode106

Guest

• Melania Zanforlin, Co-chair WAPP
• Joaquin Fogel, Co-chair WAPP
• Dr. Laurice Pouvreau, Senior Protein Scientist at WUR
• Dr. Stacy Pyett, Program Manager at WUR
• Andy Bingham, Senior Food Application Scientist and Executive Chef at Kalsec Europe
• Dr. Raffaella Inchingolo, Lead Food Scientist at Kalsec Europe
• Dr. Guido Sala, Researcher in food physics and Molecular Gastronomy at WUR

Episode written, hosted, produced and edited by Melania Zanforlin. Produced and edited by Matthew Kessler. Music by Blue dot sessions.

After the 2018 African Swine Fever outbreak led to the culling of over a hundred million pigs, China moved toward larger, more biosecure, high-rise hog farms. Human geographer Ray Chan takes us inside these operations. He argues that biosecurity isn't only about preventing disease. He calls it a form of governance, deciding whose risk gets prioritized and how both people and animals are expected to behave.

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/episode105

Want to share your reflections on the episode? Send us an email or voice memo to podcast@tabledebates.org

Guest

• Dr Ray Chan, Human Geographer at Royal Agricultural University

Episode written, hosted, produced and edited by Matthew Kessler. Music by Blue dot sessions.

China's countryside isn't heading toward one future. Sociologist Forrest Zhang walks us through four different scenarios: suburbanizing villages turned tourist destinations, industrial-scale grain belts managed by smart phones, intensive vegetable farms facing a looming labor crisis, and aging villagers returning to subsistence farming. We explore the shift from socialist to capitalist agriculture, and ask whether the next era may take a "sustainability turn,” a door opened by a shrinking population, food oversupply, and a rising public health crisis.

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/episode104

Want to share your reflections on the episode? Send us an email or voice memo to podcast@tabledebates.org

Listen to China's Food Future (Part 1).

Guest

• Prof Qian Forrest Zhang, Singapore Management University

Episode written, hosted, produced and edited by Matthew Kessler. Music by Blue dot sessions.

China is currently the world's largest importer of agricultural products, buying 60% of globally traded soy. But a 2026 consultation paper by SystemIQ argues China may be approaching a turning point. In the coming decades, China could shift from being a net food importer to net food exporter of animal proteins. We dive into the analysis with the paper's authors to see how plausible that scenario might be, what it would take to get there including the role of alternative proteins in that future, and what might be the implications for global food systems.

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/episode103

Want to share your reflections on the episode? Send us an email or voice memo to podcast@tabledebates.org

Read the consultation paper: China's Food Future (SystemIQ, 2026)

Guests

• Anna Morser, Director at SystemIQ
• Alex Andreoli, Manager at SystemIQ
• Fengwei Ina Liu, Director of FOLU China

Episode written, hosted, produced and edited by Matthew Kessler. Music by Blue dot sessions.

In the 1980s, Deng Xiaoping's government decided not to regulate its fishing sector. What grew out of that space was extraordinary. Today China produces 76 million tonnes of seafood a year, and a mounting environmental cost. This episode follows the small farms and the global infrastructure that connects them, and asks what happens when a government tries to course correct a system it deliberately set loose.

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/episode102

Want to share your reflections on the episode? Send us an email or voice memo to podcast@tabledebates.org

Guests

• Han Han, Founder and director of NGO China Blue Sustainability Institute
• Xuefei Shi, Researcher at Chr. Michelsen Institute in Bergen, Norway
• James Keeley, Food and agricultural development consultant and China specialist

Episode written, hosted, produced and edited by Matthew Kessler. Sound mixing by Martin Palmqvist. Music by Blue dot sessions.

One-third of the world's rice is grown in China, on less than a fifth of the world's rice-growing area, by farmers whose average age is over 55, in a countryside that is slowly emptying. This episode asks how that's possible, and how much longer it can last.

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/episode101

Want to share your reflections on the episode? Send us an email or voice memo to podcast@tabledebates.org

Guests

• Lena Kaufmann, Social Anthropologist at Université de Fribourg
• Li Zhang, Prof in Sociology and Environmental Studies at Amherst Colleage

Episode written, hosted, produced and edited by Matthew Kessler. Sound mixing by Martin Palmqvist. Music by Blue dot sessions.

Today China produces roughly half the world's pork. Getting there required swine genetics from multiple continents, feed from Brazil, and a disease outbreak that wiped out hundreds of millions of animals. This episode asks how they did it, and what that cost - to the household pig, to the smallholder farmer, and to ecosystems thousands of kilometers away.

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/episode100

Want to share your reflections on the episode? Send us an email or voice memo to podcast@tabledebates.org

Guests

• Ron Lane, Agricultural consultant in Beijing
• Li Zhang, Prof in Sociology and Environmental Studies at Amherst College
• Gustavo Oliveira, Prof in Geography at Clark University

Episode written, hosted, produced and edited by Matthew Kessler. Sound mixing by Martin Palmqvist. Music by Blue dot sessions.

In sixty years China moved from catastrophic famine to feeding 1.4 billion people. This episode asks how that transformation happened - and what it set in motion.

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/episode99

Want to share your reflections on the episode? Send us an email or voice memo to podcast@tabledebates.org

Guests

• Michelle King, Prof in Chinese History at UNC
• Zhang Hongzhou, Prof in International Political Economy at RSIS
• Fengwei Ina Liu, Director of FOLU China

Episode written, hosted, produced and edited by Matthew Kessler. Sound mixing by Martin Palmqvist. Music by Blue dot sessions.

In sixty years, China has moved from catastrophic famine to now feeding one in six people on the planet. Following three foods - pork, rice, and fish - this series traces a transformation that has emptied the Chinese countryside, reshaped ecosystems from Brazil to the South China Sea, and produced the high-rise hog farm model that is being exported across the world. We examine the competing priorities driving this transformation, the distributed costs and benefits, and what it means for the rest of the world.

"Feeding 1 in 6: China and the future of food" arrives in this feed on 21 May 2026.

More info here

Soy looks different depending on where you sit. For Ryan Britt, who's farming soy, corn, wheat and cattle on over 2,000 hectares in North Central Missouri, it's the crop that reliably pays the bills. In 2025, Ryan found himself squarely in the middle of a global trade story he had very little control over. We talk about what he can control on the farm — cover cropping, no-till, rotations — and why he still advocates for farmers even when he'd rather be on a tractor.

Register for the Bolivia soy webinar here

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/episode97

Want to share your reflections on the episode? Send us an email or voice memo to podcast@tabledebates.org

Episode edited and hosted by Matthew Kessler. Music by Blue dot sessions.

After several hype years, plant-based and cultivated meat have faced growing skepticism. Lately, the media has written obituaries. And the market value is declining. Bruce Friedrich, founder and president of the Good Food Institute, offers a different view: the long view.

Friedrich joined clean energy reporter David Roberts on the Volts podcast to discuss his new book, Meat: How the Next Agricultural Revolution Will Transform Humanity’s Favorite Food—and Our Future. It’s an honest conversation about a difficult topic, that's well worth listening to. Shared here on Feed with permission.

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/episode96

Want to share your reflections on the episode? Send us an email or voice memo to podcast@tabledebates.org

Subscribe to the Volts podcast

Read Bruce Friedrich's new book: Meat

Why can reasonable people look at the same evidence on meat—and still eat very differently? Matthew Kessler shares a personal essay reflecting on his time working on livestock farms, conversations with experts across all sides of the issue, and on his own on-and-off relationship with eating animals.

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/episode95

Want to share your reflections on the episode? Send us an email or voice memo to podcast@tabledebates.org

Episode edited and hosted by Matthew Kessler. Music by Blue dot sessions.

Tangle Essay: What we disagree about when we talk about meat

TABLE Podcast: Meat: the four futures

TABLE Report: Meat, Metrics and Mindsets

What does “sustainable agriculture” actually mean, and why do scientists disagree about it? This episode explores how two influential scientific discourses - Agroecology and Sustainable Intensification - start from different values, ask different questions, and often talk past each other. Drawing on an interdisciplinary study at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, ecologist Riccardo Bommarco and ethicist Helena Rocklinsberg examine how those different approaches shape research, priorities, and solutions. The conversation turns to what might change when scientists begin to listen to each other across divides.

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/episode94

Want to share your reflections on the episode? Send us an email or voice memo to podcast@tabledebates.org

Episode edited and hosted by Matthew Kessler. Music by Blue dot sessions.

Most industries have a clear roadmap for transformation. The power sector goes renewable. Cars go electric. But food and agriculture? The world’s most impactful—and most damaging—industry still has no shared path to transformation. Food sustainability consultant and retail expert Mike Barry argues that the future of food hinges on one counterintuitive idea: simplification. And he explains how AI, smarter data, and design can potentially speed up change.

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/episode93

Want to share your reflections on the episode? Send us an email or voice memo to podcast@tabledebates.org

Episode edited and hosted by Matthew Kessler. Music by Blue dot sessions.

Instead of tell people what to eat, what if we changed what food costs? With Jörgen Larsson (researcher from Chalmers University), we explore a cost-neutral tax reform, one that makes healthier and climate-friendly food cheaper without raising the overall grocery bill. We break down how it works, why it matters, and how to frame it in ways that avoid predictable backlash.

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/episode92

Want to share your reflections on the episode? Send us an email or voice memo to podcast@tabledebates.org

Episode edited and hosted by Matthew Kessler. Music by Blue dot sessions.

We invite you to a three course meal in 2050, where climate breakdown has reshaped what and how we eat. Each of the courses is designed to provoke questions about the future of food through taste, visuals, and a bit of discomfort. It’s a story about eating possible futures — and noticing which ones feel delicious, or unsettling. In this episode, we take you behind the scenes of how the meal came together. Bon appétit.

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/episode91

Want to share your reflections on the episode? Send us an email or voice memo to podcast@tabledebates.org

Guests

• Annie Faye Cheng, Cook, butcher and writer
• Bryant Simon, History prof Temple University
• Lily Consuelo Saporta Tagiuri, Ecosystemic Designer and Eco-futurist

Episode hosted by Jack Thompson. Produced by Jack Thompson and Matthew Kessler. Edited and mixed by Matthew Kessler. Music by Blue dot sessions.

Hunger on our Doorstep is a two part podcast about food poverty in the UK. It explores the issues and potential solutions through the eyes of three food campaigners with firsthand experience of food poverty in urban communities, as well as others working to tackle the problem. The often bleak picture of poverty, inequality and exclusion painted in episode one contrasts with inspiring stories of the solutions being put into practice across the country in episode two.

This podcast is produced by TABLE with the support and contribution of the Food Foundation, a charity focused on changing food policy and business practice to ensure everyone, across the UK nations, can afford and access a healthy and sustainable diet.

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/episode90

Want to share your reflections on the episode? Send us an email or voice memo to podcast@tabledebates.org

Guests

• Ryan McShane, Food campaigner
• Glory Omoaka, Food activist
• Dominic Watters, Estate2Plate founder
• Jonathan Pauling, former CEO of Alexandra Rose Charity
• Dr Effie Papargyropoulou, Researcher at Leeds University
• Ana María Narváez, Coordinator of 2025 The Broken Plate report

Host

• Richard Kipling, TABLE
• Ruth Mattock, TABLE

Episode edited and produced by Richard Kipling, Ruth Mattock and Matthew Kessler. Music by Blue dot sessions.

What if changing what we eat wasn’t about persuasion, but about reshaping everyday food choices? With Sarah Lake, CEO of Tilt Collective, we explore how meat and ultra-processed foods came to dominate U.S. diets – and how Tilt Collective is building a future where healthy and sustainable foods compete on convenience, price, and accessibility.

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/episode89

Want to share your reflections on the episode? Send us an email or voice memo to podcast@tabledebates.org

Guest

• Sarah Lake, CEO of Tilt Collective

Episode hosted, edited and produced by Matthew Kessler. Music by Blue dot sessions.

What do Yorkshire beaches, Sierra Leone’s new food strategy, and New York City school lunches have in common? For Corinna Hawkes, they all shaped her journey toward understanding how systems shape food. In this episode, we trace her path from a childhood fascination with shifting sands to her current role at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization. Along the way, we ask: what does it actually mean to ‘take a systems approach’ to food? What type of leadership skills are needed to fix food systems today? And why do the best solutions sometimes require slowing down, not speeding up?

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/episode88

Read the report: Transforming food and agriculture through a systems approach(FAO, 2025)

Want to share your reflections on the episode? Send us an email or voice memo to podcast@tabledebates.org

Guest

• Corinna Hawkes, Director of Agrifood Systems and Food Safety at FAO

Episode hosted, edited and produced by Matthew Kessler. Music by Blue dot sessions.