Early Warnings on Industrial Agriculture: Lessons for the Next Food Systems Transformation

Online conference by Jennifer Clapp, Canada Research Chair in Global Food Security and Sustainability, and Professor in the Faculty of Environment, Resources and Sustainability at the University of Waterloo, and fellow for a one-month residency in May 2026 at the Paris IAS as part of the "Paris IAS Ideas" series.

The "Paris IAS Ideas" online lecture series offers short and stimulating presentations by researchers from the Paris Institute for Advanced Studies, marking the start of their month-long writing residency.

Session exclusively online and in English.
Free upon registration.
Registration is required via the form at the bottom of the page to receive the login link.

Presentation 

This project seeks to draw lessons from past critiques of industrial agriculture that remain relevant in current discourse around the need to transform food systems to make them more sustainable. It asks why the early warnings about the social and ecological consequences of industrial agriculture were largely ignored. It further probes whether the voices of industrial agriculture’s critics are destined to be drowned out again in the current debate. The project will examine the insights from earlier critiques and examine them in the context of the power of large transnational agribusiness corporations, state interests, and technological lock-ins.