Jennifer Clapp
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Jennifer Clapp is a Canada Research Chair in Global Food Security and Sustainability and Professor in the School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability at the University of Waterloo. She has published widely on the global governance of problems that arise at the intersection of the global economy, food security, and the natural environment. Her recent books include Titans of Industrial Agriculture (MIT Press, 2025), Food, 3rd edition (Polity, 2020), and Speculative Harvests: Financialization, Food, and Agriculture (Fernwood Press, 2018). Jennifer Clapp is a member of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food), and previously served as Vice-Chair of the Steering Committee of the High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE-FSN) of the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS).
Jennifer Clapp joins the Paris IAS in May 2026 for a one-month writing residency.
Research topics
Food security; food systems; environmental sustainability; global food governance.
Early Warnings on Industrial Agriculture: Lessons for the Next Food Systems Transformation
We hear a great deal today about the need to transform global food systems to make them more sustainable and equitable. What we hear less about are the early critiques that emerged in the previous transformation to industrial agriculture in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The advent of farm mechanization, the synthesis of nitrogen fertilizer, the hybridization of seeds, and the development chemical pesticides all faced harsh criticism as they were introduced. This project asks: Why were the early warnings about the social and ecological consequences of industrial agriculture largely ignored? Are we destined to see the voices of industrial agriculture’s critics drowned out again in the current debate?
The aim of the research is to show that social and ecological critiques of industrial agriculture have deep roots that offer important insights into what is required for more sustainable and equitable food systems. Furthermore, a complex mix of factors – the power of large transnational agribusiness corporations, state interests, and technological lock-ins – help explain industrial agriculture’s global advance over the past century and a half, even in the face of important and popular critiques. Finally, there are important lessons from this past experience for the current global food systems transformation debate.
Key publications
Jennifer Clapp. “Concentration and Crises: Exploring the Deep Roots of Vulnerability in the Global Industrial Food System.” Journal of Peasant Studies 50 (1): 1-25, 2023.
Jennifer Clapp, William Moseley, Barbara Burlingame, Paola Termine. “The Case for a Six-Dimensional Food Security Framework”, Food Policy. 106 (102164): 1-10, 2022.
Jennifer Clapp. “The Problem with Growing Corporate Concentration and Power in the Global Food System.” Nature Food. 2: 404-408, 2021.
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