Duke University’s World Food Policy Center develops coordinated and inclusive food policies. Our approach bridges key areas of food policies and systems to improve human wellbeing, planetary health, and equity. At the heart of this work, we learn from and connect unique voices—including people most affected by food system challenges.
Our vision for The Leading Voices in Food podcast series is to offer wide-ranging perspectives and knowledge from experts, community leaders, farmers and more. We will feature topics across the food system spectrum such as food insecurity, obesity, agriculture, access and equity, food safety, food defense, and food policy issues.
Departments and programs across Duke offers a wealth of undergraduate and graduate courses that can inform and empower students interested in making change within the dynamic world of food systems.
The WFPC will gladly talk with and advise any student with an interest in food policy and food system equity.
Covers primary physiological processes from subcellular to whole plant that affect plant growth in a changing environment. Processes include photosynthesis, respiration, water relations, nutrient and carbohydrate allocation, signaling, and stress responses to various biotic and abiotic factors for... read more about Food and Fuel for a Growing Population: Nuts and Bolts of Plant Growth and Production »
Historical and present interactions between humans and plants like coffee, tea, sugar, opium, pepper, potato and hemp, illustrating major changes in human civilization and cultures as a result. Social economic, trade, exploration, spiritual, medicinal, and plant structural and chemical reasons... read more about Plants and Human Use »
Surveys history of food in global history, beginning with paleolithic and ending with modern era. Focuses on food quality and quantity as a factor in determining health, including problems of global health disparities, food insecurity, and obesity. Topics include the impact of food exchanges across... read more about Feast and Famine: Food in Global History »
Viewing “agriculture,” “nature,” and “consumption” as pressing feminist themes and exploration of various dimensions of the cultural and political ecology/economy of producing, processing, circulating, preparing, and consuming sustenance. Particular focus on the ethical impact of US policy on rural... read more about Food, Farming, and Feminism »
Society in Western Europe ca. 1000-1500. Medieval sexuality (femininities and masculinities) and gender. Social relationships, norms and deviance. Power and structures of authority. Spirituality, religion, theology of sexuality and food, sin and virtue, scientific and medical ideas about the body,... read more about Medieval Bodies: Sex & Food »
