Feed: a food systems podcast

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Dire Straits: Hormuz, Fertilizers, and Food Oct 14, 2026

Show notes

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.

Plant protein without pretending Sep 24, 2026

Show notes

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.

Bonus. The hidden costs of biosecurity Jul 23, 2026

Show notes

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.

Bonus. The futures of China's countryside Jul 09, 2026

Show notes

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.

Bonus. China's food future Jun 25, 2026

Show notes

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.

Feeding 1 in 6. Small mighty fish farms Jun 11, 2026

Show notes

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.

Feeding 1 in 6. Who grows the rice Jun 03, 2026

Show notes

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.

Feeding 1 in 6. Vertical pork May 28, 2026

Show notes

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.

Feeding 1 in 6. Can you feed the people? May 21, 2026

Show notes

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.

Feeding 1 in 6. China and the future of food (Trailer) May 13, 2026

Show notes

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.

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