Abstract
Food is a basic need for human survival. Beyond material sustenance, food has sig-nifcant economic, social and cultural dimensions. Food suffciency, food security and food sovereignty have become critical concerns in the twenty-frst century. Moreover, food provisioning is a key space for contemporary efforts to transform practices to achieve global environmental sustainability. Indeed, 'degrowth' has emerged as a major approach within a suite of movements aiming to achieve sustainable livelihoods, sustainable systems of production and consumption and a sustainable society more generally. Degrowth as a concept, approach and practice challenges both economic growth and excessive resource consumption to advocate for practices that limit socio-metabolic energy and material fows with respect to planetary limits. This collection offers a representative sample of food for degrowth topics, research areas and themes. It is not comprehensive in terms of the multiple directions and expressions of food for degrowth but we are confdent that it offers both newcomers and those knowledgeable and experienced in degrowth new perspectives and ideas that are, moreover, presented in an orderly fashion. The curation of the collection follows a distinctively practical, political and regenerative degrowth logic that is in sharp contrast to the just-in-time supply chain of the agrifood sector characterised by capitalist logic, production for trade, market dynamics, profts and state regulations. In this mainstream system, most quality food is relatively unaffordable while many fast and cheap foods lack nutrition and even pose health threats in terms of chemical additives in processing. Indeed, much commercially sold food is not fresh and energy is overconsumed to refrigerate and transport food. Other seriously damaging environmental consequences of commodifying food production and exchange include resource depletion by farming with massive machinery using non-renewable fuels and applying fertilisers with polluting and toxic ingredients. As the World Health Organisation (WHO 2019) reports that 1 in 9 people go hungry, 1 in 4 are severely or moderately food insecure, and that more than 1 in 4 children under 5 are affected by stunting, wasting or obesity – convivial degrowth acts of growing and eating together, and sharing what we have, offer ways to reconsider how we might improve our food practices in terms of sociopolitical acts. Chapters in this collection offer insights into more