Breaking bread: Food and water systems under pressure

Photo by Membeth via Wikimedia Commons

As the end of abundance becomes an everyday experience in Europe, we are thinking more closely about how our food reaches the table.

Lower yields, higher prices and struggling communities are just some of the social and economic costs of water scarcity and extreme weather. But how and what we eat is also inextricable from identity, tradition and cultural life.

The new Eurozine focal Breaking bread: Food and water systems under pressure explores political, social and cultural aspects of food and water across European societies, highlighting the dangers of a parched planet while picking out some seeds for a fair and sustainable food and water system to come.

Read Jessica Furseth on misconceived schemes to combat urban water shortages; Marta Sapała on the fridge as status symbol; Stefano Liberti on the crisis of Po Valley; and Hussam Hussein on why water wars are not inevitable.

Coming soon: Ukraine as Europe’s granary; food preservation in Poland; modernity and meat; a history of fertilizers; and the power of the farming lobby.

The series is an editorial collaboration between Eurozine and Green European Journal with the support of the EU Parliament to the Green European Foundation, featuring contributions from across the Eurozine network of European cultural journals.