The Anthropocene Scholarship will carries a value of EUR 2,500 that will be deducted from the tuition fees of a graduate student in the Food Studies program. The Scholarship is awarded to a student based on need/merit, with preference given to European students. If there is no eligible European student, it can be awarded to any eligible student in the program. Applicants to the M.A. in Food Studies will be automatically considered for the scholarship.
Are we entering the new geologic era of the Anthropocene?
Even though a formal proposal to establish a new geologic epoch called Anthropocene is still being considered by the International Commission on Stratigraphy, there is ample evidence that conditions and processes on Earth have been profoundly altered by humans.
Food provisioning is the major driver of global environmental changes.
More than half of the Earth’s surface is used for cultivation, grazing, plantation, forestry and aquaculture. Land degradation, deforestation and water scarcity are prevailing in many parts of the globe. With industrial agriculture, there has been a drastic reduction in agrobiodiversity; soybeans, maize and wheat are the main crops being produced. At the same time, diets are being impoverished nutritionally with the result of unhealthy and unsustainable diets consisting of highly processed foods and high consumption of meat.
Agriculture and the food system, including production, transformation, processing, distribution, consumption and waste, contribute 25-30% of the Greenhouse Gas Emissions causing global warming, a serious threat to humanity.
What are the knowledge and practices on the ways we produce and consume our food? What can be done to strive towards a more sustainable and resilient planet? The Anthropocene Scholarship will enable you to delve into these questions, to learn what is being done and by whom, and to explore the possible solutions at community, national, and international levels.
If you are interested in these themes, you would be an ideal candidate for the US-accredited social science Master's degree in Food Studies: Policies for Sustainable Production and Consumption.
