The FEAST Project takes a transdisciplinary approach to explore the realities and potential for sustainable agrifood transition at sites in Japan, Thailand, Bhutan, and China with significance for the entire region. We analyze patterns of food consumption, food-related social practices and their socio- cultural meanings, and consumer-based agency to change deeply-held cultural dimensions. We map and evaluate food systems specific to national, regional, and local production, distribution, and consumption contexts. Building upon that work, we engage in action research to partner with stakeholders to vision desirable and plausible futures and to initiate food citizenship-oriented experiments and actions. FEAST co-designs and co-produces socially-robust knowledge and mechanisms that challenge mainstream economic thinking on consumption and growth, work to redefine the notion of long- term food security at the regional level, and engage society in a public debate on our relationship with food and nature that questions shared beliefs and values to reacclimatize consumers as citizens and co-producers in the foodscapes around them.
The FEAST Project was developed, funded, and conducted at the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RIHN), Kyoto, Japan, one of the National Institutes for Humanities (NIHU). At its conclusion, FEAST was inaugurated as a non-profit organization in 2021 and continues to conduct research to solve environmental and social problems and support transdisciplinary efforts in local sustainable food policy and education.
More information
Project website: www.feastproject.org
Project information via the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature: https://www.chikyu.ac.jp/rihn_e/project/2016-01.html
Video: RIHN 15th International Symposium "Transitioning Cultures of Everyday Food Consumption and Production- Stories from a Post-Growth Future"
Key publications
McGreevy, S. R., Rupprecht, C. D. D., Niles, D., Wiek, A., Carolan, M., Kallis, G., Kantamaturapoj, K., Mangnus, A., Jehlička, P., Taherzadeh, O., Sahakian, M., Chabay, I., Colby, A., Vivero-Pol, J-L., Chaudhuri, R., Spiegelberg, M., Kobayashi, M., Balázs, B., Tsuchiya, K., ... Tachikawa, M. (2022). Sustainable agrifood systems for a post-growth world. Nature Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-00933-5
Kantamaturapoj, K. , McGreevy, S., Thongplew, N., Akitsu, M., Vervoort, J., Mangnus, A., Ota, K., Rupprecht, C., Tamura, N., Spiegelberg, M., Kobayashi, M., Pongkijvorasin, S., & Wibulpolprasert, S. (2022). Constructing practice-oriented futures for sustainable urban food policy in Bangkok. Futures, 139, [102949]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2022.102949
Vervoort, J. M., Milkoreit, M., van Beek, L., Mangnus, A. C., Farrell, D. , McGreevy, S., Ota, K., Rupprecht, C. D. D., Reed, J. B., & Huber, M. (2022). Not just playing: The politics of designing games for impact on anticipatory climate governance. Geoforum. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2022.03.009
Calo, A., McKee, A., Perrin, C., Gasselin, P. , McGreevy, S., Sippel, S. R., Desmarais, A. A., Shields, K., Baysse-Laine, A., Magnan, A., Beingessner, N., & Kobayashi, M. (2021). Achieving Food System Resilience Requires Challenging Dominant Land Property Regimes. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, 5, [683544]. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2021.683544
Contact
The CSTM domain Sustainable Production and Consumption comprises five areas for special attention. In the area of “Environmental policy approaches and their effectiveness”, CSTM researchers analyse ways of changing governmental sustainability strategies towards environmental governance, industrial production and consumption. 
provide societal benefits. Through developing novel metamaterials, yield modeling, and field testing, investigating the societal embedding for application scenarios, and assessing the sustainability along the entire lifecycle, we will determine the socio-technical feasibility of DIRECT.
