Throwing new light on how colonisation and globalization have affected the food practices of different communities in Asia, the Routledge Handbook of Food in Asia explores the changes and variations in the region’s dishes, meals and ways of eating. By demonstrating the different methodologies and theoretical approaches employed by scholars, the contributions discuss everyday food practices in Asian cultures and provide a fascinating coverage of less common phenomenon, such as the practice of wood eating and the evolution of pufferfish eating in Japan. In doing so, the handbook not only covers a wide geographical area, including Japan, Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore, India, China, South Korea and Malaysia, but also examines the Asian diasporic communities in Canada, the United States and Australia through five key themes: Food, Identity and Diasporic Communities Food Rites and Rituals Food and the Media Food and Health Food and State Matters. Interdisciplinary in nature, this handbook is a useful reference guide for students and scholars of anthropology, sociology and world history, in addition to food history, cultural studies and Asian studies in general.

The concept of food and nutrition security has evolved and risen to the top of the international policy agenda over the last decade. Yet it is a complex and multi-faceted issue, requiring a broad and inter-disciplinary perspective for full understanding. This Handbook represents the most comprehensive compilation of our current knowledge of food and nutrition security from a global perspective. It is organized to reflect the wide scope of the contents, its four sections corresponding to the accepted current definitional frameworks prevailing in the work of multilateral agencies and mainstream scholarship. The first section addresses the struggles and progression of ideas and debates about the subject in recent years. The other sections focus on three key themes: how food has been, is and should be made available, including by improvements in agricultural productivity; the ways in which politico-economic and social arenas have shaped access to food; and the effects of food and nutrition systems in addressing human health, known as food utilisation. Overall, the volume synthesizes a vast field of information drawn from agriculture, soil science, climatology, economics, sociology, human and physical geography, the nutrition and health sciences, environmental science and development studies.

Agrifood systems in Asia and the Pacific can be strengthened by tapping on agrifood-tourism linkages. When tourism and agrifood systems interact, both synergies and competition appear. Agriculture and tourism compete between themselves and other sectors for land, water, labour, capital, and transport and logistics services. Cross-sectoral synergies arise when agriculture and tourism influence each other through their respective demand conditions and changes in the enabling environment. These cross-sectoral synergies can be instrumental in strengthening agrifood systems in the region and addressing interlinked crises in the post-pandemic era.Governments across Asia and the Pacific have acknowledged the potential of tapping into agrifood- tourism linkages to advance sustainable development in both urban (food tourism) and rural areas (mostly agricultural tourism), and are implementing efforts to develop this subsector.Agrifood-tourism linkages can create income-generating opportunities for farmers and tourism operators, boost employment and stimulate overall economic growth, promote the development of sustainable agrifood systems, prevent rural youth outmigration and help preserve culinary and agricultural heritage.This publication guides policymakers in the region in the preparation of a strategic plan aimed at developing agrifood tourism and the tourism food value chain as drivers of sustainable development. The successful positioning of a country or location as a culinary or agricultural tourism destination and the creation of synergies between the agriculture and tourism sectors requires a shared vision and coordination between policymakers, destination managers, tourism and agrifood businesses, chefs, farmers and other key stakeholders.

From the scientific and industrial revolution to the present day, food – an essential element of life – has been progressively transformed into a private, transnational, mono-dimensional commodity of mass consumption for a global market. But over the last decade there has been an increased recognition that this can be challenged and reconceptualized if food is regarded and enacted as a commons. This Handbook provides the first comprehensive review and synthesis of knowledge and new thinking on how food and food systems can be thought, interpreted and practiced around the old/new paradigms of commons and commoning. The overall aim is to investigate the multiple constraints that occur within and sustain the dominant food and nutrition regime and to explore how it can change when different elements of the current food systems are explored and re-imagined from a commons perspective. Chapters do not define the notion of commons but engage with different schools of thought: the economic approach, based on rivalry and excludability; the political approach, recognizing the plurality of social constructions and incorporating epistemologies from the South; the legal approach that describes three types of proprietary regimes (private, public and collective) and different layers of entitlement (bundles of rights); and the radical-activist approach that considers the commons as the most subversive, coherent and history-rooted alternative to the dominant neoliberal narrative. These schools have different and rather diverging epistemologies, vocabularies, ideological stances and policy proposals to deal with the construction of food systems, their governance, the distributive implications and the socio-ecological impact on Nature and Society. The book sparks the debate on food as a commons between and within disciplines, with particular attention to spaces of resistance (food sovereignty, de-growth, open knowledge, transition town, occupations, bottom-up social innovations) and organizational scales (local food, national policies, South–South collaborations, international governance and multi-national agreements). Overall, it shows the consequences of a shift to the alternative paradigm of food as a commons in terms of food, the planet and living beings.

This handbook includes contributions from established and emerging scholars from around the world and draws on multiple approaches and subjects to explore the socio-economic, cultural, ecological, institutional, legal, and policy aspects of regenerative food practices. The future of food is uncertain. We are facing an overwhelming number of interconnected and complex challenges related to the ways we grow, distribute, access, eat, and dispose of food. Yet, there are stories of hope and opportunities for radical change towards food systems that enhance the ability of living things to co-evolve. Given this, activities and imaginaries looking to improve, rather than just sustain, communities and ecosystems are needed, as are fresh perspectives and new terminology. The Routledge Handbook of Sustainable and Regenerative Food Systems addresses this need. The chapters cover diverse practices, geographies, scales, and entry-points. They focus not only on the core requirements to deliver sustainable agriculture and food supply, but go beyond this to think about how these can also actively participate with social-ecological systems. The book is presented in an accessible way, with reflection questions meant to spark discussion and debate on how to transition to safe, just, and healthy food systems. Taken together, the chapters in this handbook highlight the consequences of current food practices and showcase the multiple ways that people are doing food differently. The Routledge Handbook of Sustainable and Regenerative Food Systems is essential reading for students and scholars interested in food systems, governance and practices, agroecology, rural sociology, and socio-environmental studies.

This book tackles the central question of the political and structural changes and characteristics that govern agriculture and food. Original contributions explore this highly globalized economic sector by analyzing salient geographical regions and sub