Unethical foodscapes? Heritage and landscape in the food system

Foodscapes can be seen as the reciprocal relationship – through history and (hopefully) into the future – between society, food and land, a key element of heritage as well as of landscape, and thus a central matter of human (and non-human) endeavours. It takes into account the full spectrum of food, from growing crops and raising animals to food processing and preparation, to travel and marketisation, to patterns of consumption and their accompanying social contexts. Food security, however, as the various United Nations programmes make clear, is currently a major and growing global challenge, which might be thought to make the interests of heritage theorists and practitioners appear irrelevant. Where is the connection here between heritage and ethics? But because the notion of foodscapes allows us to see food through the filter of heritage and the lens of landscape, and to do so in the context of sustainability and social justice, it provides a useful arena to consider a wide range of ethical dilemmas about feeding the world. In this chapter, from a European perspective, we begin to reflect on what heritage and landscape perspectives might be able to tell us about present food systems. We consider what can be learnt from the past and what a humanities as well as an ecological approach to foodscapes might offer as a guide to future policy.