food system. It’s a priority to learn all the many different other purposes.

Whatever change is proposed, a conflict of interest may result in some actors attempting to counteract proposed changes. For example, a change that threatens revenue might be controversial [ 6].

Accountability. We must ensure that all actors of the food system are accountable for upholding sustainable practices. Producers, processors, distributors, retailers, and waste managers each have a unique arena of influence that can enable either sustainable or unsustainable practices.

We should explore how to support them in enabling sustainable practices.

Policy. Policymakers must be included as actors in the food system.

Policy can be especially effective in holding actors of a food system accountable for sustainable practices.

We must explore how policymakers come by their information about food systems and ensure that the information they have is rich and accurate. We must support the voices that typically go unheard because they are not represented by the larger special interest or lobbying groups, such as small farm owners with limited political expertise. When working to influence policy, we must confront the fact that the work of the greater HCI community has gone largely unnoticed by policymakers [ 8]. We are rarely consulted for policy work, even when policies directly relate to our domains of practice. Examples include: the effects of cloud computing on climate change, effects of e-waste on local communities, and the procurement of environmentally friendly technologies.

However, we have the capability of engaging with policy to inform and influence decisions related to sustainable food production.

Scale-sensitivity. A priority is to
work with small, highly motivated
social movements on bottom-up
change toward food sovereignty, while
considering the policy context. Recent
research, we risk perpetuating the
shortcomings and unsustainability
of current food systems. The
anthropocentric nature of human-
centered design is insufficient for
HCI topics that intersect with
environmental and sociopolitical
challenges [ 7]. Human-centered design
may improve things for some in the
food system at the expense of others,
or may provide something that an
end user needs but with second- and
third-order effects in the food system
that negatively impact that end user. To
transform the food system, we will need
to move beyond the anthropocentric
perspective of how food systems and
supporting technologies should be
designed, how they could be designed,
and how they will interface with other
aspects of industrial civilization.
This process will sometimes be
uncomfortable, forcing us to consider
issues that are not easily resolved and
realities that are inconsistent with our
current understandings of the world.
Nevertheless, without challenging
prevailing paradigms and practices of
technology, we are unlikely to create
more than incremental change.

RESEARCH AGENDA FOR
FOOD + SUSTAINABILITY
IN HCI

Before homing in on specific technological solutions, we must engage with and understand current food systems, what is failing in these systems, and how technology is already being used in these systems. There is much that we as a community overlook or are unaware of when designing for sustainable food. Until we have thoroughly explored the context for which we would like to design and developed strong relationships with people working in those contexts, we will likely fall short of the mark in achieving our goals in supporting sustainable food.

Systems thinking. Providing
nutritious food at affordable prices
is only one purpose of the current

The anthropocentric nature of human-
centered design is insufficient for HCI
topics that intersect with environmental
and sociopolitical challenges.