Hannah Wittman

Associate Professor

Department of Food, Nutrition and Health

UBC Farm

Dr. Hannah Wittman holds a Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy in Development Sociology from Cornell University and is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Land and Food Systems and the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES) at The University of British Columbia (UBC). She conducts collaborative and participatory action research with peasant organizations and farming networks in Brazil, Guatemala and Canada. Her current research projects examine the ways that the rights to produce and consume food are contested and transformed through struggles for agrarian reform, food sovereignty, sustainable local food systems and agrarian citizenship.

Her work has appeared in a wide range of journals including the Journal of Rural Studies; Rural Sociology; Agriculture and Human Values; Journal of Peasant Studies; Canadian Journal of Development Studies; Land Degradation and Development; and Human Organization. She also co-edited Environment and Citizenship in Latin America: Natures, Subjects, Struggles (Berghahn, 2012); Food Sovereignty: Reconnecting Food, Nature and Community (Fernwood, 2010) and Food Sovereignty in Canada: Creating Just and Sustainable Food Systems (Fernwood, 2011).

Primary Recipient Awards

International Research Roundtables, Hannah Wittman, 2019

Primary Recipient Hannah Wittman

Co-principal Investigator Loren Rieseberg

Program International Research Roundtables

Occupying Big Data: Systematizing links between food security and biodiversity conservation through citizen science

Go to Roundtable website

Two of the most pressing challenges of the twenty-first century are to improve global food security and more effectively conserve biodiversity. Food security and biodiversity conservation are intimately connected through agriculture, which is widely recognized as a driver of biodiversity decline. However, the multi-scalar relationships affecting the achievement of both food security and biodiversity conservation are still not fully understood, and assessment frameworks often assume that food security and biodiversity conservation are ‘competing goals’ that must inherently trade-off. The Emerging Research Cluster for Diversified Agroecosystems (2018) uses ecological, social, and economic and systems analysis perspectives for integrated research on sustainable agriculture and food systems. Our aim is to develop and implement monitoring protocols to examine the trade-offs and synergies in social and ecosystem services in diversified agroecosystems.

This Roundtable will assess and advance a synthesis and research agenda focused more specifically on innovations for agroecosystem monitoring at the intersection of food security and biodiversity.

Early Career Scholar Start-Up Research Grant, Hannah Wittman, 2013

Primary Recipient Hannah Wittman

Program Early Career Scholar Start-Up Research Grant

Co-principal Investigator Awards

International Visiting Research Scholars, Harriet Friedmann, 2018

Primary Recipient Harriet Friedmann

Co-principal Investigator

Hannah Wittman

Loren Rieseberg

Program International Visiting Research Scholars

International Visiting Research Scholars, Evan Fraser, 2014

Primary Recipient Evan Fraser

Co-principal Investigator Hannah Wittman

Program International Visiting Research Scholars