Systems Archives — The Common Table

SOS: Who’s Saving Our Soils?

16. March 2026
4 minute read

Have you heard of the EU Soil Strategy for 2030? It was launched in November 2021 as part of the European Green Deal, and its first law, the Soil Monitoring Law, went into force in December 2025. But is it enough to save our soils and ourselves?

The Future is Ancestral

12. February 2026
12 minute read

An agricultural collective called Arca Tierra supplies 50 city restaurants as well as locals with fresh food by reviving ancestral agriculture practices in the Chinampas wetlands near Mexico City. The Common Table spoke to the farm coordinator Sebastián Herrera, about finding what was lost.

a squash bee sleeping in a squash flower

The Honey Merchant

29. January 2026
11 minute read

Diego Contreras is a biologist and honey expert from the uniquely biodiverse region of Oaxaca. His project Nunduve aims to educate consumers about honey's origins and environmental issues, rather than just its flavours and uses.

A Taste for Microplastics

17. November 2025
10 minute read

Microplastic pollution expert Dr Sherri Mason talks to The Common Table about the pervasive presence of tiny plastic particles within the planet’s ecosystems and why we are being encouraged to keep adding more, not less, of them to our food and soils.

Transparent Tuna

2. October 2025
11 minute read

William Harris talks to Cynthia Asaf of Pacifical about using digital traceability to improve transparency in the Pacific tuna supply chain and why it's a game-changer for the fishing industry.

Food Design, It’s Complicated

6. August 2025
17 minute read

Can Food Design improve our relationships with food or is it just a grandiose term for decorative plating? Leading voices in Food & Design, Priya Mani, Sonia Massari, Fabio Parasecoli, Laila Snevele, and Sophie Lovell confer at a communal table moderated by our own Orlando Lovell.

still from the documentary The Edible Indian by Cass Gardiner showing a Native American family sharing a meal in a forest

The Good Life

10. July 2025
20 minute read

First Nations filmmaker and curator Cass Gardiner talks to The Common Table about stewardship, reciprocity, the bittersweet aspect of "home", and how she uses food to open a window for non-Native people into her world and community.

Change the (Design) System

1. June 2025
8 minute read

A conversation with Systems Change Designer Ashley Scarborough about how she redesigned her own professional path and found food systems as her medium.

A Game of Monopoly

30. May 2025
10 minute read

We talk to Canadian political economist Jennifer Clapp about her latest book, “Titans of Industrial Agriculture” and the evolution of an extreme concentration of power that has allowed 12 companies to control most of the world's food production.