Food production, circulation and consumption

A Level subject content overviews

To support teachers with the introduction of the 2016 A Level courses, the Society is providing a new range of online resources and support.

The following overview document provides an introduction for teachers to some of the key content, concepts and geographical theories within the new A Levels and will be particularly useful for colleagues who have not previously taught elements of the new content.

These have been written by leading academic geographers, a number of whom were members of the ALCAB subject advisory panel for geography. 

There is particularly focus on the areas of core content.

The new A-level core content1 introduces the topic of food production, circulation and consumption, including food’s relationship to core concepts such as globalization and sustainability. Food is relevant to both of human geography’s core themes, Changing Places and Global Systems, and is discussed at various points in the core content, spanning both human and physical geography. This provides an opportunity to demonstrate the power of geographical thinking in linking social and environmental systems. But without an appropriate conceptual map, the geographical study of food can deteriorate into a series of piecemeal lessons, lacking coherence and academic rigour. Rather than starting empirically, then, with specific examples such as the rise of food banks, the obesity ‘epidemic’ or the growing popularity of farmers’ markets (interesting though each of these issues may be), we begin by presenting an integrated framework for the geographical analysis of food into which a range of specific topics can be fitted, emphasising the interconnections between different parts of the agri-food system.

Download the full A Level Subject Content Overview document from the downloads box.

Written by Peter Jackson, a Professor in the Department of Geography, University of Sheffield