Dr. Afton Halloran

Over the last 12 years, Dr. Afton Halloran has built up a robust background in the field of sustainable food systems. After all, in order to understand how a system works, you need to understand it from multiple points of view.

In mid-2017, she was awarded a PhD in International and Paediatric Nutrition with a specialization in Sustainable Food Systems. Her thesis looked at the impact of cricket farming on rural livelihoods, nutrition, and the environment in Kenya and Thailand. She completed MSc in Agricultural Development at the University of Copenhagen in 2012, specializing in urban agriculture as an urban land use in Tanzania and Copenhagen. She holds her BSc (honours) in Global Resource Systems from the University of British Columbia.

In addition to her academic credentials, Dr. Halloran has also gained valuable insights through her work for different institutions. In 2009, she worked as an urban agriculture project officer and affiliated researcher for the Canadian NGO, Sustainable Cities International in Tanzania. Together with a group of dedicated people, Afton was responsible for successfully incorporating urban agriculture as a land use within the Dar es Salaam Master Plan. Since 2012, she has been working on the topic of edible insects in sustainable food systems. She is a co-author of the most downloaded publication in the history of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Edible insects: future prospects for food and feed security.  She is also the lead editor of Edible insects in sustainable food systems. From 2015 to 2016, she worked as a researcher for the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems.

Dr. Halloran's latest work is at the Nordic Council of Ministers where she is an external consultant to a project called the Nordic Food Policy Lab. One of her biggest accomplishments has been leading the development of Solutions Menu: A Nordic Guide to Sustainable Food Policy, a publication that is now in the hands of many influential policy-makers around the world. As an independent consultant, she has been advising intergovernmental organizations, companies and NGOs on issues related to sustainable food systems, including future foods, the social impacts of food production, food culture/gastronomy and sustainable diets. Afton also loves to moderate events and facilitate high-level workshops.

Since 2018, Afton has been a member of the World Restaurant Awards judging panel and a member of the board of directors of FunkisFabriken Centre for Sustainability Research.