Ryan Galt

I am a professor and broadly-educated geographer whose teaching and research interests focus on the relationship between society, agriculture, food, and the environment. This is a long-standing theme within the discipline of geography, expressed in the subfields of cultural-historical ecology, cultural ecology, and now political ecology. I have a regional focus on the Americas, specifically Costa Rica, the Midwest, and California, and utilize multi-scalar approaches to understanding environmental, agricultural, and social phenomena and processes.

I am particularly interested in the governance of agrifood systems toward greater sustainability. To date I have primarily used the framework of geographical political ecology and theoretical perspectives from geographical and sociological work in the political economy of agriculture. I am also interested in the philosophical foundations of interdisciplinary learning aimed at enhancing sustainability, especially the philosophy of critical realism; the facilitation of competency development; and the praxis of critical pedagogy based in social constructivism. In my work I enjoy designing cartographic and visual explanations based on graphic design principles.

My specific topical interests include:

•the globalization and localization of fresh produce,

•alternative food networks, with a special focus on community supported agriculture (CSA),

•pesticides and agrochemical use,

•governance in agrifood commodity chains.