Tim Lang

Emeritus Professor of Food Policy, City University of London, United Kingdom

Tim Lang was Professor of Food Policy at City from 2002 to 2021 and had founded the Centre in 1994 at Thames Valley University. After a PhD in social psychology at Leeds University, he became a hill farmer in the 1970s in Lancashire which shifted his attention to food policy, where it has been ever since. For years, he's engaged in academic and public research and debate about its direction, locally to globally. His abiding interest is how policy addresses the mixed challenge of being food for the environment, health, social justice, and citizens. What is a good food system? How is ours measured and measuring up? He has been a consultant to the WHO, FAO and UNEP and advisor to House of Commons Select Committee inquiries on food standards, globalisation and obesity. He was a Commissioner on the UK Government's Sustainable Development Commission (2006-11) and policy lead Commissioner on the EAT-Lancet Commission on Healthy Diets from Sustainable Food Systems (2016-19) which published the highly acclaimed 'Food in the Anthropocene' report (The Lancet, 2019). Tim Lang has written and co-written any articles, reports, chapters and books. His most recent books include: Feeding Britain (2020), Food Wars (2015), Unmanageable Consumer (2015), Ecological Public Health (2012). He grows vegetables and fruit in his London garden, and is President of Garden Organic, a civil society organisation promoting low impact food production.