Laurel Bellante

Laurel Bellante, Ph.D., is director of the B.A. in Food Studies in the School of Geography, Development, and Environment (SGDE) and assistant director of the Center for Regional Food Studies (CRFS) at the University of Arizona. She is a human-environment geographer specializing in food justice, global environmental change, sustainable food systems, and agrarian questions in both the United States and Mexico. In her role, Bellante oversees curriculum development and engagement opportunities for the Food Studies degree. She teaches several courses in critical food studies, including “Introduction to Critical Food Studies,” “Food Justice, Ethics, and Activism,” and the senior capstone.

Bellante uses a political ecology approach to connect what is happening in people’s kitchens, farms, and communities to larger political economic and environmental changes occurring regionally, nationally, and globally. Her research centers on supporting the creation of more just and sustainable food systems using qualitative, ethnographic, and applied research methods. She has researched rural livelihoods, farmer movements, and alternative food networks in Mexico, poverty and climate change in the Southwestern U.S., carbon forestry programs in Latin America, and food security and food justice in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. Her ongoing research projects focus on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and other challenges in the regional food system of southern Arizona, strategies for building food system resilience, food policy councils, critical food pedagogies, and understanding both the potential and limitations of farmer movements to address the dual challenges of neoliberalism and global environmental change. 

Bellante has been involved in food advocacy work in the Tucson region since 2010, including service as a member of the Pima County Food Alliance and the Arizona Food Systems Network and as a board member of the Tucson City of Gastronomy nonprofit organization. She is committed to leveraging university resources to convene food system practitioners to understand research needs, share findings, and to envision pathways for change. Her efforts have contributed to several key successes in Pima County, including Tucson’s designation as an UNESCO City of Gastronomy; the revision of City of Tucson’s local zoning ordinances to encourage greater urban food production; and the co-creation of the Food Systems Research Lab, which is dedicated to mobilizing university-community partnerships and training students to create food systems change in southern Arizona.

Bellante completed her Ph.D. in Geography and Development and her MA in Latin American Studies at the University of Arizona. She also holds a B.A. in Latin American Studies and Environmental Analysis from Pomona College.