scholarly journals Roadmapping to Enhance Local Food Supply: Case Study of a City-Region in Austria

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (14) ◽  
pp. 3876
Author(s):  
Simon Berner ◽  
Hartmut Derler ◽  
René Rehorska ◽  
Stephan Pabst ◽  
Ulrike Seebacher
Keyword(s):  
Food Supply ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Local Food ◽  
Scale Up ◽  
Resource Depletion ◽  
Food Product ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Target Area ◽  
City Region ◽  
Structured Interviews

Due to the current challenges of climate change, population growth in urban settlements and resource depletion, agri-food researchers have put an increasing emphasis on the sustainability transitions of food systems. In this regard, there has been an increasing interest in the local food supply of cities and their surrounding regions, as local food is considered to be a contributing factor toward more sustainable, resilient and just urban food systems. Based on this background, a roadmapping process was conducted to assess the status quo and to identify measures to enhance the local food supply in the city-region of Graz in Austria. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 47 stakeholders, analysed textual materials and calculated food carrying capacities. The obtained data served as input for a series of three workshops, where measures were derived. Our results suggest that cooperation among agri-food stakeholders should be facilitated by local decision makers in order to promote food from regional sources within the target area. Furthermore, smart technologies can help to scale-up local food supply schemes, and to track down food stocks and flows more efficiently. Besides, food policy councils and open food labs can help to incubate food product innovations and to support partnerships among agri-food stakeholders, including local small-scale farmers. In the future, engagement and empowerment processes with local food stakeholders should be addressed to enable transformational processes. Roadmaps can help to initiate such processes.

scholarly journals How to guarantee food supply during pandemics? Rethinking local food systems from peri-urban strategic agents’ behaviour: The case study of the Barcelona Metropolitan Region

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sònia Callau-Berenguer ◽  
Anna Roca-Torrent ◽  
Josep Montasell-Dorda ◽  
Sandra Ricart
Keyword(s):  
Food Supply ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Food Policy ◽  
Local Food ◽  
Metropolitan Region ◽  
Mutual Aid ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Strategic Agents ◽  
Agricultural Areas

The Covid-19 pandemic has acted as a warning for the world’s current food system, especially in urban contexts with global food dependence. This article aims to analyse the food system behaviour of the Barcelona Metropolitan Region (in the northeast of Spain) during the first stage of the pandemic by deepening the behaviour of different peri-urban agricultural areas in which local food supply is promoted. Semi-structured interviews to 11 entities and institutions located in the peri-urban area of the BMR based on its productive and management profile have been carried out from March to May 2020. The results obtained highlight the socio-economic, environmental, and health perspective of food supply during the pandemic. Main results show 1) shortcomings in the operation and logistics of the metropolitan food system; 2) the complicity between the local producer and the urban consumer through new sales and distribution initiatives, 3) the role of peri-urban agricultural areas for ensuring food supply and land preservation, and 4) the need to initiate cooperation and mutual aid activities between the different agents involved in the food system. Furthermore, agents underlined the need for rethinking the agroeconomic model to strengthening the producer-consumer nexus and promoting local food policy based on food sustainability, sovereignty, and governance.

Who and what set the price of walnuts for small-scale farmers in Southwest China?

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mei Yan ◽  
Anne Terheggen ◽  
Dagmar Mithöfer
Keyword(s):  
Value Chain ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Tree Planting ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Village Level ◽  
Small Scale Farmers ◽  
The Village

Purpose Domestic demand for walnuts has been on the rise for the last decades. Consumption outstrips domestic production capacities, which led to increasing prices until recently. Small-scale farmers are at the centre of walnut tree planting and walnut collection efforts. Farmers are now integrated into rapidly expanding agrifood value chains. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the walnut value chain originating in Yunnan (the dominant producer of walnuts in China). The authors are especially interested in the position of small-scale farmers in the chain and the factors affecting the price that they receive. Design/methodology/approach Price and intra-chain governance information were collected through structured interviews with value chain actors like certified and conventional small-scale farmers, traders, processors, food manufacturers and wholesalers. The resultant price data set was analysed using a multiple regression analysis. Findings Timing of harvest, distance to market and sales volume are correlated with the village-level price. Farmers are in a market governance segment of the chain. Lead firms (e.g. supermarkets) are price-setters and determine the value distribution, with farmers receiving a smaller share relative to downstream actors’ shares. Research limitations/implications Improved connectivity to markets, transparency of standards and price (formation), processing and certification could improve farmers’ profits. Originality/value The authors contribute to the growing literature of value chain studies focussing on farmers’ integration into food systems at different scales. The authors investigated the price determinants at the village level and additionally provide information on an organic marketing arrangement.

scholarly journals Alternative Local Food Shopping Communities in Hungary

2019 ◽  
Vol 19(34) (2) ◽  
pp. 7-21
Author(s):  
Izabella Bakos ◽  
Anikó Khademi-Vidra
Keyword(s):  
Food Systems ◽  
Consumer Behaviour ◽  
Local Food ◽  
Close Correlation ◽  
Retail Trade ◽  
Local Food Systems ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Food Shopping ◽  
Two Samples ◽  
Significant Difference

As a result of concerns about the long-term sustainability of globalized retail trade and the stronger presence of health conscious consumer behaviour, governments and groups of conscious consumers worldwide are increasingly focusing on the promotion and development of local food systems and small-scale retail chains and the production of quality local food products to promote the market. In our paper, we would like to give an overview of community-led alternative types of local food systems, with particular attention to shopping community-type consumer and consumer communities. We also describe the main results of our primary research in the population and the shopping community. During the questionnaire we revealed general consumer behaviour and the demand and attitude of local food, the popularity of the customer communities in the settlement of the respondents. In the survey conducted among members of the consumer community, we looked at the analytical areas designated as a target in the population questionnaire for the purpose of comparability and our aim was to explore the sociometrics and lifestyles of communities as well as their community experiences and possible developments. Our hypothesis is that there is a close correlation between the respondents with higher education and income and the preferences of local food. Furthermore, it is assumed that there is a significant difference between the food consumption behaviors of the two samples examined.

scholarly journals Exploring Teachers’ Conceptual Uses of Research as Part of the Development and Scale up of Research-Informed Practices

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (10) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Flood ◽  
Chris Brown
Keyword(s):  
Student Outcomes ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Teaching Practice ◽  
Scale Up ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Research Use ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Project Participants ◽  
Conceptual Research ◽  
New Strategies

This article examines the idea of research-informed teaching practice (RITP) and how such practice can best be facilitated to improve aspects of teaching and learning. After first exploring RITP as a concept, the paper then engages with Carol Weiss’ seminal typology of research-use, and makes the argument that Weiss’ notion of conceptual research-use is both more likely and more realistic than instrumental research-use. The paper then illustrates how the idea of conceptual research-use aided the design of a small-scale project that sought to help teachers engage with and employ research, such that this engagement might impact positively on teaching and learning. In-depth semi structured interviews were undertaken with 15 project participants to examine whether the approach employed by the project: 1) helped teachers engage with research; 2) helped teachers develop new strategies for teaching and learning; and 3) whether the strategies developed by teachers were thought to impact on practice and student outcomes. Analysis of the interview data indicates that the approach employed has enabled teachers to successfully engage with research and use research to improve teaching and learning. Furthermore, the analysis also provides clues regarding effective ways to replicate research-informed teaching strategies in new settings and contexts.

scholarly journals Small‐scale fisheries and local food systems: Transformations, threats and opportunities

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert I Arthur ◽  
Daniel J Skerritt ◽  
Anna Schuhbauer ◽  
Naazia Ebrahim ◽  
Richard M Friend ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Food Systems ◽  
Local Food ◽  
Local Food Systems ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Small Scale Fisheries

scholarly journals Building a safety buffer for European food security: the role of small-scale food production and local ecological and gastronomic knowledge in light of COVID-19

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 10
Author(s):  
Renata Sõukand ◽  
Raivo Kalle ◽  
Michele Filippo Fontefrancesco ◽  
Andrea Pieroni
Keyword(s):  
Food Production ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Small Firms ◽  
Local Food ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Food Chains ◽  
Community Based ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
Safe Food

The lockdown caused by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has created a situation in which food availability is affected not only by the availability of money but also by the availability of food itself. On the basis of five pillars, including 1) supporting community-based farming, 2) defending small firms, 3) developing narratives on the high value of local food,4) encouraging subsistence gardening and foraging in the wild, and 5) promoting local ecological and gastronomic knowledge, the article points a way forward to attain greater sustainability and resilience of safe food chains that starts with reassessing the relevance of local food systems.

Conclusion

2019 ◽  
pp. 148-170
Author(s):  
David Schlosberg ◽  
Luke Craven
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Local Food ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Economic Insecurity ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
Sustainable Fashion ◽  
Prefigurative Politics ◽  
Local Impacts ◽  
Alternative Practices

We conclude with a discussion of the potential of the sustainable material movements we examine in local food systems, community energy, and sustainable fashion. The focus is on the breadth and diversity of the influence of such movements—from small-scale and local impacts on political engagement and environmental sustainability, to the economic empowerment of local businesses and its impact on economic insecurity, to larger issues of systemic change in production and consumption systems. We discuss both the actual potential, as well as the real critiques and limitations, of sustainable materialist action. And we end with a return to the value of positing possibilities, alternative practices, and prefigurative politics in social movements.

Food Supply Chains, Family Farming, and Food Policies under the COVID-19 Pandemic in a Brazilian City

2020 ◽  
Vol 79 (4) ◽  
pp. 323-332
Author(s):  
Antonio de la Peña García ◽  
Silvia A. Zimmermann ◽  
Ana Alice Eleuterio
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chains ◽  
Food Supply ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Online Marketing ◽  
Farmers Markets ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Family Farming ◽  
Government Programs ◽  
Food Supply Chains

The food system in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil, experienced changes that reflected the uncertainties and restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. This study describes urban and periurban family farmers’ ongoing strategies to adapt to changes in the local food supply chains (FSCs) after the temporary suspension of farmers’ markets and government programs directed to small-scale agriculture. Their disruption proved problematic for the farmers and the vulnerable populations served by them. As a result, some farmers redirected their products’ commercialization to delivery or pickup services. Based on observations and conversations with producers and retail intermediaries, we show that farmers’ delivery and pickup-based sales increased dramatically with the pandemic. The sustainability of these practices is unknown, although they have strengthened forms of cooperation and commercialization amongst farmers, mainly through online marketing. Based on the results, the study provides a series of research questions to explore food systems and FSCs under severe social disruption.

scholarly journals Traditional Products and New Developments in the Restaurant Sector in East Africa. The Case Study of Nakuru County, Kenya

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dauro M. Zocchi ◽  
Michele F. Fontefrancesco
Keyword(s):  
Local Food ◽  
Poor Quality ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Leafy Vegetables ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Local Market ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Traditional Foods ◽  
Indigenous Chicken

Over the last 20 years, we have witnessed worldwide a renewed interest in local food products and traditional cuisine. Addressing this demand, the catering industry has played a pivotal role in reviving local food heritage and traditions. While several studies have explored the evolution of this trend in Europe, little attention has been given to this phenomenon in contemporary Africa. To partially fill this gap in the literature, we conducted an ethnographic study to investigate the role of the catering sector in recovering and promoting food and gastronomic heritage in Nakuru County, an emerging Kenyan agricultural and tourist hub. Specifically, we aimed at understanding the main drivers behind the offering and demand for traditional ingredients and recipes. Fieldwork was conducted through the analysis of 41 restaurants and hotels, and data collection was completed through semi-structured interviews with 51 professionals, including owners, food and beverage managers, and chefs. We reported 33 recipes and ingredients tied to Kenyan culinary traditions. Some differences in the role of Kenyan cuisine emerged, with the differentiation mostly linked to the customer profiles. In particular, attention toward traditional foods was more accentuated in restaurants aimed at middle- and high-income Kenyan customers and for specific products namely African leafy vegetables and indigenous chicken, locally known as kuku kienyeji. Concurrently, we discovered that the inclusion of these products on the restaurant menus implied an incipient localization of the food supply chains based on self-production or direct commercial relationships with small-scale producers. The research highlighted how the relaunch of traditional food and cuisine develops from a demand for healthy and natural products rather than a search for cultural authenticity. Based on the specificities of the local market, this fosters the creation of alternative supply strategies to cope with the poor quality of ingredients, price fluctuations, and discontinuity of the supply. In this sense, the research suggests also considering tangible factors linked to the technological and logistical conditions of the trade and safety of food to understand the drivers behind the rediscovery of local and traditional foods.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document