scholarly journals Competitiveness of Small Farms and Innovative Food Supply Chains: The Role of Food Hubs in Creating Sustainable Regional and Local Food Systems

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (7) ◽  
pp. 616 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giaime Berti ◽  
Catherine Mulligan
Author(s):  
Anuj Mittal ◽  
Jason Grimm

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted food supply chains operations across the globe. Due to health safety practices like social distancing, local food supply chains such as farmers markets and food hubs are unable to conduct normal operations. This paper describes two low-cost information and communica¬tion technology (ICT) solutions developed for a farmers market and a food hub in Iowa to enable them to continue their operations during the pandemic while ensuring the safety of vulnerable consumers and essential workers. Other benefits of ICT for the long-term sustainability of local food systems are also discussed.


Author(s):  
Katarzyna Żmija ◽  
Marta Czekaj ◽  
Dariusz Żmija

The goal of this paper is to recognize the desired prospective role of small farms in local food systems as well as identify the directions of future-oriented activity for its implementation. The empirical data for the study was provided as a result of workshops hosted in the Rzeszowski subregion in 2019, attended by the stakeholders of the local food system. The methodology of the studies was based on the concept of foresight research, using the backcasting technique. For the purpose of formulating the visions of the desired prospective role of small farms in local food systems, the workshops participants determined their potential future roles in the subsystem of production, processing and consumption of food in the subregion, while, above all, recognizing them in reference to production, processing and providing the consumer with food of the highest quality. The aforementioned roles have been determined as being under-implemented. The recommended areas of activities for increasing the share of small farms in local food systems were identified as: legislation, institutional conditions, consultancy, financial support and farm cooperation, food quality and safety control, promotion of local food products and consumer education.


2021 ◽  
pp. 217-236
Author(s):  
Anna Kapała ◽  
Pamela Lattanzi

The study aims to identify what food information is required for the sale of food by farmers in short food supply chains (SFSCs) in EU law in accordance with Regulation (EU) 1169/2011 and legislation of selected Member States (Poland, Italy and France), which are allowed to adopt national measures in some issues. A comparison with US law serves as a benchmark for drawing conclusions, in particular, whether the requirements are appropriate and proportionate for SFSCs. The Regulation takes into account these alternative sales channels, as Art. 44 only requires information on allergens when offering unpackaged food for sale to final consumers or mass caterers, or when foodstuffs are packaged in the sales room at the consumer's request or packaged for direct sale. However, Member States have adopted national measures imposing an obligation to provide, in writing, more information on food in the direct sale, such as the ingredients list, but not the nutrition declaration. The US legislature is more restrictive, as it requires not only ingredient lists but also nutritional information for nearly all packaged and unpackaged food products, except for agricultural raw materials. The multitude of obligations imposed at various legislative levels is undoubtedly a challenge for farmers involved in SFSC, who are not prepared on a par with professional food companies to implement them.


2022 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
William A. Kerr ◽  
Jill E. Hobbs

Abstract Background On an individual level, food security has multiple dimensions and consumers exhibit heterogeneity in the extent to which different attributes matter in their quest for enhanced food security. The aim of this paper is to explain how the quest for individual food security arises and its dynamic nature and its implications for how food security-enhancing attributes are defined and how they are signaled, and for the role of regulators and food supply chains in establishing credible signals. Results The paper finds that the quest for enhanced individual food security is a dynamic process that responds to the disequilibrium that change brings. The changing role of standards and grades as signals in food markets is discussed as a precursor to considering the implications for both market and non-market (regulatory) failure in determining the appropriate role for the public sector in regulating food safety and quality standards and labeling. The rise of private standards is examined, along with a consideration of how these standards differ in terms of scope and objective and their implications for international trade in increasingly globalized food supply chains. Conclusions Despite the growth of private standards, a clear role remains for mandatory public standards, yet challenges arise when these standards differ across countries.


2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Brent Ross

Technological innovation, globalization and market segmentation have led to increasingly complex agri-food supply chains and networks. At the same time, they have also created opportunities for entrepreneurial firms to create new wealth. The objective of this study is to investigate the differences in entrepreneurial performance between firms that discover and exploit new wealth creation opportunities within existing supply chains as opposed to those that decide to establish the supply chain themselves. Using agent-based simulation, this study finds that agents that link with existing supply chains outperform those that do not both in terms of survival and wealth creation per firm. It also finds, however, that the presence of existing supply chains has positive effects for non-linked entrepreneurial firms as well.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (16) ◽  
pp. 9234
Author(s):  
Omar Alsetoohy ◽  
Baker Ayoun ◽  
Mahmoud Abou-Kamar

The COVID-19 outbreak has forced customers to shift their food habits to more locally grown products. Therefore, restaurants have begun to provide local food, which is reflected in “farm to fork” or “locally-sourced” or “farm to table” restaurants. Thus, purchasing sustainable food, specifically local food products, has become one of the most salient sustainability practices in restaurants. Therefore, this study seeks to further explore the influences of the Sustainable Local Food Supply Chain (SLFSC) of green fine-dining restaurants on tourist food experiences and destination branding in the USA. Data were analyzed using the partial least square (PLS) technique of a sample of 232 respondents. The findings of this study showed positive impacts of all sustainability dimensions on most consumption values of tourists (i.e., emotional, epistemic, health, taste/quality, etc.). The findings indicated that each sustainability dimension and overall sustainability of the local food supply chain had strong positive effects on destination branding. Finally, tourist food experiences in totality mediated the relationship between the overall Sustainable Local Food Supply Chain and destination branding. This study contributes to the existing literature by developing and validating a scale to measure the sustainability practices of local food supply chains in restaurants to fill this gap in the literature. Additionally, the findings have intimate important theoretical and practical implications.


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