scholarly journals Food System Resilience

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bart de Steenhuijsen Piters ◽  
Emma Termeer ◽  
Deborah Bakker ◽  
Hubert Fonteijn ◽  
Herman Brouwer
Keyword(s):  
Policy Making ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
System Transformation ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
System Resilience ◽  
Conflicting Interests ◽  
Inclusive Governance ◽  
Access To Food ◽  
Over Time

The COVID-19 crisis is just one in a series of shocks and stressors that exemplify the importance of building resilient food systems. To ensure that desired food system outcomes are less fluctuating, policy makers and other important stakeholders need a common narrative on food system resilience. The purpose of this paper is to work towards a joint understanding of food system resilience and its implications for policy making. The delivery of desired outcomes depends on the ability of food systems to anticipate, prevent, absorb, and adapt to the impacts of shocks and stressors. Based on our literature review we found four properties of food systems that enhance their resilience. We refer to these as the A B C D of resilience building: Agency, Buffering, Connectivity and Diversity. Over time, many food systems have lost levels of agency, buffering capacity, connectivity or diversity. One of the principal causes of this is attributed to the governance of food systems. Governance is inherently political: as a result of conflicting interests and power imbalances, food systems fail to deliver equitable and just access to food. Moreover, the impacts of shocks and stressors are not evenly distributed across actors in the food system. This paper has highlighted the importance of more inclusive governance to direct food system transformation towards such higher levels of resilience. We conclude that we cannot leave this to the market, but that democratic and before all independent, credible institutions are needed to create the necessary transparency between actors as to their interests, power and influence.

scholarly journals Achieving Food System Resilience Requires Challenging Dominant Land Property Regimes

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Calo ◽  
Annie McKee ◽  
Coline Perrin ◽  
Pierre Gasselin ◽  
Steven McGreevy ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Political Ecology ◽  
Land Tenure ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Food System ◽  
Food Sovereignty ◽  
System Transformation ◽  
Property Relations ◽  
Global North ◽  
System Resilience

Although evidence continues to indicate an urgent need to transition food systems away from industrialized monocultures and toward agroecological production, there is little sign of significant policy commitment toward food system transformation in global North geographies. The authors, a consortium of researchers studying the land-food nexus in global North geographies, argue that a key lock-in explaining the lack of reform arises from how most food system interventions work through dominant logics of property to achieve their goals of agroecological production. Doing so fails to recognize how land tenure systems, codified by law and performed by society, construct agricultural land use outcomes. In this perspective, the authors argue that achieving food system “resilience” requires urgent attention to the underlying property norms that drive land access regimes, especially where norms of property appear hegemonic. This paper first reviews research from political ecology, critical property law, and human geography to show how entrenched property relations in the global North frustrate the advancement of alternative models like food sovereignty and agroecology, and work to mediate acceptable forms of “sustainable agriculture.” Drawing on emerging cases of land tenure reform from the authors' collective experience working in Scotland, France, Australia, Canada, and Japan, we next observe how contesting dominant logics of property creates space to forge deep and equitable food system transformation. Equally, these cases demonstrate how powerful actors in the food system attempt to leverage legal and cultural norms of property to legitimize their control over the resources that drive agricultural production. Our formulation suggests that visions for food system “resilience” must embrace the reform of property relations as much as it does diversified farming practices. This work calls for a joint cultural and legal reimagination of our relation to land in places where property functions as an epistemic and apex entitlement.

Fulfilling the Right to Food for South Africa: Justice, Security, Sovereignty and the Politics of Malnutrition

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 112-152
Author(s):  
Busiso Helard Moyo ◽  
Anne Marie Thompson Thow
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Food Sovereignty ◽  
Food Justice ◽  
System Transformation ◽  
Right To Food ◽  
Economic Rights ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Right

Despite South Africa’s celebrated constitutional commitments that have expanded and deepened South Africa’s commitment to realise socio-economic rights, limited progress in implementing right to food policies stands to compromise the country’s developmental path. If not a deliberate policy choice, the persistence of hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in all its forms is a deep policy failure.  Food system transformation in South Africa requires addressing wider issues of who controls the food supply, thus influencing the food chain and the food choices of the individual and communities. This paper examines three global rights-based paradigms – ‘food justice’, ‘food security’ and ‘food sovereignty’ – that inform activism on the right to food globally and their relevance to food system change in South Africa; for both fulfilling the right to food and addressing all forms of malnutrition. We conclude that the emerging concept of food sovereignty has important yet largely unexplored possibilities for democratically managing food systems for better health outcomes.

Pathways to a sustainable, inclusive and healthy food system

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franziska Gaupp
Keyword(s):  
Food Systems ◽  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Food System ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Climate Extreme ◽  
System Transformation ◽  
Global Food System ◽  
Health Promoting ◽  
Key Policy ◽  
Global Food

<p>Currently, the global food system is the single largest threat to people and planet. Food is the leading cause behind transgressing five of the nine planetary boundaries. It is a major source of carbon emissions, as well as the single largest contributor to global deforestation, overuse of fresh water and eutrophication of our aquatic ecosystems. And while agriculture has been a major engine of poverty reduction, agricultural activities are unable to deliver a decent livelihood for an estimated 80 percent of those living in extreme poverty. The projected increase in frequency and severity of climate extreme events is posing additional threats to the global food system.</p><p>A transformation towards a more inclusive, sustainable and health-promoting food system is urgently needed. This presentation will introduce the newly established Food Systems Economics Commission (FSEC) that provides detailed and robust evidence assessing the implications of the policy and investment decisions needed to foster a food system transformation. It integrates global modelling tools such as integrated assessment modelling and innovative applications of agent-based modelling with political economy considerations.  It investigates the hidden costs of our current food system, explores transitions pathways towards a new food and land use economy and suggests key policy instruments to foster the transformation towards a sustainable, inclusive, healthy and resilient food system.</p>

scholarly journals Supermarket-Led Development and the Neglect of Traditional Food Value Chains: Reflections on Indonesia’s Agri-Food System Transformation

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 498 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Vetter ◽  
Marianne Nylandsted Larsen ◽  
Thilde Bech Bruun
Keyword(s):  
Value Chain ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Agricultural Development ◽  
Food System ◽  
Rapid Expansion ◽  
Value Chains ◽  
Traditional Food ◽  
System Transformation ◽  
Food Retail ◽  
Food Value

The rapid expansion of modern food retail encapsulated in the so-called ‘supermarket revolution’ is often portrayed as a pivotal driving force in the modernization of agri-food systems in the Global South. Based on fieldwork conducted on horticulture value chains in West Java and South Sulawesi, this paper explores this phenomenon and the concerted efforts that government and corporate actors undertake with regard to agri-food value chain interventions and market modernization in Indonesia. The paper argues that after more than 15 years of ‘supermarket revolution’ in Indonesia, traditional food retail appears not to be in complete demise, but rather adaptive and resilient to its modern competitors. The analysis of local manifestations of supermarket-led agricultural development suggests that traditional markets can offer certain advantages for farmers over supermarket-driven value chains. The paper further identifies and discusses two areas that have so far been neglected by research and policymaking and which warrant further investigation: (i) the simultaneous transformations in traditional food value chains and their relation to modern markets, and (ii) the social and environmental performances of modern vis-à-vis traditional food value chains.

scholarly journals Framing a Sustainable Local Food System—How Smaller Cities in Southern Germany Are Facing a New Policy Issue

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 1712 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jana Baldy
Keyword(s):  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Local Food ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Policy Issue ◽  
Local Food Systems ◽  
System Transformation ◽  
Agenda 21 ◽  
Southern Germany ◽  
Local Food System

Since Agenda 21, the local level has become important in terms of facing global challenges through local action. One of these is ensuring the sustainability of the food system. In German politics, this is a relatively new issue even at the local level. Nevertheless, two smaller cities in southern Germany have decided to change their local food systems towards sustainability. Hence, this paper deals with questions of how local actors are framing the food system and what this means for increasing sustainability. The analysis of qualitative interviews and participant observations based on frame analysis provides deeper insights into understandings of local food systems by actors. This paper aims to explore how framings of problems, solutions and motivations provide or restrict opportunities to increase local food system sustainability. Terms like sustainability or awareness are framed differently. Using the same term to mean different things can have negative effects on the acceptance of policymaking referring to food system transformation. Besides, this paper shows that omissions within the framing counteract the development of sustainable local food policy. Hence, it is important to reflect the political implications of absent framings as well to facilitate mutual understanding and consequently, food system change.

scholarly journals Interplay of trade and food system resilience: Gains on supply diversity over time at the cost of trade independency

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 100360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matti Kummu ◽  
Pekka Kinnunen ◽  
Elina Lehikoinen ◽  
Miina Porkka ◽  
Cibele Queiroz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Food System ◽  
System Resilience ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Over Time

scholarly journals Strategies for the promotion of healthy, adequate and sustainable food in Brazil in times of Covid-19

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suellen Secchi MARTINELLI ◽  
Suzi Barletto CAVALLI ◽  
Rafaela Karen FABRI ◽  
Marcela Boro VEIROS ◽  
Amélia Borba Costa REIS ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Nutrition Education ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Family Farming ◽  
Sustainable Food Systems ◽  
Sustainable Food ◽  
Food And Nutrition ◽  
Current Scenario ◽  
Emergency Actions ◽  
Access To Food

Abstract The current scenario generated by the Covid-19 pandemic enhances the condition of food and nutrition insecurity due to the worsening of poverty, hunger and lack of access to food, as well as the excess consumption of foods considered unhealthy. The effects of the pandemic enhances the need for a new way of arranging the production, distribution and consumption of food, giving new meaning to the relationship between food, eating and the environment. Thus, it is suggested that a reflection be made on the strategies for the appropriate healthy, adequate and sustainable diet in Brazil to face this health emergency. Actions must be focused on the articulation of strategies that foster sovereignty, food and nutrition security and healthier and more sustainable food systems such as the strengthening of family farming; income assurance for the population; access to quality food; changes in the food environment; dissemination of information on healthy and sustainable food in official recommendations for the pandemic and food guides covering the entire food system, as well as food and nutrition education practices.

scholarly journals Exploring the transformative potential of urban food: a future research agenda

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aniek Hebinck ◽  
Odirilwe Selomane ◽  
Esther Veen ◽  
Anke de Vrieze ◽  
Saher Hasnain ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Research Agenda ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Transformative Change ◽  
System Transformation ◽  
Sustainable Food ◽  
Food Research ◽  
Future Research Agenda ◽  
Transformative Potential

Urban food systems are a key lever for transformative change towards sustainability, and research reporting on the role of urban food initiatives in supporting sustainability is increasing. However, an overview of such initiatives and their transformative potential is lacking, as contextual and disciplinary-fragmented research complicates what insights can be drawn to support larger-scale sustainability transformations. We provide such an overview by synthesizing multidisciplinary research on urban food initiatives and by exploring their transformative potential. We developed a typology for urban food initiatives and present a framework of processes and outcomes that are steppingstones to sustainable food system transformation. We show that different types of urban food initiatives perform distinct roles that support sustainability. Unpacking three areas of concern, we conclude with a future research agenda. This is a first step towards integration of urban food research and of providing urban food governance with the tools to shape more sustainable systems.

scholarly journals Multiplicity of Perspectives on Sustainable Food: Moving Beyond Discursive Path Dependency in Food Policy

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 2773 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michiel P.M.M. de Krom ◽  
Hanneke Muilwijk
Keyword(s):  
Focus Groups ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Food System ◽  
Food Policy ◽  
Civil Servants ◽  
Sustainable Food ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Path Dependencies ◽  
Problems And Solutions ◽  
Integrated Policy

The idea that a sustainable transformation of the food system is urgently needed is gaining ground throughout Europe. Yet, opinions differ substantially on what a sustainable food future exactly entails, and on how this future may be achieved. This article argues that recognising this multiplicity of opinions and perspectives in policy making is productive because it creates attentiveness to innovative ideas and initiatives, and may contribute to a broad social support base for policy choices. However, food policy makers may overlook the diversity in perspectives by unreflexively adopting understandings of problems and solutions that are historically dominant in their organisations. In this article, we reveal the usefulness of triggering reflection on such discursive path dependencies amongst policy makers. We do so by presenting a three-fold case study that we conducted in the Netherlands. First, we analytically distinguish five perspectives on sustainable food that feature prominently in the Dutch public debate. Subsequently, we show that only two out of these five perspectives predominantly informed a Dutch food policy—despite intentions to devise a more integrated policy approach. Finally, we discuss the findings of two focus groups in which we discussed our analyses with Dutch civil servants who have been involved in drafting the Dutch food policy. These focus groups triggered reflection among the civil servants on their own perspectival biases as well as on discursive path dependencies in Dutch food policy making. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for the understanding of the discursive politics of sustainable agro-food transformations in Europe.

Agricultural food system transformation and its implications for tertiary agricultural education.

2021 ◽  
pp. 31-45
Author(s):  
John Lynam ◽  
Kay Muir Leresche
Keyword(s):  
Agricultural Education ◽  
Rural Economy ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Food System ◽  
System Transformation ◽  
Systems Perspective ◽  
System P ◽  
Development Outcomes

Abstract This chapter assesses the achievement of African development outcomes through market-led rural transformation within the context of agri-food systems. Sections discuss: (1) rural development from a food systems perspective; (2) the drivers of change in the food system; (3) the changing structure of food demand; (4) the generation of a production and productivity response; (5) structural changes in the market supply chain and the growth in the non-farm rural economy; and (6) the role of tertiary agricultural education in a transforming African food system.

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