Scaling-up regional fruit and vegetable distribution: potential for adaptive change in the food system

As demand for locally grown food increases there have been calls to ‘scale-up’ local food production to regionally distribute food and to sell into more mainstream grocery and retail venues where consumers are already shopping. Growing research and practice focusing on how to improve, expand and conceptualize regional distribution systems includes strategies such as value chain development using the Agriculture of the Middle (AOTM) framework. When the Ohio Food Policy Advisory Council asked how they could scale-up the distribution of Ohio fresh fruits and vegetables to Ohioans, we decided to use this practical opportunity to not only provide recommendations to this council, but to simultaneously contribute to the literature on AOTM, value-based and spatially–proximate relationships, and conceptualizations of food system hybridity. We do this while examining an entire sub-sector of the Ohio agricultural economy, namely fruit and vegetables and applying the AOTM framework beyond the farm, namely to distributors and retailers. Through interviews with Ohio retailers and a survey of all fresh fruit and vegetable distributors Ohio we: (1) Describe current distribution systems within the state; (2) Identify firms interested in scaling-up distribution, and; (3) Inform state-level policy efforts by identifying opportunities to better target any state-level policy and program efforts. We demonstrate support for the concept of AOTM applied beyond the farm, for value chain development strategies that can transmit ‘quality’ via spatially proximate supply chains, and support for considering hybrid solutions, such as piggybacking for scaling-up local food systems. This work highlights the role a statewide food policy council can have in facilitating market development and their unique position to provide public sector and institutional support to facilitate meaningful connections in the food system.     

Food justice or food sovereignty? Understanding the rise of urban food movements in the USA

As world food and fuel prices threaten expanding urban populations, there is greater need for the urban poor to have access and claims over how and where food is produced and distributed. This is especially the case in marginalized urban settings where high proportions of the population are food insecure. The global movement for food sovereignty has been one attempt to reclaim rights and participation in the food system and challenge corporate food regimes. However, given its origins from the peasant farmers' movement, La Via Campesina, food sovereignty is often considered a rural issue when increasingly its demands for fair food systems are urban in nature. Through interviews with scholars, urban food activists, non-governmental and grassroots organizations in Oakland and New Orleans in the United States of America, we examine the extent to which food sovereignty has become embedded as a concept, strategy and practice. We consider food sovereignty alongside other dominant US social movements such as food justice, and find that while many organizations do not use the language of food sovereignty explicitly, the motives behind urban food activism are similar across movements as local actors draw on elements of each in practice. Overall, however, because of the different histories, geographic contexts, and relations to state and capital, food justice and food sovereignty differ as strategies and approaches. We conclude that the US urban food sovereignty movement is limited by neoliberal structural contexts that dampen its approach and radical framework. Similarly, we see restrictions on urban food justice movements that are also operating within a broader framework of market neoliberalism. However, we find that food justice was reported as an approach more aligned with the socio-historical context in both cities, due to its origins in broader class and race struggles.     

Local or localized? Exploring the contributions of Franco-Mediterranean agrifood theory to alternative food research

Notions such as terroir and “Slow Food,” which originated in Mediterranean Europe, have emerged as buzzwords around the globe, becoming commonplace across Europe and economically important in the United States and Canada, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Given the increased global prominence of terroir and regulatory frameworks like geographical indications, we argue that the associated conceptual tools have become more relevant to scholars working within the “alternative food networks” (AFN) framework in the United States and United Kingdom. Specifically, the Local Agrifood Systems (Systèmes Agroalimentaires Localisés, or SYAL) perspective, first articulated in 1996 by French scholars, seeks to understand the relationship between the development of local food systems and specific territories. We review the empirical and theoretical literature that comprises each of these perspectives, highlighting three areas in which SYAL scholarship may be relevant to AFN researchers. First, while AFN scholars tend to understand the “local” in terms of positionality, in a distributionist sense (vis-à-vis one’s relation to sites of food production or consumption or along commodity chains), SYAL studies frame local food systems as anchored within particular territories. Second, SYAL research places significant emphasis on collectivity, both in terms of collective institutions and shared forms of knowledge and identity. Third, although both perspectives are framed in opposition of the industrialization of the global food system, AFN scholars focus more on alternative distribution schemes (e.g., organic, fair trade, and direct marketing schemes), while SYAL researchers favor territorially anchored structures (e.g., geographical indications).     

Restaurants,chefs and local foods: insights drawn from application of a diffusion of innovation framework

Chefs have been recognized as potentially important partners in efforts to promote local food systems. Drawing on the diffusion of innovation framework we (a) examine the characteristics of chefs and restaurants that have adopted local foods; (b) identified local food attributes valued by restaurants; (c) examine how restaurants function as opinion leaders promoting local foods; (d) explored network linkages between culinary and production organizations; and (e) finally, we consider some of the barriers to more widespread adoption of local foods in the culinary community. Analyzing quantitative and qualitative data collected from interviews with individuals from 71 restaurants, we compare and contrast restaurants that utilize relatively large amounts of locally-produced ingredients with restaurants using few, if any, local products. Results reveal that chefs are most interested in intrinsic food qualities, such as taste and freshness, and less interested in production standards. As opinion leaders, chefs utilize signage, wait staff, and cooking classes to promote local foods; however, the diffusion process across restaurants, and between restaurants and producers, is limited by network associations. Structural barriers such as distribution problems and lack of convenience were identified as limiting more widespread use of locally-grown foods. We offer several implications of this research for further work that seeks to engage chefs as opinion leaders who are important to building greater support for local food systems.

食物链长度远因与近因研究进展综述

食物链长度是生态系统的基本属性,其变化决定着群落结构和生态系统功能。稳定同位素分析技术的进步推进了生态系统中食物链长度决定因子相关研究的开展。尽管近期的研究证明了食物链长度与资源可利用性、生态系统大小、干扰等远因之间的关系,但是对于食物网内部结构变化这一近因对食物链长度的影响作用关注较少。综述了边界明确和开放类型淡水生态系统中食物链长度的相关研究进展;探讨了远因和近因机制在决定食物链长度中的作用;给出了判断不同层次和尺度上决定食物链长度机制的概念框架;为今后更好的开展不同生态系统间食物链长度的比较研究提出了建议。     

Farm to school in British Columbia: mobilizing food literacy for food sovereignty

Farm to school programs have been positioned as interventions that can support goals of the global food sovereignty movement, including strengthening local food production systems, improving food access and food justice for urban populations, and reducing distancing between producers and consumers. However, there has been little assessment of how and to what extent farm to school programs can actually function as a mechanism leading to the achievement of food sovereignty. As implemented in North America, farm to school programs encompass activities not only related to school food procurement, but also to the development of student knowledge and skills under the framework of food literacy. Research on farm to school initiatives has largely been conducted in countries with government-supported national school feeding programs; this study examines farm to school organizing in Canada, where there is no national student nutrition program. Using qualitative fieldwork and document analysis, we investigate the farm to school movement in British Columbia, in a context where civil society concerns related to education and health have been the main vectors of farm to school mobilization. Our analysis suggests that, despite limited institutional infrastructure for school meals, the British Columbia farm to school movement has contributed toward realizing goals of food sovereignty through two main mechanisms: advocacy for institutional procurement of local and sustainable foods and mobilizing food literacy for increased public engagement with issues of social justice and equity in food systems.     

Local is not fair: indigenous peasant farmer preference for export markets

The food sovereignty movement calls for a reversal of the neoliberal globalization of food, toward an alternative development model that supports peasant production for local consumption. The movement holds an ambiguous stance on peasant production for export markets, and clearly prioritizes localized trade. Food sovereignty discourse often simplifies and romanticizes the peasantry—overlooking agrarian class categories and ignoring the interests of export-oriented peasants. Drawing on 8 months of participant observation in the Andean countryside and 85 interviews with indigenous peasant farmers, this paper finds that export markets are viewed as more fair than local markets. The indigenous peasants in this study prefer export trade because it offers a more stable and viable livelihood. Feeding the national population through local market intermediaries, by contrast, is perceived as unfair because of oversupply and low, fluctuating prices. This perspective, from the ground, offers important insight to movement actors and scholars who risk oversimplifying peasant values, interests, and actions.     

Reweaving the food security safety net: Mediating entitlement and entrepreneurship

The American food system has produced both abundance and food insecurity, with production and consumption dealt with as separate issues. The new approach of community food security (CFS) seeks to re-link production and consumption, with the goal of ensuring both an adequate and accessible food supply in the present and the future. In its focus on consumption, CFS has prioritized the needs of low-income people; in its focus on production, it emphasizes local and regional food systems. These objectives are not necessarily compatible and may even be contradictory. This article describes the approach of community food security and raises some questions about how the movement can meet its goals of simultaneously meeting the food needs of low-income people and developing local food systems. It explores the conceptual and political promise and pitfalls of local, community-based approaches to food security and examines alternative economic strategies such as urban agriculture and community-supported agriculture. It concludes that community food security efforts are important additions to, but not subsitutes for, a nonretractable governmental safety net that protects against food insecurity.     

Can crop science really help us to produce more better-quality food while reducing the world-wide environmental footprint of agriculture?

This paper reviews recent developments in crop science that can be the basis of a revolution in the global food system but it is also emphasized that such a revolution requires more than changes in food production and supply. We must more effectively feed a growing global population with a healthy diet while also defining and delivering the kinds of sustainable food systems that will minimise damage to our planet. There are exciting new developments in crop production biology but much existing crop science can be exploited to increase yields with the aid of a knowledge exchange (KE) framework requiring the use of new technology now available to most people across the globe. We discuss novel approaches at both the plant and the crop level that will enhance nutrient and water productivity and we also outline ways in which energy use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions can be reduced and labor shortages combatted. Exploitation of new biology and new engineering opportunities will require development of public-private partnerships and collaborations across the disciplines to allow us to move effectively from discovery science to practical application. It is also important that consumers contribute to the debate over proposed changes to food and farming and so effective KE mechanisms are required between all relevant communities.     

Wisconsin’s “Happy Cows”? Articulating heritage and territory as new dimensions of locality

In this article, we suggest that attending to the roles of heritage and territory could help reshape local food systems in the US: first, by incorporating more producer voices and visions into the conversation; and second, by considering more deeply the characteristics of the places where food is produced. Using the Wisconsin artisanal cheese network as a case study, we have traced how artisanal producers frame their collective heritage and links to their territory. They describe a heritage that includes a cultivation of embedded, “situated” agricultural knowledge(s) and a commitment to specific quality practices as well as a connection to terroir—the specific ecologies and social contexts of their farm or region. We argue that their articulation of this heritage and terroir is both an emergent, ongoing process of adapting to changing market, cultural, and geographic conditions and an effort to recover valued traditions and practices and (re)connect to specific places.     

Compounding crises of economic recession and food insecurity: a comparative study of three low-income communities in Santa Barbara County

Santa Barbara County exhibits some of the highest rates of food insecurity in California, as well as in the United States. Through ethnographic research of three low-income, predominantly Latino communities in Santa Barbara County, this study examined the degree to which households had been experiencing heightened levels of food insecurity since the economic recession and ensuing coping strategies, including gender-specific repercussions and coping strategies. Methods included administering a survey with 150 households and conducting observation and unstructured interviews at various local food-centered venues. Results indicated that households from the three communities were experiencing heightened levels of food insecurity and that all three communities were employing diversification of procurement, adjustments to a reduced or limited food budget, reliance on food assistance, and revitalization of the home as a site of domestic food production and preparation as coping strategies. The results also suggested that women suffered disproportionately higher psychological and physical costs associated with compounding crises. In conclusion, the experiences narrated by low-income households reflect a form of citizenship that appears compromised by a host of variables perceived to exist outside the realm of local control. Shifting toward an operational framework of food sovereignty may allow these communities to become more resilient in the face of future political, environmental, social, and economic stressors.     

The social life of the tortilla: Food, cultural politics, and contested commodification

Resurgent interest incommodities is linked to recent attempts toovercome the constraints posed by the binariesof economy/culture and production/consumption.Commodities and commodification represent acontentious convergence of economic, social,cultural, political, and moral concerns. Thisessay develops a conceptual framework forunderstanding this interconnectedness byexamining the relationship between commoditiesand our discourse, practices, and assumptionsabout food. We argue that the movement of afood artifact between local/global andglobal/local contexts is mediated by dynamicsof power and resistance that represent contestsof meaning regarding the criteria of that artifact's exchangeability. We apply thisframework to the case of the tortilla, tracingits social life through an historical accountof its transformation from the staple food ofthe Mayan and Aztec people to its introductionas a fast food component of the diets of21st century Americans. This exampledemonstrates that food provides a powerful lensthrough which to trace and illustrate theinterconnectedness between material andsymbolic exchanges around the world that arecommonly associated with globalization.     

Safe at any scale? Food scares,food regulation,and scaled alternatives

The 2006 outbreak of E. coli O157:H7, traced to bagged spinach from California, illustrates a number of contradictions. The solutions sought by many politicians and popular food analysts have been to create a centralized federal agency and a uniform set of production standards modeled after those of the animal industry. Such an approach would disproportionately harm smaller-scale producers, whose operations were not responsible for the epidemic, as well as reduce the agroecological diversity that is essential for maintaining healthy human beings and ecosystems. Why should responses that only reinforce the problem be proffered? We use the framework of accumulation and legitimation to suggest corporate and government motives for concealing underlying problems and reinforcing powerful ideologies of individualism, scientism, and centralizing authority. Food safety (or the illusion of safety) is being positioned to secure capital rather than public welfare. We propose implementing the principle of subsidiarity as a more democratic and decentralized alternative. Because full implementation of this principle will be resisted by powerful interests, some promising intermediate steps include peer production or mass collaboration as currently applied to disease prevention and surveillance, as well as studying nascent movements resisting current food safety regulations.     

Placing the food system on the urban agenda: The role of municipal institutions in food systems planning

Food issues are generally regarded as agricultural and rural issues. The urban food system is less visible than such other systems as transportation, housing, employment, or even the environment. The reasons for its low visibility include the historic process by which issues and policies came to be defined as urban; the spread of processing, refrigeration, and transportation technology together with cheap, abundant energy that rendered invisible the loss of farmland around older cities; and the continuing institutional separation of urban and rural policy. Despite its low visibility, the urban food system nonetheless contributes significantly to community health and welfare; to metropolitan economies; connects to other urban systems such as housing, transportation, land use, and economic development; and impacts the urban environment. We examine existing or potential city institutions that could offer a more comprehensive look at the urban food system. These include the city department of food, the food policy council, and the city-planning department.     

新型冠状病毒肺炎疫情下粮食保障应对策略分析与建议

在新型冠状病毒肺炎（简称“新冠肺炎”）疫情背景下,全球的粮食保障面临前所未有的挑战。为掌握全球粮食状况,保障我国粮食安全,分析了全球和中国的粮食供应情况,并提出了粮食保障应对策略。通过分析发现,疫情之下全球粮食生产预期总体平稳,具有较强地抗冲击能力,中国的主粮供给有保障,但大豆等进口商品受到一定的影响。由于各国形势差异,不同国家采取了多种措施保障本国粮食供应,例如增加财政和政策支持、加大粮食库存、建立绿色通道、限制粮食出口、减免进口关税、进行价格管制等。在此基础上,建议通过破解供应瓶颈来稳定粮食生产、通过加强调控力度来稳定粮食价格、通过有效引导市场来稳定社会预期,以保障我国的粮食安全和粮食供应链的稳定运行。     

Local food policy coalitions: Evaluation issues as seen by academics, project organizers, and funders

Several different evaluation issuesare perceived as important by people involved withinnovative projects intended to improve local food andnutrition systems; particularly the establishment oflocal food policy coalitions. Several such coalitionshave been formed in North America, Europe, andAustralia with the goal of improving community foodsecurity and promoting sustainable local food systems.Pioneer coalitions have served as models, yet therehas been little systematic evaluation of thesemodels. A qualitative study was conducted to identifyfactors that may hinder evaluation efforts. In grouptelephone interviews, we sought the views ofacademics, project organizers, and funders, a total of24 key informants. Pressures to evaluate were assessed differently bythe three groups of key informants. Academics felt thefocus of evaluation should be on the effectiveness ofthe process used to discuss issues and formulatepolicies and plans. Project organizers and fundersperceived a need to assess project impact andoutcomes. A lack of suitable evaluation models andmethods was viewed as a formidable barrier. The use ofinappropriate methods and premature impact evaluationwere noted as potential threats to projectsustainability. External constraints and resourcelimitations were also said to inhibit evaluationefforts. It appears that several other factors may also beimpeding progress in conducting more (and more useful)evaluations including: (1) the apparent negativeconnotation of evaluation and the limited benefitsexpected from evaluation by stakeholders, (2) a lackof consensus about important evaluation questions,(3) insufficient evaluation expertise among projectorganizers, and (4) inadequate appreciation ofincreasing accountability pressures.     

转基因食品研究现状与发展前景

综述了转基因食品的研究现状,评价了其安全性和营养水平,并对转基因食品的发展前景进行了展望。     

Not just what, but how: Creating agricultural sustainability and food security by changing Canada's agricultural policy making process

Agriculture has been enormously productive in recent decades. The main problem is that fragmentation of issues, knowledge, and responsibilities has hidden the costs associated with this success. These are mainly environmental, social, and health costs, which have been assigned to other ministries, with their own histories unconnected to agriculture. Now that agricultural policy has achieved its success, its costs are becoming apparent. The current system is preoccupied with traditional views of competitiveness and efficiency. Policies, programs, and regulations are organized to support specific commodities, not farming and food systems. Responsibilities are extremely fragmented and frequently uncoordinated. In this environment, the focus on nourishment, food security, and environmental sustainability is subordinated to economic issues.The future lies in reorienting agricultural policy away from maximum production and towards sustainability. We propose a major transformation of the policy making apparatus in order to shift the focus of the system towards nourishment, food security, and sustainability. A new policy making system must be built on the themes of: integrated responsibilities and activities; emphasis on macro-policy; transdisciplinary policy development; proximity of policy makers to the diverse groups affected by problems needing resolution; food systems policy.The design principles for such a new system are taken from the theory of food security and ecology. Using these principles, we design a new provincial department of food and food security, and test this design with two case studies.     

‘Rescaling’ alternative food systems: from food security to food sovereignty

In this paper, we critically interrogate the benefits of an interdisciplinary and theoretically diverse dialogue between ‘local food’ and ‘alternative food networks’ (AFNs) and outline how this dialogue might be enriched by a closer engagement with discourses of food sovereignty and the politics of scale. In arguing for a shift towards a greater emphasis on food sovereignty, we contend that contemporary discourses of food security are inadequate for the ongoing task of ensuring a just and sustainable economy of food. Further, rather than treating the local and the global as ontologically given categories around which to contest the politics of food, it is our contention that recognising the socio-spatial aspects of the politics of scale has the potential to reinvigorate discourses of food security, food sovereignty and AFNs. Understanding scale as both fixed to a degree as well as contingent and dynamic has implications for an understanding of the role of food systems, for how the rescaled state privileges certain food systems and the possibilities for resistance through ‘jumping scale’ and food utopias. All of these aspects are significant if we are to fully comprehend and contest the challenges of envisioning and enacting real utopias of food sovereignty.