Agrifood Transitions in the Anthropocene
Agrifood Transitions in the Anthropocene

Author: Allison M. Loconto

Publisher: SAGE Publications Limited

Published: 2024-02-01

Total Pages: 309

ISBN-13: 1529680352

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The greatest challenges of the twenty-first century stem from the fact that we are now living in a new epoch: the Anthropocene. The human footprint on the planet can no longer be denied. One of the greatest and most essential human innovations, agriculture, is being increasingly recognised as a leading contributor to climate change. According to global governance bodies, the world will need to feed a predicted nine billion people by 2050. However, in this Anthropocene, we must address the environmental inequalities in how these people will be fed. This book explores our current societal struggles to transition towards more sustainable agrifood systems. It suggests that debates around sustainable agriculture must be social as well as technical, exploring the growth of social movements campaigning for more democratic food systems. However, as each chapter demonstrates, both the problems and the solutions in sustainable agriculture are highly contested. Using the term ′agrifood′ to capture the nexus between research, governance and the environment knowledge-environment-governance, this book provides an in-depth and wide-ranging account of current research around agricultural production and food consumption. The book introduces the Anthropocene along with the fundamental question that it poses about human-nature interactions. It outlines the core concerns related to agriculture and food and the debates around the need for agrifood system transitions. Each chapter investigates controversies in the field through case studies. These contributions offer a call for sociologists of agriculture and food to engage with the controversies unfolding in the Anthropocene.

Agroecological Transitions: From Theory to Practice in Local Participatory Design
Agroecological Transitions: From Theory to Practice in Local Participatory Design

Author: Jacques-Eric Bergez

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2019-02-28

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 3030019535

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This Open Access book presents feedback from the ‘Territorial Agroecological Transition in Action’- TATA-BOX research project, which was devoted to these specific issues. The multidisciplinary and multi-organisation research team steered a four-year action-research process in two territories of France. It also presents: i) the key dimensions to be considered when dealing with agroecological transition: diversity of agriculture models, management of uncertainties, polycentric governance, autonomies, and role of actors’ networks; ii) an operational and original participatory process and associated boundary tools to support local stakeholders in shifting from a shared diagnosis to a shared action plan for transition, and in so doing developing mutual understanding and involvement; iii) an analysis of the main effects of the methodology on research organisation and on stakeholders’ development and application; iv) critical analysis and foresights on the main outcomes of TATA-BOX, provided by external researchers.

Food Practices in Transition
Food Practices in Transition

Author: Gert Spaargaren

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-06-17

Total Pages: 382

ISBN-13: 1136485430

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This edited volume presents and reflects upon empirical evidence of ‘sustainability’-induced and -related transition in food practices. The material collected in the various chapters contributes to our understanding of the ways in which ideas and preferences, sociotechnological developments and changes in the governance of food interact and become visible in practices of consumption, retail and production.

Agrifood Transitions in the Anthropocene
Agrifood Transitions in the Anthropocene

Author: Allison Marie Loconto

Publisher: Sage Publications Limited

Published: 2024-04-08

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781529680157

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This book explores our current societal struggles to transition towards more sustainable agrifood systems.

Towards a Natural Social Contract
Towards a Natural Social Contract

Author: Patrick Huntjens

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-03-30

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 3030671305

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This open access book is a 2022 Nautilus Gold Medal winner in the category "World Cultures' Transformational Growth & Development". It states that the societal fault lines of our times are deeply intertwined and that they confront us with challenges affecting the security, fairness and sustainability of our societies. The author, Prof. Dr. Patrick Huntjens, argues that overcoming these existential challenges will require a fundamental shift from our current anthropocentric and economic growth-oriented approach to a more ecocentric and regenerative approach. He advocates for a Natural Social Contract that emphasizes long-term sustainability and the general welfare of both humankind and planet Earth. Achieving this crucial balance calls for an end to unlimited economic growth, overconsumption and over-individualisation for the benefit of ourselves, our planet, and future generations. To this end, sustainability, health, and justice in all social-ecological systems will require systemic innovation and prioritizing a collective effort. The Transformative Social-Ecological Innovation (TSEI) framework presented in this book serves that cause. It helps to diagnose and advance innovation and spur change across sectors, disciplines, and at different levels of governance. Altogether, TSEI identifies intervention points and formulates jointly developed and shared solutions to inform policymakers, administrators, concerned citizens, and professionals dedicated towards a more sustainable, healthy and just society. A wide readership of students, researchers, practitioners and policy makers interested in social innovation, transition studies, development studies, social policy, social justice, climate change, environmental studies, political science and economics will find this cutting-edge book particularly useful. “As a sustainability transition researcher, I am truly excited about this book. Two unique aspects of the book are that it considers bigger transformation issues (such as societies’ relationship with nature, purpose and justice) than those studied in transition studies and offers analytical frameworks and methods for taking up the challenge of achieving change on the ground.” - Prof. Dr. René Kemp, United Nations University and Maastricht Sustainability Institute

Food and Agriculture in Urbanized Societies
Food and Agriculture in Urbanized Societies

Author: Sergio Schneider

Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing

Published: 2022-11-28

Total Pages: 193

ISBN-13: 1801177708

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Inspiring innovative and sustainable practices, governance perspectives and informing public policies, Food and Agriculture in Urbanized Societies offers the most current research on urbanized agriculture to truly provide ‘pathways for a better future’ to foster more equitable and fair societies.

Agroecology
Agroecology

Author: Peter Rosset

Publisher: Practical Action

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 146

ISBN-13: 9781853399947

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Introduction : why agroecology? -- The scientific principles of agroecology -- The scientific evidence for agroecology : can it feed the world? -- Scaling up agroecology : social process and organization -- The politics of agroecology -- Conclusions : conform or transform?

Urban Political Ecology in the Anthropo-obscene
Urban Political Ecology in the Anthropo-obscene

Author: Henrik Ernstson

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-12-07

Total Pages: 411

ISBN-13: 1351809938

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Urban Political Ecology in the Anthropo-obscene: Interruptions and Possibilities centres on how to organize anew the articulation between emancipatory theory and political activism. Across its theoretical and empirical chapters, written by leading scholars from anthropology, geography, urban studies, and political science, the book explores new political possibilities that are opening up in an age marked by proliferating contestations, sharpening socio-ecological inequalities, and planetary processes of urbanization and environmental change. A deepened conversation between urban environmental studies and political theory is mobilized to chart a radically new direction for the field of urban political ecology and cognate disciplines: What could emancipatory politics be about in our time? What does a return of the political under the aegis of equality and freedom signal today in theory and in practice? How do political movements emerge that could re-invent equality and freedom as actually existing socio-ecological practices? The hope is to contribute discussions that can expand and rearrange critical environmental studies to remain relevant in a time of deepening depoliticization and the rise of post-truth politics. Urban Political Ecology in the Anthropo-obscene will be of interest to postgraduates, established scholars, and upper level undergraduates from any discipline or field with an interest in the interface between the urban, the environment, and the political, including: geography, urban studies, environmental studies, and political science.

Social Innovation and Sustainability Transition
Social Innovation and Sustainability Transition

Author: Geoff Desa

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022-12-11

Total Pages: 383

ISBN-13: 3031185609

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This book uses a historical and modern lens to reimagine the role that Extension could potentially play in catalyzing reciprocal, co-learning relationships between Land-Grant Universities and their diverse local constituencies. The establishment of statewide extension systems was once seen as a way to ensure that Land-Grant Universities would be accessible and responsive to all of a state’s residents. Extension systems continue to offer a front-door to a major public university in almost every county of the United States, but they tend to be viewed primarily as a way to translate science or distribute information from the university to the public. This books argues for the importance of Extension and shows that we are conceiving of this system too narrowly. Only by retelling the stories of the Extension and getting people to see themselves as part of the story can we imagine a different future in which state universities and land-grant colleges engage more authentically and equitably in two-way relationships with their local constituents.in catalyzing reciprocal, co-learning relationships between Land-Grant Universities and their diverse local constituencies. Chapter “Palatable disruption: the politics of plant milk", chapter “Feeding the melting pot: inclusive strategies for the multi-ethnic city", chapter "A carrot isn't a carrot isn't a carrot: tracing value in alternative practices of food exchange", chapter “Virtualizing the 'good life': reworking narratives of agrarianism and the rural idyll in a computer game" and chapter "'Workable utopias' for social change through inclusion and empowerment? Community supported agriculture (CSA) in Wales as social innovation" are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license via link.springer.com.

Agrobiodiversity
Agrobiodiversity

Author: Karl S. Zimmerer

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2023-10-31

Total Pages: 403

ISBN-13: 0262549697

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Experts discuss the challenges faced in agrobiodiversity and conservation, integrating disciplines that range from plant and biological sciences to economics and political science. Wide-ranging environmental phenomena—including climate change, extreme weather events, and soil and water availability—combine with such socioeconomic factors as food policies, dietary preferences, and market forces to affect agriculture and food production systems on local, national, and global scales. The increasing simplification of food systems, the continuing decline of plant species, and the ongoing spread of pests and disease threaten biodiversity in agriculture as well as the sustainability of food resources. Complicating the situation further, the multiple systems involved—cultural, economic, environmental, institutional, and technological—are driven by human decision making, which is inevitably informed by diverse knowledge systems. The interactions and linkages that emerge necessitate an integrated assessment if we are to make progress toward sustainable agriculture and food systems. This volume in the Strüngmann Forum Reports series offers insights into the challenges faced in agrobiodiversity and sustainability and proposes an integrative framework to guide future research, scholarship, policy, and practice. The contributors offer perspectives from a range of disciplines, including plant and biological sciences, food systems and nutrition, ecology, economics, plant and animal breeding, anthropology, political science, geography, law, and sociology. Topics covered include evolutionary ecology, food and human health, the governance of agrobiodiversity, and the interactions between agrobiodiversity and climate and demographic change.