This comprehensive overview of local food systems explores alternative definitions of local food, estimates market size and reach, describes the characteristics of local consumers and producers, and examines early indications of the economic and health impacts of local food systems. Defining ¿local¿ based on marketing arrangements, such as farmers selling directly to consumers at regional farmers¿ markets or to schools, is well recognized. Statistics suggest that local food markets account for a small, but growing, share of U.S. agricultural production. For smaller farms, direct marketing to consumers accounts for a higher percentage of their sales than for larger farms. Charts and tables.
Food systems are currently facing tremendous challenges and changes globally. On the one hand, population growth, urbanization, and increased affluence are expected to catalyze dietary shifts and broader changes to food systems in the coming decades. On the other hand, food systems (and changes therein) have major environmental and social ramifications. As a result, fostering the sustainable transformation of food systems is seen as one of the major challenges for meeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, understanding food systems, and transforming them in a sustainable manner is far from straightforward, especially as our food systems have multiple intersecting economic, social, technological, and cultural dimensions. Moreover, food systems encompass different stakeholders operating at different levels with enormously different interests and worldviews.
This book examines the challenges and impacts of poor diets and nutrition from current food systems and the potential contribution of biodiversity and ecosystem services in addressing these problems. There is a strong need for a multi-level, cross-sectoral approach that connects food biodiversity conservation and sustainable use to address critical problems in our current food systems, including malnutrition. Building on research from the Biodiversity for Food and Nutrition Project (BFN), which aims to better link biodiversity, diets and nutrition, the book presents a multi-country, cross-sectoral analysis of initiatives that have promoted local food biodiversity in four countries: Brazil, Kenya, Turkey and Sri Lanka. This book offers a comprehensive summary of the BFN Project results in each of the four countries along with lessons learned and how this work could be upscaled or applied in other regions. It argues that the strategic promotion and use of food biodiversity is critical in uniting attempts to address conservation, nutrition and livelihood concerns. The book is structured around chapters and case studies encompassing the BFN Project with specific experiences related by partners who played key roles in the work being done in each country. By offering a comparative view capable of furthering dialogue between the respective countries, it is also meant to connect the individual cases for a “greater than the sum of its parts” effect. This means consideration of how localized activities can be adapted to more countries and regions. Therefore, the book addresses global issues with a foot planted firmly in the grounded case study locations. This book will be of great interest to policymakers, practitioners and NGOs working on food and nutrition, as well as students and scholars of agriculture, food systems and sustainable development.
Policy-related challenges to building community-based agriculture and food systems that are ecologically sustainable and socially just are also highlighted.
Globally, the food system and the relationship of the individual to that system, continues to change and grow in complexity. Eating is an everyday event that is part of everyone’s lives. There are many commentaries on the nature of these changes to what, where and how we eat and their socio-cultural, environmental, educational, economic and health consequences. Among this discussion, the term "food literacy" has emerged to acknowledge the broad role food and eating play in our lives and the empowerment that comes from meeting food needs well. In this book, contributors from Australia, China, United Kingdom and North America provide a review of international research on food literacy and how this can be applied in schools, health care settings and public education and communication at the individual, group and population level. These varying perspectives will give the reader an introduction to this emerging concept. The book gathers current insights and provides a platform for discussion to further understanding and application in this field. It stimulates the reader to conceptualise what food literacy means to their practice and to critically review its potential contribution to a range of outcomes.
Collaboration and leadership strategies for long-term success Fueled by the popularity of permaculture and agroecology, community food forests are capturing the imaginations of people in neighborhoods, towns, and cities across the United States. Along with community gardens and farmers markets, community food forests are an avenue toward creating access to nutritious food and promoting environmental sustainability where we live. Interest in installing them in public spaces is on the rise. People are the most vital component of community food forests, but while we know more than ever about how to design food forests, the ways in which to best organize and lead groups of people involved with these projects has received relatively little attention. In The Community Food Forest Handbook, Catherine Bukowski and John Munsell dive into the civic aspects of community food forests, drawing on observations, group meetings, and interviews at over 20 projects across the country and their own experience creating and managing a food forest. They combine the stories and strategies gathered during their research with concepts of community development and project management to outline steps for creating lasting public food forests that positively impact communities. Rather than rehash food forest design, which classic books such as Forest Gardening and Edible Forest Gardens address in great detail, The Community Food Forest Handbook uses systems thinking and draws on social change theory to focus on how to work with diverse groups of people when conceiving of, designing, and implementing a community food forest. To find practical ground, the authors use management phases to highlight the ebb and flow of community capitals from a project's inception to its completion. They also explore examples of positive feedbacks that are often unexpected but offer avenues for enhancing the success of a community food forest. The Community Food Forest Handbook provides readers with helpful ideas for building and sustaining momentum, working with diverse public and private stakeholders, integrating assorted civic interests and visions within one project, creating safe and attractive sites, navigating community policies, positively affecting public perception, and managing site evolution and adaptation. Its concepts and examples showcase the complexities of community food forests, highlighting the human resilience of those who learn and experience what is possible when they collaborate on a shared vision for their community.
Sustainable Food System Assessment provides both practical and theoretical insights about the growing interest in and response to measuring food system sustainability. Bringing together research from the Global North and South, this book shares lessons learned, explores intended and actual project outcomes, and highlights points of conceptual and methodological convergence. Interest in assessing food system sustainability is growing, as evidenced by the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact and the importance food systems initiatives have taken in serving as a lever for attaining the UN Sustainable Development Goals. This book opens by looking at the conceptual considerations of food systems indicators, including the place-based dimensions of food systems indicators and how measurements are implicated in sense-making and visioning processes. Chapters in the second part cover operationalizing metrics, including the development of food systems indicator frameworks, degrees of indicator complexities, and practical constraints to assessment. The final part focuses on the outcomes of assessment projects, including impacts on food policy and communities involved, highlighting the importance of building connections between sustainable food systems initiatives. The global coverage and multi-scalar perspectives, including both conceptual and practical aspects, make this a key resource for academics and practitioners across planning, geography, urban studies, food studies, and research methods. It will also be of interest to government officials and those working within NGOs. The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.routledge.com/Sustainable-Food-System-Assessment-Lessons-from-Global-Practice/Blay-Palmer-Conare-Meter-Battista-Johnston/p/book/9781032083933, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
Multi-stakeholder collaboration is an important process that can serve as a tool and strategy to solve complex issues and problems such as transforming national food systems towards more sustainable outcomes. This guide aims to support stakeholders working at all levels of the food system in the implementation of actions to transform their food systems. Centered on 5 building blocks underpinning successful multi-stakeholder collaboration for food systems transformation, the guide uses these constructions to illustrate ingredients of the process and show the interconnectedness of the steps needed to be successful. The guide also contains two annexes with a list of tools, and assessment questions. Annex 1 highlights a range of tools to support facilitators and participants with deeper guidance on a specific topic. Annex 2 contains a checklist of questions, customized to the content provided under each Building Block, and serves as an ongoing monitoring tool that can be used alongside the recommendations provided.
This open access book develops a framework for advancing agroecology transformations focusing on power, politics and governance. It explores the potential of agroecology as a sustainable and socially just alternative to today’s dominant food regime. Agroecology is an ecological approach to farming that addresses climate change and biodiversity loss while contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals. Agroecology transformations represent a challenge to the power of corporations in controlling food system and a rejection of the industrial food systems that are at the root of many social and ecological ills. In this book the authors analyse the conditions that enable and disable agroecology’s potential and present six ‘domains of transformation’ where it comes into conflict with the dominant food system. They argue that food sovereignty, community-self organization and a shift to bottom-up governance are critical for the transformation to a socially just and ecologically viable food system. This book will be a valuable resource to researchers, students, policy makers and professionals across multidisciplinary areas including in the fields of food politics, international development, sustainability and resilience.
This edited volume builds on existing alternative food initiatives and food movements research to explore how a systems approach can bring about health and well-being through enhanced collaboration. Chapters describe the myriad ways community-driven actors work to foster food systems that are socially just, embed food in local economies, regenerate the environment and actively engage citizens. Drawing on case studies, interviews and Participatory Action Research projects, the editors share the stories behind community-driven efforts to develop sustainable food systems, and present a critical assessment of both the tensions and the achievements of these initiatives. The volume is unique in its focus on approaches and methodologies that both support and recognize the value of community-based practices. Throughout the book the editors identify success stories, challenges and opportunities that link practitioner experience to critical debates in food studies, practice and policy. By making current practices visible to scholars, the volume speaks to people engaged in the co-creation of knowledge, and documents a crucial point in the evolution of a rapidly expanding and dynamic sustainable food systems movement. Entrenched food insecurity, climate change induced crop failures, rural-urban migration, escalating rates of malnutrition related diseases, and aging farm populations are increasingly common obstacles for communities around the world. Merging private, public and civil society spheres, the book gives voice to actors from across the sustainable food system movement including small businesses, not-for-profits, eaters, farmers and government. Insights into the potential for market restructuring, knowledge sharing, planning and bridging civic-political divides come from across Canada, the United States and Mexico, making this a key resource for policy-makers, students, citizens, and practitioners.
