Search results for "food systems"

Manoeuvring between regulations to achieve locally accepted results : analysis of school meals in Latvia and Finland

2018

Rather than having a consistent food policy, countries often tend to regulate food from the margins of other policy domains such as agricultural, environmental, welfare or educational policies. Regulatory interventions perceive food as an instrument rather than a domain with its own specific set of policy issues and view food provision as an activity to achieve certain economic, social and environmental objectives. This fragments the food policy into disintegrated points of interventions from various policy areas and leaves unregulated voids that can be exploited either to improve or to reduce the effectiveness of the interventions. This article explores interlinkages between fragmented pol…

Food Security Is None Of Your Business? Food Supply Chain Management In Support Of A Sustainable Food System

2017

Food security is the principal outcome of any given food system and it can be defined in terms of a sustainable food system where the core goal is to feed everyone sustainably, equitably and healthily. A sustainable food system addresses needs for availability, affordability and accessibility, is diverse, ecologically-sound and resilient, and builds the capabilities and skills necessary for future generations. This paper identifies the essential elements of food supply chain management in support of a sustainable food system, which ultimately enhances food security. The existing food supply chain and food system literature is synthesized in order to study the correspondence between public i…

Agri-Food Markets towards Sustainable Patterns

2020

In recent decades, the confluence of different global and domestic drivers has led to progressive and unpredictable changes in the functioning and structure of agri-food markets worldwide. Given the unsustainability of the current agri-food production, processing, distribution and consumption patterns, and the inadequate governance of the whole food system, the transition to sustainable agriculture and food systems has become crucial to effectively manage a global agri-food market able in supporting expected population growth and ensuring universal access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food for all. Based on a critical review of the existing international literature, the paper seeks to…

Application of bacteriocins in vegetable food biopreservation.

2007

Bacteriocins are generally recognized as "natural" compounds able to influence the safety and quality of foods. In the past years, a lot of works have been aimed to the detection, purification and characterisation of bacteriocins, as well as to their use in food preservation strategies. A list of review articles dealing with the application of bacteriocins to the protection of foods of animal origin is also available in literature, but it lacks for a summary on the utilization of bacteriocins in vegetable foods. These biopreservatives can be used in a number of ways in food systems and this paper mainly focuses on the state-of-the-art application of bacteriocins from lactic acid bacteria (L…

Participation for just governance of food-system transition

2022

Sustainability transitions governance needs to be inclusive and participatory and the question of justice is crucial for making effective and acceptable changes possible. But how do we ensure adequate participation in governance processes and enable reconciliation between competing goals in relation to sustainability transitions? Transition management highlights the need for participatory and reflexive governance processes to enable sustainability transitions. However, due to participant selection and limitations in chosen approaches, deliberative and participatory forums may have difficulties ensuring justice and legitimacy. A systemic and practice-oriented perspective on deliberation poin…

Shared socioeconomic pathways for climate change research in Finland: co-developing extended SSP narratives for agriculture

2021

AbstractShared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs), developed at global scale, comprise narrative descriptions and quantifications of future world developments that are intended for climate change scenario analysis. However, their extension to national and regional scales can be challenging. Here, we present SSP narratives co-developed with stakeholders for the agriculture and food sector in Finland. These are derived from intensive discussions at a workshop attended by approximately 39 participants offering a range of sectoral perspectives. Using general background descriptions of the SSPs for Europe, facilitated discussions were held in parallel for each of four SSPs reflecting very different c…

Organic food consumption: The relevance of the health attribute

2020

During the last decades, organic food products have become the main sustainable alternative to conventional food consumption. Among the several organic food attributes that consumers recognize in organic food, healthiness has been reported as the primary motivation to buy products certified as organic. The objective of the current study is to assess the relative weight of the health attribute among other recognized organic food attributes. To achieve this aim, a multiple price list (MPL) methodology is adopted to elicit consumers&rsquo

Resilience Planning, a Facilitated Modelling Approach

2018

Resilience has emerged as a buzzword among researchers and practitioners. However, despite its popularity, there has been little progress in moving it from an elaborate metaphor describing an idyllic state of the system to a tool for planning and managing adaptation. While case study research is rich with examples of systems that have proven to be resilient or are striving to develop resilience, there is no defined approach that operationalises concepts described in the literature into the planning process. This paper helps close this gap by illustrating how facilitated modelling can be used for resilience planning in socio-ecological systems. The paper summarizes our experience using facil…

PUBLIC POLICY PLANNING TO ENHANCE THE RESILIENCE OF SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL SYSTEMS TO CLIMATE CHANGE: OPERATIONALIZING RESILIENCE CONCEPTS FROM A DYNAMIC P…

This study outlines a system dynamic based approach to the planning for resilience in food systems to climate change. The processes described and the insights gained are novel in the literature since they focus on describing operational aspects of resilience that can be generalized to multiple contexts and problems. On the one hand, the process described offers an aid for researchers and practitioners operationalizing resilience in public sector settings. Simultaneously, the insights gained from multiple stakeholder discussions and modelling work open new questions regarding the general mechanisms driving resilience in food systems. Climate change is threatening the extent to which social, …

The circular economy for resilience of the agricultural landscape and promotion of the sustainable agriculture and food systems

2022

The agricultural landscape is a public good to be preserved for long-term socio-economic and environmental effects. The agricultural landscape is preserved by the carrying out of agricultural activities. Through a empirical survey we examined how some young farmers in the countryside adopt conservation and resilience strategies. A common feature of the case studies examined is the adoption of photovoltaic energy production necessary for the performance of business activities. The method applied is that of the opportunity cost. The results of the research show that young farmers after graduation have returned to agriculture as they have an advantage in terms of opportunity costs compared to …