Roadmapping to Enhance Local Food Supply: Case Study of a City-Region in Austria

Simon Berner,Hartmut Derler,Stephan Pabst,Ulrike Seebacher,René Rehorska

doi:10.3390/su11143876

Simon Berner, Hartmut Derler + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/su11143876

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Abstract

Due to the current challenges of climate change, population growth in urban settlements and resource depletion, agri-food researchers have put an increasing emphasis on the sustainability transitions of food systems. In this regard, there has been an increasing interest in the local food supply of cities and their surrounding regions, as local food is considered to be a contributing factor toward more sustainable, resilient and just urban food systems. Based on this background, a roadmapping process was conducted to assess the status quo and to identify measures to enhance the local food supply in the city-region of Graz in Austria. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 47 stakeholders, analysed textual materials and calculated food carrying capacities. The obtained data served as input for a series of three workshops, where measures were derived. Our results suggest that cooperation among agri-food stakeholders should be facilitated by local decision makers in order to promote food from regional sources within the target area. Furthermore, smart technologies can help to scale-up local food supply schemes, and to track down food stocks and flows more efficiently. Besides, food policy councils and open food labs can help to incubate food product innovations and to support partnerships among agri-food stakeholders, including local small-scale farmers. In the future, engagement and empowerment processes with local food stakeholders should be addressed to enable transformational processes. Roadmaps can help to initiate such processes.

Highlights

Agri-food researchers agree that urban food systems need to undergo a transition toward sustainability to tackle economic, social and ecological obstacles that are caused by a set of intersecting challenges, including climate change, population growth, ecosystem degradation, social inequalities, price volatilities, water scarcity and biodiversity loss [1]
We considered three types of data to assess the status quo of the target food system: (I) the data from the assessment of textual materials, including project reports, best practice examples, national and international reference projects, and academic and government reports that focused on enhancing the local food supply in urban areas; (II) the data from semi-structured stakeholder interviews; and (III) the calculation of food self-sufficiency rates
When chefs of communal kitchens were asked about reasons that prevent them from increasing the share of local food products on their menu, they stated that either farmers cannot provide sufficient quantities of the required products over extended time periods, or they cannot provide food in the required qualities

Summary

Introduction

Agri-food researchers agree that urban food systems need to undergo a transition toward sustainability to tackle economic, social and ecological obstacles that are caused by a set of intersecting challenges, including climate change, population growth, ecosystem degradation, social inequalities, price volatilities, water scarcity and biodiversity loss [1]. Lately, increasing attention has been on assessing and planning more sustainable and resilient urban food systems [2,3,4]. Short food supply chains (SFSC) gained momentum because they are promising to enhance food safety, social capital and local economies and to strengthen consumer-producer relations [7]. In this regard, the European Union has put local food systems on their agri-political agenda (e.g., see [6,8])

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