Food Self-provisioning Research Articles

Beyond hardship and joy: Framing home gardening on insights from the European semi-periphery

European accounts of home gardening or food self-provisioning (FSP) typically frame these practices as primarily economically motivated and need related, and community gardening or urban agriculture as ethical sustainability strategies. Drawing on primary research on FSP in two East European countries, this paper combines analysis of socio-demographic and socio-economic characteristics of food self-provisioners with analysis of their motivations. There is strong evidence that while economic reasons are present FSP is primarily motivated, even in comparatively less affluent East European societies, by the desire to obtain fresh and healthy food and engage in a pleasurable activity. Based on our findings, we thus propose that a more appropriate framing for FSP in the European East and West alike is characterised by autonomy and community care. This would provide for a reengagement with the epistemology of sustainability-compliant behaviours and attitudes beyond the joy vs. limitations dichotomy. Given the performativity of social scientific research, rooting the framing on knowledge from East European societies, where FSP is widespread in all social groups, including the affluent middle class, is important for lending credence to alternative visions and practices that can enhance the sustainability of overdeveloped societies.

Growing the Beautiful Anthropocene: Ethics of Care in East European Food Gardens

This study contributes to research proposing the ethics of care framework as a way of imagining a food system that cares for Others. We expand this exploration to the everyday practice of home gardening and the related social relationships and material flows. This area complements current scholarship, which mostly focuses on food-related care as a form of activism driven by intentionality and knowledge about the effects of consumption choices. Combining a survey of a representative sample of the population and an in-depth qualitative study, our paper highlights the importance of inconspicuous but materially significant food self-provisioning and sharing practices as caring behaviors that do not rely on educational campaigns but draw on the desire to produce healthy food for human Others. Home grown food is distributed in the generalized reciprocity mode within wide food-sharing networks. The desire to produce healthy food further translates into the adoption of caring methods of cultivation that benefit non-human Others involved in the garden ecosystems.

Food self-provisioning motivations revisited: Czech home gardens and their food production

This paper revisits the motivations and behaviours related to home food production in private home gardens. It aims to answer these research questions: (i) which activities are performed in the home garden?; (ii) if the garden fulfils the self-provisioning function, what are the motivations for food production?; (iii) does gardening and food self-provisioning impact a household’s environmental behaviour?; and (iv) does food self-provisioning relate to a household’s economic situation? The results show that production of vegetables and herbs is still the prevailing function of Czech home gardens. The motivations for this activity are better taste, healthier way of production and enjoyment of gardening as a hobby. These motivations remain mostly intact during societal transformations or economy fluctuations over recent decades, which declares the strength and tradition of home food production in Czechia. Economic motivation was not proved as an important motivation. There was evidence for some kinds of pro-environment behaviour, however, this is limited to rather inconspicuous, private actions.

The Kings of the Corona Crisis: The Impact of the outbreak of Covid‐19 on Small‐scale Producers in Hungary

SummaryThe Covid‐19 pandemic has fundamentally reshaped our lives. Its effects on the sales and use of marketing channels of small‐scale Hungarian producers are addressed here. Based on the level of proximity, sales channels were classified into three types. Due to local regulations concerning restrictions on movement, it was only impersonal (online) channels that survived, or the opposite type, i.e. very personal ones involving the face‐to‐face meeting of producers and consumers in the private spaces (mostly homes) of one of the parties. Results from the survey of 136 producers reveal that 60 per cent suffered an economic loss due to loss of sales, while 10 per cent increased their sales. Successful producers were those lucky enough to be operating within the fresh fruit and vegetable sector, within which consumer demand increased significantly. The parallel use of several sales channels before the virus outbreak increased subsequent chances of success by increasing the probability that some of the channels would remain operational. Furthermore, successful producers had invested a lot of work pre‐Covid into maintaining private relationships with their customers; a situation that proved vital during times of restrictions. Also, the former moved fast, and were open enough to learn and make use of the opportunities modern technology offered them.

La agricultura periurbana como sostenibilidad silenciosa: desafiando el discurso del desarrollo urbano en Sogamoso, Colombia

This article advances academic and policy debates on peri-urban agriculture (PUA) by examining the phenomenon in the city of Sogamoso, Colombia. Planners, developers, and local authorities in Sogamoso have explicitly framed PUA as a barrier to development: a backwards, localized, low-tech and economically poorly performing activity that needs to make space for a more “productive” “modern” economy. Based on a survey of 160 peri-urban farming and gardening households, this study identifies PUA forms of food self-provisioning and exchange (FSPE) and further characterizes the practice’s social embeddedness, barriers, and opportunities as perceived by peri-urban farmers. The article combines scholarship on PUA and ‘quiet sustainability’ to propose a novel perspective that could help transform the terms of discourse on the role and future of PUA in urban sustainable development from arguments founded in productivity metrics to the appreciation of FSPE as an environmentally sustainable practice that strengthens the social fabric of local communities, thus contributing to their sense of purpose, meaning, and resilience. This study has implications not only for Sogamoso, but also for many other cities in Latin America and the Global South, where the role of PUA in relation to sustainable urban development is being actively contested.

Neither Poor nor Cool: Practising Food Self-Provisioning in Allotment Gardens in the Netherlands and Czechia

While urban gardening and food provisioning have become well-established subjects of academic inquiry, these practices are given different meanings depending on where they are performed. In this paper, we scrutinise different framings used in the literature on food self-provisioning in Eastern and Western Europe. In the Western context, food self-provisioning is often mentioned alongside other alternative food networks and implicitly framed as an activist practice. In comparison, food self-provisioning in Central and Eastern Europe has until recently been portrayed as a coping strategy motivated by economic needs and underdeveloped markets. Our research used two case studies of allotment gardening from both Western and Eastern Europe to investigate the legitimacy of the diverse framings these practices have received in the literature. Drawing on social practice theory, we examined the meanings of food self-provisioning for allotment gardeners in Czechia and the Netherlands, as well as the material manifestations of this practice. We conclude that, despite minor differences, allotment gardeners in both countries are essentially ‘doing the same thing.’ We thus argue that assuming differences based on different contexts is too simplistic, as are the binary categories of ‘activist alternative’ versus ‘economic need.’

Peri-urban agriculture as quiet sustainability: Challenging the urban development discourse in Sogamoso, Colombia

Abstract This article advances academic and policy debates on peri-urban agriculture (PUA) by examining the phenomenon in the city of Sogamoso, Colombia. Planners, developers, and local authorities in Sogamoso have explicitly framed PUA as a barrier to development: a backwards, localized, low-tech and economically poorly performing activity that needs to make space for a more ‘productive’ ‘modern’ economy. Based on a survey of 160 peri-urban farming and gardening households, this study identifies PUA forms of food self-provisioning and exchange (FSPE) and further characterizes the practice’s social embeddedness, barriers, and opportunities as perceived by peri-urban farmers. The article combines scholarship on PUA and ‘quiet sustainability’ (Smith and Jehlicka, 2013) to propose a novel perspective that could help transform the terms of discourse on the role and future of PUA in urban sustainable development from arguments founded in productivity metrics to the appreciation of FSPE as an environmentally sustainable practice that strengthens the social fabric of local communities, thus contributing to their sense of purpose, meaning, and resilience. This study has implications not only for Sogamoso, but also for many other cities in Latin America and the Global South, where the role of PUA in relation to sustainable urban development is being actively contested.

Small farms’ strategies between self-provision and socio-economic integration: effects on food system capacity to provide food and nutrition security

ABSTRACTSmall farms’ contribution to food and nutrition security (FNS) is widely acknowledged; however, the diversity of context-specific characteristics of small farms is still barely documented in terms of farm strategies and household dynamics. The paper analyses this contribution in connection with the strategies related to the destination of the produce, with specific attention to the balance between food self-provisioning and economic integration. The analysis of self-provisioning relies on the assumptions that (i) production and consumption decisions cannot be analysed separately when they are attributed to the same entity and that (ii) family farm strategic choices are influenced by both business outcomes and household'’s welfare. The analysis of economic integration hinges on Polanyi'’s categories of market, reciprocity and redistribution as the three main modes of economic integration of a farm within its environment. We have collected information from a range of farmers in the Lucca province (northern Tuscany, Italy) and key stakeholders, through interviews, focus groups and field visits. The results of our analysis highlight the different ways small farms’ contribution to FNS in relation to each mode of economic integration adopted by the small farms. The different forms of this contribution can be identified at two levels: (i) internal to the farming household and (ii) external (i.e. referred to the community and broader society). A concept of food quality encompassing local sustainability, cultural heritage and social cohesion, is crucial to valorise, through appropriate policies, the specificities of small farms’ contribution to FNS.

“For my health and for my friends”: Exploring motivation, sharing, environmentalism, resilience and class structure of food self-provisioning

This article aims to supplement the growing understanding of the specificities of food self-provisioning (FSP) practice in Eastern Europe with deeper understanding of the class structure and broader environmentalist motivations of the self-reported practitioners. FSP and sharing of ‘garden produce’ is a long-term socioeconomic phenomenon in Croatia but so far there has been no research on the whole population in regard to FSP. We explore how widespread FSP in Croatia is, based on a survey of a nationally representative sample (N = 1000), within a broader social stratification project. We further explore the class structure of FSP practitioners and compare it to their reported motivations for engaging with the practice, and their pro-environmental behaviour, resilience and personal flourishing. Previous research in CEE has shown that FSP is characteristic of between 35% and 60% of national populations (Smith and Jehlička, 2013), whereas our findings show that a little over 50% of respondents claim that they have a garden, field or orchard, they use to produce food for themselves and part of their social network. As a practice it is more situated in smaller settlements and rural areas, but it is not a principally rural phenomenon. Slim majority of people involved in FSP in Croatia are identified as working class, however, FSP is not a coping strategy focused on the poor and low-income households in Croatia and food self-provisioners report higher level of personal wellbeing, more pro-environmental behaviour and higher level of self-perceived resilience.

Food self-provisioning as an answer to the metabolic rift: The case of ‘Dacha Resilience’ in Estonia

Agriculture is not only an essential nexus between society and nature but in its current industrial form also a possible threat to ecological stability. This article explores how a supplement to the conventional agrifood system alleviates the negative consequences of the industrial food production system that manifest through the metabolic rift (Marx, 1981). During fieldwork in Estonia ten semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted to analyze the practice of Food Self-Provisioning (FSP) in (peri-)urban dachas – a Russian term for a plot of land with a seasonal allotment house, mostly used for food production.Using McClintock's (2010) three-dimensional framework of metabolic rift that consists of ecological, social and individual dimensions, we demonstrate how FSP not only contributes to mending all these rifts but also increases resilience on various levels. As a region-specific practice of “quiet sustainability” (Smith and Jehlička, 2013) it displays an environmentally friendly alternative to the conventional agrifood system and serves as a strong example of sufficiency and moral economy. Furthermore, by its practice it not only challenges the continuous commodification process of ‘fictitious commodities’, such as land, labor and food (Polanyi, 2001; McClintock, 2010), but it defies market logic in general. Therefore, this article proposes FSP as a viable, but largely underestimated and even stigmatized, model of alternative sustainability, already widely practiced in post-socialist Europe.

Multitemporal Geospatial Evaluation of Urban Agriculture and (Non)-Sustainable Food Self-Provisioning in Milan, Italy

Urban agriculture in Global North cities is strongly promoted as a sustainable solution to achieve different goals, such as food production, quality of life, and well-being. Although several attempts have been made to evaluate urban agriculture production, few studies have investigated food production in a multitemporal geospatial way and considered per capita population needs, gender, and age strata consumption. This study presents a spatiotemporal quantification of urban agriculture in the city of Milan (Italy) for assessing food self-provisioning potential. We utilized high-resolution Google Earth images and ancillary data to create a detailed cadaster of urban agriculture for the years 2007 and 2014. Based on four scenarios of food production and statistical data on vegetables and cereals consumption, we estimated current total production and requirements for the city dwellers. Our results showed that the actual extension of vegetable gardens (98 ha) and arable land (2539 ha) in the best scenario could satisfy approximately 63,700 and 321,000 consumers of vegetables and cereal products, respectively. Overall, current urban agriculture production is not able to meet vegetables and cereal consumption for more than 1.3 million city residents. Scenario estimates suggest rethinking land use promoting horticultural production to achieve more sustainable food systems.

THE DIFFICULTIES OF BECOMING AN E-PATIENT FROM A GOOGLE-PATIENT. A QUALITATIVE RESEARCH IN HUNGARY

Many rural households across the globe are known to survive through self- provisioning food production systems. Majority of these households produce agricultural products such as crops and rear Livestock. Over the years, rural household dwellers, particularly those in developing countries have consistently produced enough subsistence food to survive even through tougher economic periods. However, in recent times it is evident that climate change has emerged as one of the most challenging aspects rural household food producers have to deal with. For instance, many food products produced by rural households have been affected and destroyed by different indicators of climate change such as floods; drought and heat waves. The vulnerability context of these households has left them unable to cope, recover and/or produce own crops after a natural hazard occurred. The purpose of this paper is to assess the effects of climate change on crop production with regard to household food self-provisioning in pre and post 1990 period. 30 villages found in Makhado Local Municipality are used for household’s questionnaire survey, key informants were interviewed and different patterns of production process, geo-spatial features and settlements patterns were observed. The data analysis results reflect that different households within the municipality experience a variety of effects of climate change in terms of crop production processes in pre and post 1990 period. There is a huge decline in household food production activities and harvest outputs in the post-1990 period. The paper concludes that there are visible negative impacts of climate change within villages in Makhado Local Municipality in the post 1990 period compared to pre 1990, which are undermining the efforts of households to produce crops for subsistence use.

Problems of farm succession in the post-Soviet space: insights from the Republic of Moldova.

ABSTRACTIn post-Soviet countries, the breakdown of collective agriculture generated large numbers of subsistence-oriented smallholders. Two decades later, most land recipients are reaching old age. We inquire the perspectives for farm succession using a mixed-method survey with 126 smallholders and a pilot survey with 19 children of smallholders carried out in the Republic of Moldova in 2015. We find that many land recipients lack a successor and are thus selling their plots to corporate farms or abandoning them. The children recognise the symbolic value of food self-provisioning and land ownership but are more open to non-farm livelihoods than their parents. A timely introduction of policies to incentivise the takeover of the farms by young people and farm modernisation is thus key to promote an agricultural sector of mid-sized family businesses.

Rethinking resilience: home gardening, food sharing and everyday resistance

ABSTRACTResilience and food self-provisioning (FSP), terms that until recently were deployed primarily in the study of livelihoods in the Global South, are now attracting attention from alternative food scholarship in the Global North. Drawing on a large-scale survey conducted in the Czech Republic, this article investigates FSP as a social resilience-enhancing set of practices. In addition to the traditional reading of FSP as a passive, defensive and crisis-deflecting form of resilience, this article puts forward an alternative conceptualisation of resilience as a proactive, preventative, future-oriented and transformation-enabling capacity that runs counter to the tenets of neoliberalism.

Food practices of environmentally conscientious New Zealanders

ABSTRACTPractice theory as applied to consumer behaviours is an area of enquiry presently gaining momentum. In this article, I draw on practice theory as a way to understand change as it relates to environmentally conscientious (EC) food consumption. The main question asked here is: how does concern about food consumption develop and translate into practice, and what forms does this take? Also, the relationship of these practices to wider social structures is explored as a means to theorise in what ways more environmentally sustainably food practices might be more readily enabled. I turn to the experiences and practices of 51 self-identified EC individuals, as relayed across a series of ‘go-along’ interviews. This research shows that early socialisation that incorporates a frugality ethic and food self-provisioning is most likely to habitualise EC food practice later in life, where food self-provisioning is key. It is the material infrastructural challenges that mostly thwart efforts at EC food practice: the Western global food regime is not pro-environmental, and resource limitations on a microlevel, for example with access to land for self-provisioning.

What is the contribution of food self-provisioning towards environmental sustainability? A case study of active gardeners

Abstract Food self-provisioning, also labelled as household food production, is a traditional activity persisting in the countries of the Global North. Recently, it has become an object of sustainability oriented research due to the positive social, health and environmental outcomes. However, little is known about the rate of self-sufficiency of the food self-provisioners and about environmental context of this kind of food production, including its actual potential for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. To clarify these topics, we analysed sociological data from a quantitative research study carried out in the Czech Republic in 2015. The data from 775 food growing households were used. The combined rate of self-sufficiency of the households was calculated as the share of home grown fruit, vegetables and potatoes in the overall consumption of the household. The rate of self-sufficiency (33%) was then compared with average food consumption and multiplied by the different values of greenhouse gas emissions reduction potential of home grown food. This led to the reduction of 42–92 kg CO2eq/person/year, which constitutes 3–5% of overall food emissions of Czech households. The research shows that positive environmental effects are not negatively counterweighted either by excessive use of industrial fertilisers or by car transportation to the gardens. Environmental motivation is unimportant for gardeners. Our findings give support to “quiet sustainability” and “sustainable materialism”, two recently advanced concepts highlighting the importance of considering everyday practices in the quest for sustainability.

Small Farmers in Four Southeast European Countries. A Qualitative Analysis of Life Strategies in Twenty-Five Agricultural Households

Abstract This paper brings an extended Bourdieusian theoretical framework to the analysis of the life strategies of small farmers in four SEE societies (Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, and Slovenia). Practices and strategies of farming households are situated in two partially overlapping fields, the formal economy and the informal economy. The paper is based on a qualitative analysis of twenty-five interviewed households. It covers the structural conditions of the households’ participation in both fields of ‘play’, an analysis of household capital (economic-agricultural, social and cultural) and an interpretation of practice (i.e. the strategy dimension). The framework is extended to include an exploration of the households’ reflexivity and agency. The findings suggest that various structural limitations impede the households from developing successful practices in the formal field (unless the households have exceptional levels of agency), and that the most common life strategy is food self-provisioning, along with reliance on practices in the informal field enabled by social capital.

Reluctant pioneers in the European periphery? Environmental activism, food consumption and “growing your own”

ABSTRACTEast European food self-provisioning (FSP) has fascinated scholars of post-socialism ever since the early 1990s. In keeping with its predominantly economic and cultural conceptualisations, much of this research has been concerned with FSP’s role in household economy and with the social profile of its practitioners. In contrast to western conceptualisations of FSP as an opportunity to expand food activism and foster social justice and environmental sustainability, post-socialist FSP has rarely been considered as such. In Czechia, FSP is practised by 43% of citizens and many of them do so in a relatively environmentally friendly way. Yet, most food-related campaigns run by environmental NGOs (ENGOs) pay little attention to FSP and focus on market-based ethical consumerism and alternative food networks instead. Using insights from actor-network theory, this paper discusses how Czech ENGO activists engage with FSP through discourse and in practice. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with leading activists, we show that FSP does figure in non-food-related campaigns and that the FSP practised by activists themselves or the FSP carried out by relatives and relatives’ friends are not the same as the FSP on which they are reluctant to campaign. These differences, which include controllability and the time-consuming nature of practising FSP according to some of the activists’ ideals, help this paper to come to an initial understanding of why Czech ENGOs do not run campaigns explicitly focused on FSP at the moment and shed some light on how this could change in the future.

Resilience to Economic Shocks: Reflections from Zambia's Copperbelt

AbstractThe Copperbelt region in Zambia experienced significant economic destabilization after the 1970s which led to massive job losses in the mining and manufacturing sectors, forcing the local population into a range of informal sector activities and food self‐provisioning. Resilience thinking and the concepts of adaptation and adaptability in particular provide a lense through which to understand how the mining industry was re‐established, albeit in a radical altered form and how local individuals and households have had to cope through creative local responses. The practice of urban agriculture serves as a case‐study of how, in the absence of formal sector employment opportunities, households have had to strengthen their food security through their own actions.

Food Intake and the Role of Food Self-Provisioning

This paper investigates the role of food self-provisioning for the intake of macro- and micronutrients of households in Mongolia. Our analysis is based on rich household survey data that collected food consumption through consumption diaries. We analyze nutritional outcomes within and across the three prevalent Mongolian livelihoods that derive food from different sources: urban wave employees, rural households with small herds, and pastoralists with large herds. Results show that food consumption patterns differ strongly across the three livelihoods, with herding households having a better nutrition situation. Moreover, food self-provisioning significantly affects dietary quality and quantity. Farming food crops improves the nutrient intake of small herders. In contrast, the provision of food through animal husbandry activities has ambivalent effects on households’ diet. It increases the intake of calories and nutrients from animal sources, while it decreases the intake of carbohydrates and nutrients from vegetal sources. This finding suggests household-specific market failures due to remoteness exist. Last, exposure to a severe weather event did not negatively affect households’ energy intake, but it reduces the intake of nutrient from animal sources.