Food System Transformation Research Articles

Institutional and policy bottlenecks to IPM.

This paper summarises institutional and policy bottlenecks to IPM in Africa. Agricultural policy in Africa generally prioritises production and productivity above environmental sustainability, so the use of synthetic pesticides for controlling pests is encouraged. Funding for research in IPM is limited, and extension systems struggle to provide the level of farmer support that adoption of IPM often needs. Improved research and extension policies could facilitate uptake of IPM. Public and private food-safety standards can incentivise adoption, but currently this is mainly in production for export. Pesticide and other input regulatory systems unintentionally constrain adoption of IPM, through expensive registration procedures, weak compliance monitoring and limited regional harmonisation. IPM must be seen as a key element of food-systemtransformation.

Integrating agricultural diversification in China’s major policies

Agricultural diversification is proposed as a solution to achieve food security and sustainability in intensified agriculture, but a large-scale policy implementation is lacking. As a leading agricultural producer, the integration of diversification in major policies in China could provide an important example of how to facilitate a sustainable food system transformation globally.

Acknowledge the Elephant in the Room: The Role of Power Dynamics in Transforming Food Systems Comment on "What Opportunities Exist for Making the Food Supply Nutrition Friendly? A Policy Space Analysis in Mexico".

A paradigm shift is required to transform food systems, so they are more equitable, environmentally friendly, and healthy. This requires acknowledging which factors change or maintain the status quo. In this commentary, we reflect upon the Cervantes et al study findings and discuss the role of power dynamics in transforming food systems. This is directly relevant to Mexico in terms of (i) relationships between food system actors; (ii) the role of socio-economic political context; and (iii) opportunities for policy coherence and transformative food systems approaches. We suggest that the power dynamics that drive the food produced, sold, and consumed should be recognised in all (inter)national governance decision-making. The 2021 United Nations Food System Summit - when interest groups were perceived to overly influence the summit proceedings - is an example of how neglecting the role of power dynamics can undermine and slow food system transformation.

Learning Agroecology Online During COVID-19

Since March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic propelled the “stay-at-home” policy worldwide under public health uncertainty, resulting in increased individualization, as well as an increased reliance or dependency on digital communication technology. Based on a review of existing literature alongside a reflection on personal fieldwork experiences, we aim to: (1) describe major elements of agroecological pedagogy, (2) explore adaptation pathways to combine digitalization and participatory action-learning, and (3) briefly discuss opportunities and challenges for agroecologists beyond COVID-19. Agroecological pedagogy is deeply embedded in the praxis, the scientific knowledge and ways of knowing (academic or not), and in the politics and agency of food movements. In line with Freire's liberation pedagogy, seeing what already exists (e.g., in: ecosystems, home-gardens, fields, farms, and watersheds) through participation and volunteering. Alongside a critical analysis to explain and explore certain phenomena, causes and consequences will likely result in the act leading to the implementation of transformative practices and novel designs that improve the state of any situation being addressed. Participatory action research/learning methods are strategic in agroecological pedagogy. Overall, the lockdown period led to increased societal digitalization of human interactions. During lockdown, however, the implementation of strategies for remote agroecology participatory action-learning were hampered, but not vanquished. Key changes to agroecology education projects “before” and “during” lockdown include an increased reliance on digital and remote strategies. Creative adaptations in the virtual classrooms were designed to nurture, deepen, and foster alternatives in favor of diverse knowledges and ways of knowing for food system transformations.

Comparative environmental footprints of lettuce supplied by hydroponic controlled-environment agriculture and field-based supply chains

Attributional life cycle assessment was applied to determine environmental footprints of lettuce produced across ten supply chain configurations, based on either hydroponic closed-environment agriculture (CEA) with six different electricity sources, or field supply chains involving regional, continental or inter-continental transport. Hydroponic CEA systems use circa 15 kWh of electricity for lighting, cooling, ventilation and pumping per kg of lettuce supplied. Based on typical current national grid electricity generation mixes with significant fossil fuel dependence, this results in large environmental footprints, e.g. up to 17.8 kg CO2 eq. and 33 g N eq. per kg lettuce – compared with 10 kg CO2 eq. and 16 g N eq. per kg lettuce air-freighted across continents. However, hydroponic CEA can produce orders of magnitude more produce per m2.yr and can be integrated into existing buildings (e.g. on roof tops, in basements and disused warehouses, etc). Factoring in the carbon opportunity costs of land use, and meeting electricity requirements exclusively through renewable generation, could result in closed hydroponic CEA delivering produce with a smaller carbon footprint than most field-based supply chains, at 0.48 kg CO2 eq. per kg lettuce. However, this would only be the case where renewable electricity originates from genuinely additional capacity, and where a land use policy or other mechanisms ensure that modest areas of land spared from horticultural production are used for “nature based solutions” such as afforestation. Hydroponic CEA uses orders of magnitude less direct water than field-based systems, and could help to mitigate water stress and associated soil degradation in arid and semi-arid regions used for horticulture – so long as upstream water stress associated with electricity generation is mitigated. CEA could be one of the least sustainable forms of food production if poorly implemented, and has numerous environmental hotspots. But with careful design and scaling, in appropriate contexts of high demand and low agro-climatic potential for production of horticultural produce, CEA deployment could play a role in sustainable food system transformation, potentially helping to reconnect consumers with (urban) producers. There may be opportunities to link building air handling systems with rooftop or basement CEA requiring inputs of cooling, CO2 and water.

Striving toward a peasant identity

As diverse actors work through disparate food movements seeking to tackle the causes and effects of the global food crisis, Holt-Giménez and Shattuck (2011) call for strategic alliances between progressive and radical trends in the food movement to transform our current food system. This paper focuses on the process of alliance formation by exploring the subjectivities of three of the authors who identify as women farmers and have had opportunities to learn from and engage with peasant movements through their participation in courses, encounters and organizing spaces of La Via Campesina (LVC). These farmers’ goal of striving toward a peasant identity reveals the influence of peasant-to-peasant processes (PtPP) on their conceptions of possible futures, and simultaneously exposes tensions and struggles in agroecology transition within the Canadian context, where capitalist industrial agriculture is the norm. Using the lens of post-structural feminism, we explore the potential for radical peasant movements to influence and inspire the restructuring of our ways of relating with the earth and each other in the global North. Based on this analysis we deepen our understanding of how PtPP can foster South-North alliances which have the potential to engender food system transformation.

Food activism and negotiating the gendered dynamics of public cultures of care

A growing and significant research literature utilizes feminist frameworks to study relationships with food from a variety of vantage points. In this article, we are especially interested in feminist food sovereignty, feminist political ecology, and feminist theories of care, both because caring labor has been historically undervalued in food systems and because neoliberal modes of commodification and marketization have interpellated activists, scholar-activists, and activist-scholars into new ways of self-care and caring for others. To begin, we provide a brief overview of the places where we work, including the city of Pomona, the Pomona Valley Certified Farmers Market, and the Pomona Community Farmer Alliance (PCFA), a community organization and local activist collective. We then draw on nearly three years of participatory ethnographic work in this community to explore and theorize care work in local food systems activism. Our conceptual framework, framed by feminist food studies and theories of care, illuminates how PCFA members conceive of their own caring work in practice, as well as how they negotiate the complexities of caring for others and self, while being left by the state to do this work. We also explore how activists’ care practices sometimes lay bare structural inequalities and the failure of the state, while also reinforcing and challenging neoliberal ideologies embedded in volunteerism. To conclude, we discuss the gendered implications of our work for food systems research, specifically considering the complementarity of Progressive and Radical approaches to food systems transformation.

Food systems transformation in Asia – A brief economic history

AbstractAsia's food systems have undergone rapid economic and socio‐cultural transformations in the past 60 years. During the period, almost all the countries in the region eradicated famines and achieved food self‐sufficiency and heterogeneous levels of poverty reduction. Food system transformation in Asian countries has had similarities and differences and has been closely tied to structural transformation, political processes, and integration with the global economy. This article conducts a historical assessment of food systems transformations in seven Asian countries between 1960 and 2020 and their main economic, social, and demographic drivers. Food systems transformations are presented in terms of four phases. In the first phase, between 1960 and 1980, when most Asian countries were low‐income and low‐middle‐income, the central focus was on hunger reduction. We explore the policies and the politics of the green revolution as various Asian countries tried to achieve self‐sufficiency in food grains. In the second phase (1980–2000), agricultural productivity growth led to structural transformation, income growth, and the divergence of lower‐middle‐income and middle‐income economies, directly impacting demand for food quantity, quality, and diversity in various countries. The third phase (2000 onwards) marked a quantum change in food systems as globalization, trade integration, and changes in consumer tastes were significant drivers of food systems. We assess the changing trends in organized retail expansion, increased consumption of processed foods, and rising incidence of obesity in lower and upper‐middle‐income countries. In the final phase (beyond 2020), we highlight how the digital revolution has changed consumer behavior, and is further transforming food systems. Future food systems challenges of hunger, malnutrition, rising non‐communicable diseases, and climate change are discussed and multisectoral and multicountry policy interventions for addressing them are presented.

Working across boundaries in regional place-based food systems: Triggering transformation in a time of crisis

Drawing on research exploring food system change in a region in the North of England during the Covid-19 health pandemic, in this paper we explore how a “managerial” approach to food system governance and provisioning embedded in national food systems and international supply chains was suddenly supplanted by a more “open” approach. By enabling understanding of how food system change unfolded as a diverse range of hidden practices unexpectedly became visible, it contributes to food systems thinking through the development of a regional place-based perspective. We use this approach to understand the outcome of these processes and to investigate how embedding change across administrative and geographical boundaries can enable food system transformation to improve food security for future generations.

Research priorities for global food security under extreme events

SummaryExtreme events, such as those caused by climate change, economic or geopolitical shocks, and pest or disease epidemics, threaten global food security. The complexity of causation, as well as the myriad ways that an event, or a sequence of events, creates cascading and systemic impacts, poses significant challenges to food systems research and policy alike. To identify priority food security risks and research opportunities, we asked experts from a range of fields and geographies to describe key threats to global food security over the next two decades and to suggest key research questions and gaps on this topic. Here, we present a prioritization of threats to global food security from extreme events, as well as emerging research questions that highlight the conceptual and practical challenges that exist in designing, adopting, and governing resilient food systems. We hope that these findings help in directing research funding and resources toward food system transformations needed to help society tackle major food system risks and food insecurity under extreme events.

From coping strategy to hopeful everyday practice: Changing interpretations of food self‐provisioning

AbstractWhile alternative food networks (AFNs) have become the leading conceptualisation of sustainable food systems, vibrant scholarship on food self‐provisioning (FSP) in Central and Eastern Europe has remained confined to the geopolitical region it investigates. This article brings these two bodies of thought closer together in two steps. First, we trace four framings of FSP deployed over the last three decades—coping strategy, cultural practice, hobby and source of good food and reading FSP as transformative practice—to demonstrate its progressive affinity with AFNs. Second, we follow the most recent framing in highlighting the material reality of local food production as a feature shared by both FSP and AFNs. From this perspective, FSP can be understood as a more radical variant of AFNs given its more substantial environmental and social impact (FSP is more widespread and socially inclusive and less dependent on market transactions). By uncovering the epistemological underpinnings of these different framings of FSP and exploring their implications for food practices on the ground, this article draws general lessons for scholarship aiming to advance food system transformation.

UK government food strategy lacks ambition to achieve transformative food system change

UK government food strategy lacks ambition to achieve transformative food system change

Diversified farming systems for changing climate and consumerism

When we think about environmental degradation and climate change, the first things that come to our mind are cars and factories, but not how we grow, consume and dispose of. If we collectively put these things together, we account for nearly one-third of the human-induced climate change. That certainly put agriculture at the crossroads of system-level transformation towards healthy food, people, and the planet. Such food-system transformation requires a paradigm shift towards nature-friendly nutrition-rich diverse fruits and vegetables, and it should constitute at least 30-50% of our food plate from the current average of less than 10%. The only way left for us is to return to an ecological intensification with feedback loops that inter-links vital elements of complex agroecological transition within the planetary boundary limits. Farming in harmony with nature, carbon-neutral, enrich micro-hydrology and restore biodiversity to co-benefits the people and the planet. The context-specific regenerative agriculture practices that are ecologically sustainable and economically viable found to be best fit models for smallholder farmers and home gardeners. It is based on the sound ecological philosophy of production follows structure, composition and functions, and where ecosystem services and well being become default returns on their own. The recent advances in digital augmentation with ICTs enabled citizen science to provide powerful tools to aid the integration of frontier technology with indigenous knowledge. This leads to an ideal agro-ecosystem integrated with diverse crops, multi-purpose tree species, animals, and peoples in collective action to restore broken food systems and combat climate change

BOOK REVIEW | The Ninth Revolution: Transforming Food Systems for Good

BOOK REVIEW | The Ninth Revolution: Transforming Food Systems for Good

On the transformation of regional food systems: From autochthonous to those generated by globalization

Attention is focused on the historical transformation of regional food systems. The latter are interpreted as diversified, regionally defined systems of production, transportation, consumption, as well as aesthetic and spiritual perception of food products based on the use of resources, both of local origin and those attracted from outside. The general approaches to understanding the evolution of regional food systems are considered without specifying the past and present pictures of the differentiated food space. An attempt is made to find the connection of spatial food systems with the "pyramid of needs" by A. Maslow. A special role in the spatial transformation of the food sector is assigned to the process of globalization and, in particular, the strengthening of the hegemony of agrarian transnational corporations, strengthening their influence on the dynamics and structure of production, as well as on food consumption. The connection of the global expansion of food trade networks with the evolution of national cuisines, which are a specific subsystem of the world's food systems, as well as with the so-called "cultural sovereignty" of countries, is noted. It is concluded that it is important to study the sustainable dependencies of regional food systems, manifested in various socio-economic conditions.

Transformations towards sustainable food systems: contrasting Swedish practitioner perspectives with the European Commission’s Farm to Fork Strategy

This study explores features of food system transformations towards sustainability in the Farm to Fork Strategy in relation to perspectives of Swedish food system practitioners. Transformations towards sustainable food systems are essential to achieve the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda and the need for more sustainable food systems has been recognised in the European Green Deal and its Farm to Fork Strategy. The Swedish ambition to act as a global leader in achieving the 2030 Agenda and the European Commission’s aspiration for Europe to lead global food system transformations offer a critical opportunity to study transformational processes and agents of change in a high-income region with externalised environmental and sustainability impacts. Drawing on theories of complex systems transformations, this study identifies features of food system transformations, exploring places to intervene and examines the roles, responsibilities, and agency related to these changes. The results of this study provide three main conclusions highlighting (i) alignment of high-level policy and the perspectives of national practitioners at the paradigm level, especially concerning how food is valued, which is a crucial first step for transformational processes to come about (ii) a lack of clarity as well as diversity of pathways to transform food systems although common objectives are expressed, and (iii) governance mechanisms as enablers for a diversity of transformations. Moreover, these processes must acknowledge the contextual and complex nature of food systems and the level of agency and power of actors.

Climate change and the urgency to transform food systems.

Without rapid changes to agriculture and food systems, the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change will not be met. Food systems are one of the most important contributors to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, but they also need to be adapted to cope with climate change impacts. Although many options exist to reduce GHG emissions in the food system, efforts to develop implementable transformation pathways are hampered by a combination of structural challenges such as fragmented decision-making, vested interests, and power imbalances in the climate policy and food communities, all of which are compounded by a lack of joint vision. New processes and governance arrangements are urgently needed for dealing with potential trade-offs among mitigation options and their food security implications.

Horizontalism and Wisdom Dialogues to Build Trust: A Case Study of Collaborations With Immigrant Farmers in Minnesota

Collaboration between farmers and other farm support professionals is a critical tool for food systems transformation. Collaborative research and outreach can address structural inequalities that limit the success of immigrant and minority growers and uplift farmer knowledge, which has been systemically valued below that of academic knowledge. Agroecologists who work at the synthesis of science, movement, and practice propose wisdom dialogues and horizontalism as principles by which to develop collaborations that avoid reinforcing structural inequalities due to race, gender, and traditions of valuing academic knowledge above that of farmers. Public entities, such as land grant universities and state agencies, have a particular responsibility to address structural inequalities and serve the diversity of farmers in their region. This study examines the use of collaborative learning processes, such as wisdom dialogues and horizontalism, by public and non-profit professionals in their collaborations with a group of immigrant farmers in the Upper Midwest. We used a qualitative interview approach with two farmers, two of their advisers, and eight of their collaborators at the University of Minnesota Extension, Department of Agriculture, and a local agricultural non-profit. Through the interviews we examined each of their perspectives on current and potential collaborations by discussing the motivations, resources, and effects for and of collaboration between immigrant farmers and farm support professionals. Farmer interviewees emphasized that collaborations between immigrant and non-immigrant individuals and groups must develop with non-exploitative motivations and preparation undertaken by non-immigrant individuals to better understand the experience of immigrant farmer prior to engaging in collaboration. Emergent themes from interviews with non-farmers included a strong commitment to providing access to knowledge and resources, and recognition that collaboration improved the ability to accomplish institutional goals, indicating use of wisdom dialogues and horizontal learning at varying levels within current work. Interviewees emphasized that institutional support was an important determinant for how much they could prioritize relationships and collaboration in their work. Based on interviewees' experiences, support and continued opportunities for learning are critical to facilitate continued use of wisdom dialogues and horizontalism to address different conceptions of equity and equality, and for developing intentional and mutually beneficial collaborations.

Amplifying actions for food system transformation: insights from the Stockholm region

Food is essential to people and is one of the main ways in which people are connected to the world’s ecosystems. However, food systems often cause ecosystem degradation and produce ill-health, which has generated increasing calls to transform food systems to be more sustainable. The Swedish food system is currently undergoing substantial change. A varied set of local actors have created alternative sustainability initiatives that enact new ways of doing, thinking, and organizing. These actors can increase the transformative impact of their initiatives through multiple actions and a variety of amplification processes. We analyzed the actions adopted by 29 food initiatives active in the Stockholm region using information available online. We conducted 11 interviews to better understand the amplification processes of speeding up (i.e., accelerating impact), scaling up (i.e., influencing higher institutional levels), and scaling deep (i.e., changing values and mind-sets). Our results indicated that the initiatives mainly seek to stabilize and grow their impact while changing the awareness, values, and mind-sets of people concerning the food they consume (scaling deep). However, these approaches raise new questions about whether these actions subvert or reinforce current unsustainable and inequitable system dynamics. We suggest there are distinct steps that local and regional governments could take to support these local actors via collaborations with coordinated forms of initiatives, and fostering changes at the municipality level, but these steps require ongoing, adaptive approaches given the highly complex nature of transformative change and the risks of reinforcing current system dynamics.

Food system transformation: a progressive place-based approach

ABSTRACT Responding to growing calls for research that engages with the complexity of food system transformation, in this paper we focus on place as an “active meso-level mediator” between the multiple tensions and contestations that surround processes of change. Drawing on Massey’s notion of a “progressive sense of place”, we identify, through a critical review of the literature, four main features of this concept that, taken together, have a unique contribution to make to ongoing efforts to conceptualise and tackle the interwoven socio-ecological issues that affect the food system, and to position justice at the centre of its transformation. These include: (i) the socio-natural composition of place; (ii) the positive interactions and connections that underpin spatial identity; (iii) the social processes (including power dynamics) that shape everyday spatial practices; and (iv) the flows of ideas, materials, people and resources that cut across space. With special attention given to their interdependence and their implications for the functioning of food systems, these four features provide the basis for the development of an innovative and socio-spatially inclusive place-based framework for food system transformation that integrates ideas of sustainability co-benefits, spatial linkages, social inclusion and sectoral connectivities. This framework, we argue, provides a broader and more critical academic understanding of food system transformation at both the macro- and the micro-levels. It also enables the formulation of legislative frameworks, policies and practices to deliver such transformation.