Food system resilience thinking: from digital to integral

The restriction measures linked to the COVID-19 shock suddenly highlighted the vulnerability of most socioeconomic systems, including the food sector. In a context in which the limitation to the movement of people and goods has put the longer and more structured supply chains in serious difficulty, many experiences and initiatives have emerged as viable alternatives. The aim of the research was to understand if and how the Solidarity Purchasing Groups (SPG) of Rome have contributed to the resilience of the food system of the metropolitan city during the lockdown. The research was based on the results of a questionnaire administered to the SPGs of Rome during the first period of the pandemic (April–July 2020), enriched by some in-depth interviews carried out by the authors. What emerged was that, despite the limited extent in terms of products conveyed within the whole food system, the SPGs represented an important food supply channel during the lockdown period, for two main reasons: a greater flexibility and agility in moving and in handling goods and the possibility of remunerating local farms, contributing to the resilience of the local agri-food fabric. The analysis of the results confirms the strong vitality of such Food Movements in Rome and, at the same time, allows for the identification of a series of interventions that the institutions could adopt to favor the spread of a food environment more compatible with more sustainable and fairer forms of food production and distribution.

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COVID-19 and small enterprises in the food supply chain: Early impacts and implications for longer-term food system resilience in low- and middle-income countries

World Development ◽

10.1016/j.worlddev.2021.105405 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 141 ◽

pp. 105405

Author(s):

Stella Nordhagen ◽

Uduak Igbeka ◽

Hannah Rowlands ◽

Ritta Sabbas Shine ◽

Emily Heneghan ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Supply Chain ◽

Food Supply ◽

Food System ◽

Small Enterprises ◽

Food Supply Chain ◽

Middle Income ◽

Middle Income Countries ◽

System Resilience ◽

Low And Middle Income

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Resilience of Legal Systems

Multisystemic Resilience ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190095888.003.0027 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 509-529

Author(s):

J. B. Ruhl ◽

Barbara Cosens ◽

Niko Soininen

Keyword(s):

Legal Theory ◽

Environmental Law ◽

Theoretical Research ◽

Future Research ◽

Special Role ◽

Legal Systems ◽

Social Ecological Systems ◽

Resilience Thinking ◽

System Resilience ◽

Practical Experiences

Resilience theory, also known as resilience thinking, has emerged as a powerful theoretical framework for many disciplines. Legal theorists have, however, only in the past decade begun to contextualize resilience thinking for legal systems. This chapter summarizes where resilience thinking has gone thus far in legal theory and recommends where it should go from here. The authors start by asking the two fundamental questions of resilience thinking, putting them in the context of legal systems: resilience of what and resilience to what? Because of the special role legal systems play in the governance of complex social-ecological systems, the authors add a third question: resilience for what? We then explore five key features of system resilience as they relate to legal systems: (a) reliability, (b) efficiency, (c) scalability, (d) modularity, and (e) evolvability. Using environmental law as a case study, the discussion offers concrete examples of how each property manifests and operates in legal systems. The authors close with an exploration of how what has been learned thus far about legal system resilience from theoretical research and practical experiences should shape future research, in particular toward a deeper understanding of adaptive governance.

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The Importance of Grazing Livestock for Soil and Food System Resilience

The Meat Crisis ◽

10.4324/9781315562032-7 ◽

2017 ◽

pp. 93-114

Author(s):

Richard Young

Keyword(s):

Food System ◽

System Resilience ◽

Grazing Livestock

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“Who Has the Power to Adapt?” Frameworks for Resilient Agriculture Must Contend With the Power Dynamics of Land Tenure

Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems ◽

10.3389/fsufs.2020.555270 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 4 ◽

Author(s):

Adam Calo

Keyword(s):

Adaptive Capacity ◽

Land Tenure ◽

Food Systems ◽

Food System ◽

Farming Systems ◽

Ecosystem Dynamics ◽

Agrarian Change ◽

Resilience Thinking ◽

Capacity Formulation

This special issue aims to develop how Diversified Farming Systems (DFS) may contribute to adaptive capacity in order to confer resilience to agricultural systems. In this perspective article, I argue that a framework for DFS and adaptive capacity must adequately contend with the role of farmland tenure on the shape of food systems to be both internally coherent and socially redistributive. Yet, both DFS and adaptive capacity scholarship deemphasize or mischaracterize the role of farmland tenure in favor of ecosystem dynamics. In this paper, I bring together lessons from the agrarian change literature and established critiques of resilience thinking to demonstrate core problems with a framework aimed at linking DFS to adaptive capacity without adequately addressing the role of farmland tenure. Namely, applying resilience thinking as a framework to understand food systems change prioritizes concern over final “states” or processes of farming systems and may ignore who has the power to adapt or who derives benefits from adaptation. The critiques of resilience thinking inform that the result of this apolitical elision is (1) entrenchment of neoliberal logics that place responsibility to cultivate adaptation on individual farmers and (2) provisioning of legitimacy for land tenure systems that can most readily adopt DFS, without understanding how well these systems distribute public benefits. Resilience reformers call for ways to include more power aware analysis when applying resilience thinking to complex socio-technical systems. I suggest that centering the role of land tenure into the frameworks of DFS and adaptive capacity provides a lens to observe the power relations that mediate any benefits of agricultural diversification. Integrating analysis of the social and legal structures of the food system into the DFS for adaptive capacity formulation is a crucial step to transforming resilience thinking from an apolitical tool to transformative and power-aware applied science.

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