scholarly journals Food Democracy from the Top Down? State-Driven Participation Processes for Local Food System Transformations towards Sustainability

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 68-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jana Baldy ◽  
Sylvia Kruse
Keyword(s):  
Role Model ◽  
Food System ◽  
Local Food ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Knowledge Exchange ◽  
City Council ◽  
System Transformation ◽  
Local Food System ◽  
State Actors ◽  
Food Democracy

Food democracy is a concept with growing influence in food policy research. It involves citizens regaining democratic control of the food system and enabling its sustainable transformation. In focusing mainly on civil society initiatives, food democracy research has so far neglected the potential of state-driven food-related participation processes. We base our study on qualitative interviews with local stakeholders in two smaller cities in southern Germany where the city administration and city council initiated participatory processes. The study aims to understand how local actors are framing state-driven participation processes concerning sustainable local food system transformation along key dimensions of food democracy. We identify eight categories that conceptually constitute food democracy: mutual knowledge exchange; legitimacy and credibility of knowledge claims; transparent processes for deliberating ideas; shared language for sharing ideas; expectations of and experience with efficacy; role model function of municipalities; raising awareness; and motivation and justification of the normative orientation. Furthermore, the empirical analysis shows that state actors can have important roles in food-related participation processes as potential initiators, shapers and implementers depending on how they interact with local food-related actors and how they design and coordinate food system transformation processes. This suggests that food democracy research should not necessarily conceptualize state actors, local entrepreneurs and citizens as opponents, but rather, should reconsider how these various actors can drive food democracy and citizenship in a supportive and coordinated way.

scholarly journals Framing a Sustainable Local Food System—How Smaller Cities in Southern Germany Are Facing a New Policy Issue

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 1712 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jana Baldy
Keyword(s):  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Local Food ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Policy Issue ◽  
Local Food Systems ◽  
System Transformation ◽  
Agenda 21 ◽  
Southern Germany ◽  
Local Food System

Since Agenda 21, the local level has become important in terms of facing global challenges through local action. One of these is ensuring the sustainability of the food system. In German politics, this is a relatively new issue even at the local level. Nevertheless, two smaller cities in southern Germany have decided to change their local food systems towards sustainability. Hence, this paper deals with questions of how local actors are framing the food system and what this means for increasing sustainability. The analysis of qualitative interviews and participant observations based on frame analysis provides deeper insights into understandings of local food systems by actors. This paper aims to explore how framings of problems, solutions and motivations provide or restrict opportunities to increase local food system sustainability. Terms like sustainability or awareness are framed differently. Using the same term to mean different things can have negative effects on the acceptance of policymaking referring to food system transformation. Besides, this paper shows that omissions within the framing counteract the development of sustainable local food policy. Hence, it is important to reflect the political implications of absent framings as well to facilitate mutual understanding and consequently, food system change.

Small, Slow, and Local: Essays on Building a More Sustainable and Local Food System

2011 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 353
Author(s):  
Mary Jane Angelo ◽  
Amelia Timbers ◽  
Matthew J. Walker ◽  
Joshua B. Donabedian ◽  
Devon Van Noble ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Food System ◽  
Local Food ◽  
Local Food System

scholarly journals The rise of the local food movement and its impact on rural economies: With examples from the Region of Durham

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 98
Author(s):  
Stacey Jibb
Keyword(s):  
Government Policy ◽  
Food System ◽  
Local Food ◽  
Local Economy ◽  
Personal Relationships ◽  
Local Food Movement ◽  
Local Food System ◽  
Rural Economies ◽  
Food Economy ◽  
Food Movement

<p>Rural economies across North America continue to see the positive impacts of the rise of the local food movement and the evolution of the local food system. Local food is a fluid definition impacted by several factors. Government policy, geography and the personal relationships that develop between producer and consumer all play a part in shaping what is local. This has altered how consumers interact with the local food economy and has given rise to direct-farm marketing and agri-tourism as ways to participate in the local food system. Using examples from northern Durham Region, this paper examines how rural economies are impacted by the growing demand for access to local food and how that translates into direct impacts for the local economy. </p><p><strong>Keywords: </strong>local food, local food movement, rural economies, direct-farm marketing, food economy</p>

scholarly journals Food Democracy for All? Developing a Food Hub in the Context of Socio-Economic Deprivation

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 142-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian Prost
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Food System ◽  
System Transformation ◽  
Economic Deprivation ◽  
Participatory Action ◽  
Community Needs ◽  
Local Responses ◽  
Food Hub ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Food Democracy

This article proposes a localised and differentiated understanding of food democracy, or rather a plurality of localised food democracies. Based on the experiences of developing a local food hub in an area of socio-economic deprivation in the UK using a participatory action research (PAR) approach, it presents local responses to three key challenges derived from the literature. It argues that for civic food networks (CFNs) to contribute to a transition towards a food democracy, they need to address challenges of: 1) balancing ethical aspirations for environmental sustainability, social justice, as well as community and individual health; 2) developing the skills required for participation in CFNs; and 3) achieving wider impact on food system transformation beyond niche solutions. The responses, or tactics, presented in this article include flexible ethical standards responding to community needs, accessible participation focusing on relationships rather than skills, and a focus on local impact while striving to collaborate and network with other organisations. It thus frames food democracy as a plurality of approaches to build and replicate CFNs. The article positions PAR with its democratic and localised approach to address real-world problems as uniquely suited to navigate the challenges of CFNs. It also discusses the role of researchers in initiating, facilitating, and shaping such processes of food system democratisation as engaged actors.

The transition movement and food sovereignty: From local resilience to global engagement in food system transformation

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 254-275 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Sage
Keyword(s):  
Food System ◽  
Local Food ◽  
Food Sovereignty ◽  
System Transformation ◽  
External Threats ◽  
Global Engagement ◽  
International Solidarity ◽  
Local Resilience ◽  
The Face ◽  
Vital Element

The emergence of grassroots social movements variously preoccupied with a range of external threats, such as diminishing supplies of fossil energy or climate change, has led to increased interest in the production of local food. Drawing upon the notion of cognitive praxis, this article utilises transition as a trajectory guided by an overarching cosmology that brings together a broad social movement seeking a more resilient future. This ‘grand narrative’ is reinforced by ‘transition movement intellectuals’ who serve to shape an agenda of local preparedness in the face of uncertainty, rather than structural analysis of the global system. In this context, growing and producing food offers important multi-functional synergies by reconnecting people to place and its ecological endowments and serves to provide a vital element in civic mobilisation. Yet, local food could also become a means to build international solidarity in defence of food sovereignty and establish a global coalition opposed to the corporate agri-food agenda of biotechnologies, land grabbing and nutritional impoverishment.

What Is Our Culture? I Don’t Even Know

2019 ◽  
pp. 69-90
Author(s):  
Ashanté M. Reese
Keyword(s):  
Food Access ◽  
Food System ◽  
Local Food ◽  
Community Building ◽  
Local Food System ◽  
Self Reliance

This chapter turns to the role of nostalgia in placemaking, community building, and the ways residents evaluated their local food system. In it, residents discuss self-reliance as a foundational ethos in the neighborhood’s history and also offer critiques of themselves and each other for not embodying self-reliance in the present, reflecting on the question “who is responsible?” for unequal food access. This chapter makes a claim that nostalgia plays an important role in the stories that people tell about food in the neighbourhood.

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