Transformations of Urban Agro Ecology Landscapes in Territory Transition

2022 ◽  
pp. 32-59
Author(s):  
José G. Vargas-Hernández
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Transformation Process ◽  
Review Of The Literature ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Community Governance ◽  
Analytical Review ◽  
Territorial Transformation ◽  
The City

This chapter has the objective to analyze the transformation process of the urban agro ecology landscape in territory transition. It begins questioning the implications that the agro ecological practices and territorial transformation and transition have on food systems sovereignty and security as well as other effects on land uses, climate change, environmental services, etc. The method used is based on an analytical review of the literature to elaborate a critical perspective of benefits and challenges. It is concluded that agro ecology is the key element in the construction of food system sovereignty and security which requires the transition towards the urban agro ecology based on the transformation of social and political power structures moving away from corporate control towards community governance aimed to achieve improvement ecosystem services and environmental sustainability of the city.

An integrated approach to identifying and characterising resilient urban food systems to promote population health in a changing climate

2015 ◽  
Vol 18 (13) ◽  
pp. 2498-2508 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah W James ◽  
Sharon Friel
Keyword(s):  
Population Health ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Mixed Methods Research ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Production Systems ◽  
Integrated Approach ◽  
Integrated Analysis ◽  
Climate Resilience ◽  
Urban Food Systems

AbstractObjectiveTo determine key points of intervention in urban food systems to improve the climate resilience, equity and healthfulness of the whole system.DesignThe paper brings together evidence from a 3-year, Australia-based mixed-methods research project focused on climate change adaptation, cities, food systems and health. In an integrated analysis of the three research domains – encompassing the production, distribution and consumption sectors of the food chain – the paper examines the efficacy of various food subsystems (industrial, alternative commercial and civic) in achieving climate resilience and good nutrition.SettingGreater Western Sydney, Australia.SubjectsPrimary producers, retailers and consumers in Western Sydney.ResultsThis overarching analysis of the tripartite study found that: (i) industrial food production systems can be more environmentally sustainable than alternative systems, indicating the importance of multiple food subsystems for food security; (ii) a variety of food distributors stocking healthy and sustainable items is required to ensure that these items are accessible, affordable and available to all; and (iii) it is not enough that healthy and sustainable foods are produced or sold, consumers must also want to consume them. In summary, a resilient urban food system requires that healthy and sustainable food items are produced, that consumers can attain them and that they actually wish to purchase them.ConclusionsThis capstone paper found that the interconnected nature of the different sectors in the food system means that to improve environmental sustainability, equity and population health outcomes, action should focus on the system as a whole and not just on any one sector.

scholarly journals Grappling With Complex Food Systems to Reduce Obesity: A US Public Health Challenge

2018 ◽  
Vol 133 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 44S-53S ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Barnhill ◽  
Anne Palmer ◽  
Christine M. Weston ◽  
Kelly D. Brownell ◽  
Kate Clancy ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Targeted Interventions ◽  
Health Community ◽  
Policies And Programs ◽  
State Programs

Despite 2 decades of effort by the public health community to combat obesity, obesity rates in the United States continue to rise. This lack of progress raises fundamental questions about the adequacy of our current approaches. Although the causes of population-wide obesity are multifactorial, attention to food systems as potential drivers of obesity has been prominent. However, the relationships between broader food systems and obesity are not always well understood. Our efforts to address obesity can be advanced and improved by the use of systems approaches that consider outcomes of the interconnected global food system, including undernutrition, climate change, the environmental sustainability of agriculture, and other social and economic concerns. By implementing innovative local and state programs, taking new approaches to overcome political obstacles to effect policy, and reconceptualizing research needs, we can improve obesity prevention efforts that target the food systems, maximize positive outcomes, and minimize adverse consequences. We recommend strengthening innovative local policies and programs, particularly those that involve community members in identifying problems and potential solutions and that embrace a broad set of goals beyond making eating patterns healthier. We also recommend undertaking interdisciplinary research projects that go beyond testing targeted interventions in specific populations and aim to build an understanding of the broader social, political, and economic context.

Green Innovation and Sustainable Urban Ecosystems

2020 ◽  
pp. 54-74
Author(s):  
José G. Vargas-Hernández ◽  
Karina Pallagst
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Urban Ecosystems ◽  
Review Of Literature ◽  
Green Innovation ◽  
Green Area ◽  
Urban Settlements ◽  
Analytical Review ◽  
The City

This chapter is aimed to analyze the relationships between environmental sustainability, urban ecosystems, and green innovation. The method employed is the critical analytical review of literature and further discussion on the issues focusing the city´s experience on managing the formulation, generation, development, implementation, and evaluation of new behaviors and ideas in green innovation. It is concluded that the green innovation is directly related with the environmental sustainability and urban ecosystems. The interest of this analysis lies in providing support to urban settlements in managing the risks inherent in green area innovation, incremental or radical as a community's management would experience in relation to the environmental sustainability in urban ecosystems.

Sustainable Urban Agro Ecology and Its Implications With Food Systems

2021 ◽  
pp. 143-166
Author(s):  
José G. Vargas-Hernández
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Urban Development ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Empirical Literature ◽  
Urban Food System ◽  
Analytical Review ◽  
Environmental Development

This chapter has the aim to analyze the implications and interrelationships between a sustainable urban agro ecology and the food system. The beginning assumption of this analytical review considers that sustainable urban agro ecology has positive implications in the development of a sustainable urban food system. The analysis is based on the theoretical and empirical literature review confronted with common spatial-functional observations of urban development and configurations. The analysis concludes that the sustainable urban food system based on agro ecology is growing as an alternative movement towards the building and maintenance of a fairer and healthier urban sustainable environmental development.

scholarly journals The Rich Picture Method: A Simple Tool for Reflective Teaching and Learning about Sustainable Food Systems

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (18) ◽  
pp. 4815
Author(s):  
Michelle Grant ◽  
Anna K. Gilgen ◽  
Nina Buchmann
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Food System ◽  
Approaches To Teaching ◽  
Sustainable Food Systems ◽  
Sustainable Food ◽  
Rich Picture ◽  
Simple Tool ◽  
The Rich

The World Food System Summer School is an innovative two-week course that seeks to develop the knowledge, skills and attitudes of the next generation of decision makers to build sustainable food systems. Meaningful learning, where the participant is able to relate new information to existing knowledge, is a critical part of education about complex systems and requires the integration of reflective approaches to teaching and learning. We adapted the rich picture method in three summer schools in Switzerland, South Africa and Côte d’Ivoire (74 participants with 29 nationalities) to support the reflection of participants on their knowledge gained on complex food systems. Coding and comparing 51 pairs of pre- and post-course pictures of food systems clearly demonstrated newly gained knowledge: The number of sub-categories drawn significantly increased from 11 to 19 in the post-course pictures, the largest increase occurred for environmental sustainability (57%). The rich picture method is a highly valuable and simple tool to gain insight into how participants’ knowledge changes and where there are gaps in meeting the learning objectives. This is particularly useful within a highly diverse participant cohort, as it allows participants to discuss and reflect on their own learning experience in a personalized way. Additionally, the rich picture method provides insights for faculty to improve their approaches to teaching on food systems.

Urban Green Innovation Ecosystem to Improve the Environmental Sustainability

2022 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 0-0
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Urban Ecosystems ◽  
Review Of Literature ◽  
Green Innovation ◽  
Innovation Ecosystem ◽  
Urban Green ◽  
Green Area ◽  
Urban Settlements ◽  
Analytical Review ◽  
The City

This chapter is aimed to analyze the relationships between environmental sustainability, urban ecosystems, and green innovation. The method employed is the critical analytical review of literature and further discussion on the issues focusing the city´s experience on managing the formulation, generation, development, implementation and evaluation of new behaviors and ideas in green innovation. It is concluded that the green innovation is directly related with the environmental sustainability and urban ecosystems. The interest of this analysis lies in providing support to urban settlements in managing the risks inherent in green area innovation, incremental or radical as a community’s management would experience in relation to the environmental sustainability in urban ecosystems.

Analysis of the contribution of urban Innovation Ecosystem to Environmental Sustainability

2022 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 0-0
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Urban Ecosystems ◽  
Review Of Literature ◽  
Green Innovation ◽  
Innovation Ecosystem ◽  
Green Area ◽  
Urban Settlements ◽  
Analytical Review ◽  
The City

This paper is aimed to analyze the relationships between environmental sustainability, urban ecosystems and green innovation. The method employed is the critical analytical review of literature and further discussion on the issues focusing the city´s experience on managing the formulation, generation, development, implementation and evaluation of new behaviors and ideas in green innovation. It is concluded that the green innovation is directly related with the environmental sustainability and urban ecosystems. The interest of this analysis lies in providing support to urban settlements in managing the risks inherent in green area innovation, incremental or radical as a community’s management would experience in relation to the environmental sustainability in urban ecosystems.

Agri-food scholarship: Past, present and future contributions to Australasian rural sociology

2021 ◽  
pp. 144078332110096
Author(s):  
Kiah Smith ◽  
Geoffrey Lawrence
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Food System ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Rural Sociology ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Agricultural Technologies ◽  
Food And Agriculture ◽  
The Future

The future of food and agriculture in Australasia will be defined by multiple social, economic, political and environmental tensions – with climate change and social inequalities playing a central role in the re-imagining of food systems in crisis. This article argues that rural sociology will continue to be well-served by the sociological research into the farming and food industries undertaken by antipodean scholars – especially those from Australia and New Zealand where agri-food scholarship has flourished. Analyses of the future dynamics of rural social/economic change, natural resource management (including land, water and minerals), new relations of work, labour and identity, emerging agricultural technologies, Indigenous and post-colonial politics, and food system governance will benefit from agri-food studies’ insights into agrarian transformation and governance, social and environmental sustainability, health and wellbeing, and the growth of resistance and alternatives.

scholarly journals Urban Food Strategy in the Making: Context, Conventions and Contestations

Agriculture ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 177
Author(s):  
Mattia Andreola ◽  
Angelica Pianegonda ◽  
Sara Favargiotti ◽  
Francesca Forno
Keyword(s):  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Food Policy ◽  
System Failures ◽  
Direct Observations ◽  
Food Policy Councils ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
The City ◽  
Depth Interviews

Contemporary food systems face several paradoxes regarding equity and sustainability. Considering food production—an issue that simultaneously affects both the supply (production) and demand (consumption) sides—several cities have begun to implement new strategies, called Urban Food Policies. These approaches aim to address the various challenges presented by food system failures, while also involving the existing network of grassroot initiatives. For this reason, these have established Food Policy Councils, arenas where institutions can engage with supply chain actors and food activists, deciding through the processes of participatory democracy their Urban Food Strategies. This article investigates the evolution of a new Urban Food Strategy in a middle-sized Italian town, Trento. Despite a growing number of case studies discussing the promises and problematic aspects of UFS, empirical research and analysis tend to overlook the role of the context in which these processes are embedded and how the system of political, economic, cultural, and environmental opportunities weigh upon the success of these policies. The paper draws upon a multi-method qualitative approach combining in-depth interviews, document analysis, and direct observations of the construction process of an Urban Food Strategy for the city of Trento.

scholarly journals Insights from the Think&EatGreen@School Project: How a community-based action research project contributed to healthy and sustainable school food systems in Vancouver

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 25-46
Author(s):  
Alejandro Rojas ◽  
Jennifer Black ◽  
Elena Orrego ◽  
Gwen Chapman ◽  
Will Valley
Keyword(s):  
Food Security ◽  
Action Research ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Action Research Project ◽  
School Food ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Global Issues ◽  
School Project

From 2010 to 2016 the Think&EatGreen@School project worked to create healthy and sustainable school food systems in the Vancouver School Board.  Using models of Community-Engaged Scholarship and Community-Based Action Research, we implemented diverse programmatic and monitoring activities to provide students and teachers with hands-on food cycle education, in order to influence policy, and to encourage university students to engage actively with the food system. Our focus was on transformation of local school food systems as a context-specific means to address serious global issues related to food security, health and environmental sustainability. This paper provides a synthesis of the project including the context that led to its inception, its overarching goals, methodological framework and areas of impact.  Key learnings from this project highlight the need for continued work to integrate research, teaching and action on global food security, environmental and public health challenges and to build connections to create healthy, sustainable school food systems. 

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