Sustainable food supply chains

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This cluster includes three different approaches:

  • Food-Chain Analysis with a focus on SMEs (Small and Medium enterprises), FOODMETRES project (2012-2015)[1]
  • Short food supply chains (SFSCs), FOODLINKS project (2011-2013)[2]
  • Short food supply chains and sustainable food provision, SUPURBFOOD project (2012-2015)[3]

General introduction to approach

This cluster is about recognizing the potential of food chains in creating sustainable and just cities. Approaches within this cluster study and produce recommendations on the social and environmental impact of food systems in metropolitan areas. The cluster focuses on the environmental benefits of short food supply chains (SFSCs), the central role of SMEs in creating sustainable urban food supply chains, and the various policy levels at which this topic needs to be addressed (bottom-up and top down). The approaches aim to develop research based policy recommendations, with emphasis on knowledge brokerage and assessment tools. Actors involved include SMEs, researchers, civil society and policymakers.

E.g. from FOODMETERS case study of Milan region

A food-chain analysis and knowledge sharing opportunity regarding milk, rice, fruit and vegetable supply chains around Milan via workshops for exchange and best practices. It has an agricultural park and is located in a fertile area and therefore direct farm-customer sales are prominent (via farmers’ markets, automatic deliveries to schools and hospitals and supplying to catering companies). The food chain analysis looked at the strengths and weaknesses of the food system, the relationship between agriculture and urban development pressure, the impact of the agricultural park on food supply, and identified new growth strategies for the system.

Shapes, sizes and applications

Food-Chain Analysis with a focus on SMEs: Studies and offers a set of tools (various assessments, innovation storyline, and knowledge brokerage tools) to help increase, diversify agriculture and shorten food supply chains in urban areas. Tools are targeted at bottom-up and top-down (e.g. European data driven) processes of change to bridge international and local dimensions. SMEs are specifically targeted in the analysis, since they are active in metropolitan food chains.

Short food supply chains: The approach can be described as the aspiration towards creating SFSCs between urban areas and food producers due to their social and environmental benefits. „Short” refers to both physical and social distance. Social distance refers to the opportunity for the producer and the consumer to interact and share information. There are no or very few intermediaries in SFSCs. Physical distance covers the distance a product has travelled between points of production and sale. Short food supply chains and sustainable food provision is roughly an equivalent approach, which focuses on the benefits of SFSCs, however it has a stronger focus on their environmental benefits than the first approach. Both have a multi-stakeholder focus.

It is difficult to ascertain the development stage and level of maturity of these approaches. Concern over urban food supply chains is not new, however, until the late 90s, food systems hadn’t been considered in urban policies (Pothukuchi and Kaufman, 1999)[4]. According to literature, the topics of cities and food appear to have been connected around the 2000s. Although the supposed benefits of applying SFSCs and food chain analysis is known, the overall success of the approach application is unclear. One can assume, based on the high prevalence of new urban food policies (in Europe and NA) since the 2000s, that the approaches have been successful. One limitation may be that the supply-focus largely ignores consumer demand and behaviour, and therefore an important determinant of the urban market for food. However, use of demand-supply models mitigates this. Regarding transferability, any context-specific recommendations for food supply chains will not be transferable. Each urban area has a unique food production/consumption context, especially concerning the role of SMEs and agricultural conditions. But the analysis tools and general concepts are transferable.

Relation to UrbanA themes: Cities, sustainability, and justice

Cities

The approaches are all focused on the urban food system and its relationship with nearby agricultural production sites.

Sustainability

Approaches are concerned highly with environmental sustainability, since SFSCs, for example, reduce distance travelled for food, mineral recycling, water use, multifunctional land use etc.

Justice

There is good procedural justice due to the multi-stakeholder, participatory method of analysing and innovating in urban food supply chains. There is a focus on social cohesion via new methods of food production (i.e. urban gardens), and food security is a focus of urban food management (this is a type of recognition justice regarding food needs of vulnerable groups). However, many of the case studies from projects were focused on good, healthy, local food provision, rather than reducing food injustices (especially distributional justice of these local/good products).

Linking sustainability and justice

Much potential here due to connection between food security for urban residents and local, affordable, sustainable, food production. However, as mentioned, the approaches in this cluster are biased towards sustainability.

Narrative of change

The cluster attempts to address a variety of problems: the environmental impacts of food chains, the marginalization of small-scale farmers, inequalities in access to affordable, healthy food and the longer-term resilience of food chains in the face of natural resource depletion, climate change and global population growth. The cluster rests on the premise that studying food supply chains and implementing policies will reconnect urban residents to their food through local production/distribution, which also empowers SMEs/farmers/marginalized groups and promotes environmental sustainability.

Transformative potential

This cluster has a high transformative potential because it challenges power relations within global and urban food systems. It addresses the food system as a whole and problematizes the power relation between large food retailers, the globalized food trade, and citizens. It empowers local, small scale, and often organic, farmers. It also aims to address the inequity in access to good, sustainable, local food which is based on affordability and general accessibility. However, if justice considerations are sidelined and only the “local” and “ecological” aspects are considered, the cluster risks reinforcing this inequity in accessibility to good food. For example, if the prices of this food remain high, or if local food grocery stores/farmers markets remain in affluent neighbourhoods. Or there may be an information inequity in which affluent groups are more aware and connected with SFSC initiatives.

Summary of relevant approaches

Direct food sales Brin d’Herbe in Rennes, France: An example of SFSC in practice (From FOODLINKS project)

Case description copied from FOODLINKS website [5]

“Brin d’Herbe is a group of 20 farmers near Rennes, France, who have been selling farmhouse and organic products in two stores on the outskirts of Rennes for twenty years. The main products are meat (60 percent of the turnover), fruit & vegetables, bakery and dairy products, cheeses, eggs, honey, and cider. They have about 1000 consumers per week. The shop opens three days a week. The turnover is 1.5 million Euros per year.

To run the shop, farmers are organized in a specific form of association that allows them to maintain their identity and operational autonomy vis a vis consumers, and at the same time to define a common space of coordination. This aspect is also a regulatory requirement, as in this way the shop can be classified as a „direct selling“ activity. The legal status of the organisation is a "GIE = Groupement d'Interet Economique" (economic interest group). In addition, Brin d'Herbe runs a cooperation with limited liability, which enables them to carry out retail activities.” Additionally, funding for the initiative was claimed to be from a “favourable tax regime”.

Links to other clusters and approaches

Substantive connections

Ecovillages

Social food movements

Community gardens and food

Cooperatives/commons (See Community-Supported Agriculture Approach)


Methodological connections

(Impact) evaluation and assessment framework

Multi-stakeholder partnerships - policy

Learning and knowledge brokerage

References