Sustainability of the Agri-food System: Strategies and Performances

Sustainability of the Agri-food System: Strategies and Performances PDF Author: Bernardo De Gennaro
Publisher: Universitas Studiorum
ISBN: 8897683606
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
The 2013 annual conference of the Italian Society of Agricultural Economics (SIDEA) has been held in the attractive scenario of the city of Lecce under the organization of three different Universities of the Apulia Region (Università degli Studi di Bari, Università degli Studi di Foggia and Università del Salento). The scientific theme of the 50th SIDEA Conference has been “Sustainability of the agri-food system: Strategies and Performances” (Sostenibilità del Sistema Agroalimentare: strategie e performance). With such a topic, the SIDEA intended to cope with the challenges coming from a growing demand of food in a world where critical natural resources such as water, energy and land are becoming increasingly scarce and climate change is posing credible threats. The agri-food system and the broader bio-based economy are, in fact, human activities where the classic dimensions of sustainability (ecological, economic and social) are gaining a striking weight often showing evidence of frictions. Despite a significant growth in food production over the past century, today one of the most important challenges facing agro-food system is how to feed a growing population.

Remaking the North American Food System

Remaking the North American Food System PDF Author: C. Clare Hinrichs
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 0803215789
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
Examines the resurgence of interest in rebuilding the links between agricultural production and food consumption. With examples from Puerto Rico to Oregon to Quebec, this work offers a North American perspective attuned to trends toward globalization at the level of markets and governance and shows how globalization affects specific localities.

Together at the Table

Together at the Table PDF Author: Patricia Allen
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 027102268X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Everywhere you look people are more aware of what they eat and where their food comes from. In a cafeteria in Los Angeles, children make their lunchtime food choices at fresh-fruit and salad bars stocked with local foods. In a community garden in New York, low-income residents are producing organically grown fruits and vegetables for their own use and to sell at market. In Madison, Wisconsin, shoppers select their food from a bounty of choices at a vibrant farmers’ market. Together at the Table is about people throughout the United States who are building successful alternatives to the contemporary agrifood system and their prospects for the future. At the heart of these efforts are the movements for sustainable agriculture and community food security. Both movements seek to reconstruct the agrifood system—the food production chain, from the growing of crops to food production and distribution—to become more ecologically sound, economically viable, and socially just. Allen describes the ways in which people working in these movements view the world and how they see their place in challenging and reshaping the agrifood system. She also shows how ideas and practices of sustainable agriculture and community food security have already woven their way into the dominant agrifood institutions. Allen explores the possibilities this process may hold for improving social and environmental justice in the American agrifood system. Together at the Table is an important reminder that much work still remains to be done. Now that the ideas and priorities of alternative food movements have taken hold, it is time for the next—even more challenging—step. Alternative agrifood movements must acknowledge and address the deeper structural and cultural patterns that constrain the long-term resolution of social and environmental problems in the agrifood system.

Agri-Food Industry Strategies for Healthy Diets and Sustainability

Agri-Food Industry Strategies for Healthy Diets and Sustainability PDF Author: Francisco J. Barba
Publisher: Academic Press
ISBN: 0128172274
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
Divided into five sections, Agri-Food Industry Strategies for Healthy Diets and Sustainability: New Challenges in Nutrition and Public Health provides an overview of the challenges and future perspectives related to nutrition, public health, and sustainability. The book addresses strategies to reduce fat, trans fat, saturated fat, sugar, and salt consumption, while also exploring the manufacturing, safety, and toxicology of new food manufacturing. This book examines commercial labeling and nutritional education, nutrigenomics and public health, and provides coverage of the valorization of waste and by-products from the food industry. Nutrition researchers and practitioners, food scientists, technologists, engineers, agronomists, food product developers, medical and public health professionals, and postgraduate students focused in food science and nutrition are sure to find this reference work a welcomed addition to their libraries. Contains innovative strategies to achieve a healthy diet through the design of new food products Provides comprehensive information related to agriculture, nutrition, food industry, government, and sustainable waste management and details their roles in addressing food waste Explores the ways in which innovative approaches, used to valorize and give an added value to agri-food waste and by-products, ensure the sustainability of the production process Presents nutritive education about reducing empty calories by lowering consumption of fats, sugars, and other high-calorie nutrients Delineates the roles of food industry and government in shaping the best policies for the general public and the design of new products

Contested Sustainability Discourses in the Agrifood System

Contested Sustainability Discourses in the Agrifood System PDF Author: Douglas H. Constance
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351664913
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
The industrial agrifood system is in crisis regarding its negative ecological, economic, and social externalities: it is unsustainable on all dimensions. This book documents and engages competing visions and contested discourses of agrifood sustainability. Using an incremental/reformist to transformation/radical continuum framework for alternative agrifood movements, this book identifies tensions between competing discourses that stress food sovereignty, social justice, and fair trade and those that emphasize food security, efficiency and free trade. In particular, it highlights the role that governance processes play in sustainability transitions and the ways that power and politics affect sustainability visions and discourses. The book includes chapters that review sustainability discourses at the macro and meso levels, as well as case studies from Africa, Australia, Canada, Europe, South America and the USA.

Sustainable Food Systems

Sustainable Food Systems PDF Author: Terry Marsden
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136185410
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
In response to the challenges of a growing population and food security, there is an urgent need to construct a new agri-food sustainability paradigm. This book brings together an integrated range of key social science insights exploring the contributions and interventions necessary to build this framework. Building on over ten years of ESRC funded theoretical and empirical research centered at BRASS, it focuses upon the key social, economic and political drivers for creating a more sustainable food system. Themes include: regulation and governance sustainable supply chains public procurement sustainable spatial strategies associated with rural restructuring and re-calibrated urbanised food systems minimising bio-security risk and animal welfare burdens. The book critically explores the linkages between social science research and the evolving food security problems facing the world at a critical juncture in the debates associated with not only food quality, but also its provenance, vulnerability and the inherent unsustainability of current systems of production and consumption. Each chapter examines how the links between research, practice and policy can begin to contribute to more sustainable, resilient and justly distributive food systems which would be better equipped to ‘feed the world’ by 2050.

Local Agri-food Systems in a Global World

Local Agri-food Systems in a Global World PDF Author: Maria Cecilia Mancini
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443836966
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
Local Agri-food Systems in a Global World: Market, Social and Environmental Challenges is an important new collection of essays making a landmark contribution to the ongoing debate on local agri-food systems, local development in rural areas and new patterns of agri-food systems. There is a new awareness of the links between local and global strategies of food production and processing, and these have become an increasingly important topic of research worldwide. Effective analysis of the spatial dynamics of agri-food systems requires an interdisciplinary approach involving economics, geography, sociology, demographics and agronomy. Chapters cover areas such as: current spatial dynamics in agri-food systems; the socio-environmental impact of agri-food systems on rural development; the role of local resources in agri-food systems; the governance and public policies of local agri-food systems; and, last but not least, new methodological approaches to spatial dynamics of agri-food systems. The book provides an essential tool for researchers and academics in rural economics, sociology, geography and social sciences as well as policy makers.

Sustainability of European Food Quality Schemes

Sustainability of European Food Quality Schemes PDF Author: Filippo Arfini
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030275086
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 567

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Book Description
This edited volume evaluates recent EU quality policy, focusing on the structure, governance, technical specifications and performances – economic, environmental and social – of Food Quality Schemes (FQS) in the European Union and South East Asia. The intended benefits of FQS include generating a fair return for farmers and producers, and enabling consumers to make better‐informed purchasing choices through effective labeling. In addition, policy makers now consider FQS as a means of guaranteeing not only quality in food production, but also sustainability. Despite these potential benefits, the economic performance of the FQS (e.g. PDO, PGI, organic) has been variable. While some support significant value‐added production, with substantial benefits to producers, consumers and wider economies, many others have failed to become economically sustainable. In addition, the environmental and social performance of FQS remains largely unexamined, with the exception of the environmental performance of organic products. The editors examine these discrepancies and offer a nuanced evaluation of the effectiveness of such policies. Several unique features make this volume a key resource for those interested in FQS and in the sustainability of food products. The editors provide a concise description of the value chain, the governance and the technical specifications of 27 FQS in Europe and South East Asia. The editors also provide a sustainability assessment of each of these FQS, and support or question the view that FQS are moving from “quality” to “sustainability.” Finally, the volume serves as a repository of key data on these FQS. Readers have access to the raw data necessary to compute the indicators used in the sustainability assessment (eg. value added, number of jobs, quantity of fertilizers, etc), allowing them to conduct novel re-analysis. The book is designed for an interdisciplinary audience of academics, policy makers, and stakeholders. The compilation of FQS case studies makes it a useful reference for researchers and students of food policy, geography, food anthropology, local and rural development, local agri-food systems and agri-food chains. Stakeholders such as national and European regulators, entities responsible for FQS technical specifications, and embassy staff will also find the information relevant. Additionally, individuals helping to implement food quality schemes, including auditors, producers, and consumer associates, as well as stakeholders in the sustainability of food products, including farmers, farmer's associations, and environmental NGOs, will also find the information relevant and important for their work.

Ireland’s journey towards sustainable food systems

Ireland’s journey towards sustainable food systems PDF Author: Brouwer, H., Guijt, J., Kelly, S., Garcia-Campos, P.
Publisher: Food & Agriculture Org.
ISBN: 9251347840
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 47

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Book Description
The intention of this case study is to learn from the institutional and programmatic processes that have sustained the transformation of Ireland’s food system so that other countries might be inspired by ideas and practices that could be potentially adapted to their own journey towards a sustainable food system. The country’s trajectory from small-scale farming focused on commodity exports with little value addition, to gradual integration into high-value international supply chains, alongside its current ambition to contribute to solving world hunger, reflect the profound shifts that have taken place within and around the boundaries of Ireland’s food system. Ireland’s transformation demonstrates the complexity of multiple drivers (policies, investments, market trends and disruptions) simultaneously at play as food systems evolve. At present, the top challenges in agri-food concern the environment, human health and nutrition.

Towards Sustainable Global Food Systems

Towards Sustainable Global Food Systems PDF Author: Ruerd Ruben
Publisher: MDPI
ISBN: 3038978140
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
One of the major knowledge challenges in the domain of Resilient and Sustainable Food Systems refers to the integration of perspectives on consumption, patterns that support public health, inclusive value chains, and environmentally sustainable food production. While there is a long record of the analysis of separate interventions, this special issue generates integrated insights, provides cross-cutting perspectives, and outlines practical and policy solutions that address these global challenges.The collection of papers promotes the view that sustainable food systems require thorough insights into the structure and dynamics of agri-food production systems, the drivers for integrating food value chains and markets, and key incentives for supporting healthier consumer choices. On the production side, potential linkages between agricultural commercialization and intensification and their effects for food security and nutritional outcomes are analyzed. Value Chains are assessed for their contribution to improving exchange networks and markets for food products that simultaneously support efficiency, circularity, and responsiveness. Individual motives and market structures for food consumption need to be understood in order to be able to outline suitable incentives to enhance healthy dietary choice.The contributed papers focus on interfaces between food system activities and processes of adaptive change that are critical for overcoming key constraints and trade-offs between sustainable food and healthy diets.