L1D66 (1.3) |
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L1T153 (42%): food (19%) L1T76 (5%): agriculture (17%), agricultural (11%) L1T19 (4%): and (81%) |
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How food systems change (or not): governance implications for system transformation processes (2021) 🗎🗎 | This paper argues that supporting food system transformation requires more than obtaining science-based understanding and analysis of how components in the system interact. We argue that changing the emergent properties of food systems (what we call food system synthesis) is a socio-political challenge that is affected by competing views regarding system boundaries and purposes, and limited possibilities for central steering and control. We point to different traditions of 'systems thinking' that each emphasize particular types of interventions for achieving system change, and argue that food systems are best looked at as complex multi-dimensional systems. This implies that we need to move beyond rational engineering approaches to system change, and look for approaches that anticipate and accommodate inherent social tensions and struggles in processes of changing food system dynamics and outcomes. Through a case study on the persistence of an undesired emergent property of food systems (i.e. poverty) we demonstrate that a multi-level perspective (MLP) on system transformation is useful in understanding both how food system transformation has happened in the past, and how desirable transformations is prevented from happening today. Based on such insights we point to key governance strategies and principles that may be used to influence food system transformation as a non-linear and long-term process of competition, negotiation and reconfiguration. Such strategies include the creation and nurturing of diversity in the system, as well as process interventions aimed at visioning, destabilization and formation of discourse coalitions. Such governance interventions imply a considerable re-orientation of investments in food system transformation as well as a rethinking of the role that policy-makers may play in either altering or reproducing undesirable system outcomes. |
Endogenous regime change: Lessons from transition pathways in Dutch dairy farming (2020) 🗎🗎 | Sustainability transitions are commonly considered impossible without regime change. Theoretical work on regime change has mainly focused on niches and landscapes and less on change 'from within'. Empirical analysis helps theorising endogenous regime change. Conceptualising regimes as semi-coherent entities composed of multiple 'institutional logics', we analyse the endogenous regime change in Dutch dairy farming. Practices in this sector have become more and more market-driven. This dominant logic however was increasingly challenged by institutional logics centring round cultural identity and sustainability. Tensions particularly centred round the increased indoor housing of cows. The contestation of this practice eventually led to a first 'crack' in the regime, as it weakened the dominance of the market logic and enabled opportunities for more sustainability. Our case study shows that the presence of alternative institutional logics is necessary to crack the regime, but opportunities to patch it back together are similarly crucial to enable sustainability transitions. |
Just wheat transitions?: working toward constructive structural changes in wheat production (2021) 🗎🗎 | How do we make agricultural practice more sustainable? One way to examine the drivers and barriers to transitions within agriculture is through the sustainability transitions framework. However, this approach has been criticised for not adequately engaging with the lessons of food justice. To correct this deficiency, we suggest the concept, "just transitions." Our argument is informed by honing in on the lived experiences of organic and conventional wheat farmers, especially their challenges and opportunities in transitioning to organic wheat production. Our findings reflect tensions, contradictions, and opportunities in environmental ethics, policies, infrastructure, and socio-economic perspectives and positions. The approach taken reflects a structural-constructivist perspective. Examining structural level proposals, such as the Green New Deal and the Good Food Purchasing Program, our findings suggest more work needs to be done to adequately include rural farmer perspectives, particularly when it comes to the construction of frames around what "good" farming looks like. Specifically, by not including the lived experiences of farmers into these transitions, policymakers and other advocates may struggle to adequately integrate plans that adequately reflect 1) varying regional biophysical characteristics, farmer practices, and sustainability goals; 2) interactions that contribute to tradeoffs within and between both policies and advocacy; 3) the infrastructural path-dependency of farm operations; 4) and the economic and social beliefs, norms, and values which shape what "good" farming looks and feels like. Until this accomplished, it will be hard to envision a transition considered "just" by all stakeholders. |
The need for policy to address the food system lock-in: A case study of the Finnish context (2017) 🗎🗎 | The introduction of synthetic fertilizers transformed the food system into the one we know today in the Western world. The present paper argues that this transformation has become an irreversible self feeding process referred to as food system lock-in, which threatens planetary boundaries of nitrogen and phosphorus, hence the food security in the future. A system in a lock-in state can undermine its own existence by deteriorating the capacity to cope with upcoming crises of resource scarcity and environmental instability. In this paper, the roots of lock-in are explored and empirically grounded in the historical narrative of the food system transition in Finland in the past 60 years. The theoretical framework builds on socio-technical studies and the economic theory of increasing returns. The aim of the paper is to identify, through an evolutionary analysis, the processes of increasing returns that have become path inefficient and have reinforced the lock-in in the food system. Three separate but interdependent processes in the production, in the policy and institutions, and in the supply chain create systematic resistance towards sustainability transition. These findings indicate that more attention should be paid at the public policies that are currently too narrow in their scope and do not effectively bridge the entire system, from food production to consumption. Public intervention is critical for the unlocking, but individuals in the various parts of the food system are those who create new paths. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. |
Change as a permanent condition: A history of transition processes in Dutch North Sea fisheries (2020) 🗎🗎 | Centre of debate on food production in the Netherlands today focusses on the issue of realising a cyclical mode of production and operating in a climate neutral way. This transition is envisaged not only for agriculture, but also for fisheries. Dutch fisheries face a multitude of challenges in addition to, as well as related to this circularity transition. These include loss of operating space for fishing activities in the North Sea (windfarms, nature conservation areas, Brexit) and the need for further development of sustainable fishing methods and vessels (innovations to reduce ecological and environmental impacts). Whilst the Dutch fisheries face these challenges now and in the future, it has already gone through significant changes over the past 70 years. Since the dawn of fisheries policy in Europe in the 1970s, change and development have been part of the fishing industry, indicating that transitions and change are a permanent aspect of fisheries. From past transitions lessons can be learnt to take on current and future challenges. Past transitions in Dutch fisheries were analysed from the perspective of transition and governance. Based on literature and reports produced in recent decades and pooled knowledge gained from the fishing industry, government and environmental organisations, this paper shows that the roles of the different actors involved changed during past transitions, with a shift in playing field occurring from a regional to a European scale and that joint problem definition, collective sensemaking and a long term vision are essential in navigating transition waters. |
Going beyond definitions to understand tensions within the bioeconomy: The contribution of sociotechnical regimes to contested fields (2020) 🗎🗎 | The bioeconomy is steadily becoming more important to regional, national and European public policy. As it encompasses the transformation of agricultural, marine and organic resources into food, feed, fuels, energy and materials, the bioeconomy should become a major new industry replacing oil-based products. However, policymakers take two main approaches to developing the bioeconomy. The first, biotech-oriented approach depicts the bioeconomy as a biotechnology subsector. The second, biomass-oriented approach (i) considers biomass transformation as its starting point, (ii) raises the issue of bioeconomy sustainability, and (iii) considers biotechnology as just one of many transformation technologies. The growing literature on defining the bioeconomy has not yet covered the articulation between biotechnology and bioeconomy. This paper fills this critical gap and provides policy recommendations depending on whether the goal is to develop biotechnology or to contribute to green growth and sustainability. |
The Role of Law in Transformative Environmental PoliciesA Case Study of "Timber in Buildings Construction in Germany" (2019) 🗎🗎 | Over the last decades, environmental law has significantly contributed to limiting the environmental impacts of our mode of living. Yet environmental problems still prevail and are strongly linked to our production and consumption systems. Therefore, the current challenges must be tackled with a systemic approach. The concept of transformative environmental policy identifies approaches for policymakers to interfere in socio-economic systems in order to give them a more sustainable structure. This article seeks to identify the contributions that law can make to a transformation towards sustainability. For illustrative purposes, I point out the concrete steps in a case study on increasing the use of timber in buildings construction in Germany. I argue that law plays a role in all three phases of a transformation/transition. The legal framework must enable innovations and experiments in the first transformation phase, come up with restricting regulations for old non-sustainable structures in the second phase, and in the third phase provide course stability for the new system. I conclude that the concept of transformative environmental policy helps to design adaptations of the legal framework in order to transform socio-economic and socio-technical systems towards more sustainability. |
Disciplining the State: The role of alliances in contesting multi-level agri-environmental governance (2018) 🗎🗎 | This study evaluates the development of a national agri-environment scheme under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) on "commonage" or collectively owned land in the Republic of Ireland. In doing so, it explores the role of alliance building in reasserting marginalised narratives in multi-level agri-environmental governance processes. To this end, process tracing analysis is carried out on government policy documents and reports; interdepartmental exchanges; parliamentary testimonies; and media reports relating to the policy development process. This allows, firstly, for the tracing of the historical emergence of collectively owned land as a differentiated agricultural space. Secondly, it explores how a specific governing device - Commonage Management Plans (CMPs) - emerges in national debates as means of regulating these spaces. Finally, it provides insight on how alliances comprised of commonage farmers, farm extension professionals, and politicians at national and international levels successfully challenged aspects of the proposed CMPs. This illustrates how marginalised, but capable actors may navigate multi-level governance structures to influence state institutions and policy outcomes. We thus make two main contributions. First, we foreground the role of alliances to provide an illustration of how marginalised actors may gain influence in multi-level governance processes. We demonstrate how these alliances are built around specific shared narratives and operate with cognisance of the power dynamics in which they operate. Second, we highlight how both consultation and contestation contribute to co-producing policy design outcomes. However, the case study indicates that more extensive participative policy making could address such contestation more effectively. |
The Evolution of Problems Underlying the EU Agricultural Policy Regime (2018) 🗎🗎 | This article conceptualises the common agricultural policy (CAP) of the European Union as a policy regime. Policy regimes are defined as meso-level, problem-related, dynamically stable, multidimensional governance arrangements consisting of substantive and institutional elements. Utilising the policy regime as the unit of analysis makes it possible to study the lifespan of a certain policy with many levels of abstraction (paradigm, dimensions, elements, topics). This meso-level focus provides a meaningful way to explain or anticipate regime change and stability based on diverse sources. In this study, an empirical analysis of policy documents exposes the lifespan of the problems underlying the CAP regime. The analysis assesses the stability of the CAP state-assisted agriculture paradigm, the smooth diversification of the CAP elements and the volatile ups and downs of the CAP topics. Policy design and delivery has become the most extensively considered problem of the CAP, whereas the other dimensions (farms, consumers, regions, markets and trade, environment, taxpayers and budget) have converged towards a more balanced setting. As problems precede policy solutions, the design and delivery of the CAP could be the next target of major reforms. |
TOWARDS A REGIME CHANGE IN THE ORGANIZATION OF THE SEED SUPPLY SYSTEM IN CHINA (2013) 🗎🗎 | This paper explores changes in the organization of seed supply in China over the last decade by means of a multi-level institutional analysis. At the landscape level, the implications for China of the regulation of plant genetic resources through various international treaties and conventions are reviewed in the light of the evolution of the global seed industry. At the regime level, the transition in the Chinese context to market-based seed supply and the development of commercial and public seed sectors are examined. The study then analyses trends in seed supply at the niche level, with reference to participatory maize (Zea mays L.) breeding in three provinces in southwest China where high rural poverty persists. This work offers radical novelty in variety development and seed provision on behalf of smallholder farmers. However, a series of technical, organizational and market 'mismatches' are demonstrated within the existing seed regime. The participatory work emphasizes breeding for diverse cultivars adapted to specific ecosystems but these are prevented from reaching commercial markets by existing varietal testing procedures. Participatory breeding has potential to address farmers' varietal needs as agriculture modernises and to support the public function of research institutes, but within mainstream intellectual property regimes the public value of participatory breeding cannot be accommodated adequately. Yet, when coupled to institutional innovations for recognising intellectual property and sharing benefit among all those who contribute, participatory breeding may initiate a powerful dynamics for change within seed regimes and a sui generis seed system suited to the Chinese context. |
Food crises, food regimes and food movements: rumblings of reform or tides of transformation? (2011) 🗎🗎 | This article addresses the potential for food movements to bring about substantive changes to the current global food system. After describing the current corporate food regime, we apply Karl Polanyi's 'double-movement' thesis on capitalism to explain the regime's trends of neoliberalism and reform. Using the global food crisis as a point of departure, we introduce a comparative analytical framework for different political and social trends within the corporate food regime and global food movements, characterizing them as 'Neoliberal', 'Reformist', 'Progressive', and 'Radical', respectively, and describe each trend based on its discourse, model, and key actors, approach to the food crisis, and key documents. After a discussion of class, political permeability, and tensions within the food movements, we suggest that the current food crisis offers opportunities for strategic alliances between Progressive and Radical trends within the food movement. We conclude that while the food crisis has brought a retrenchment of neoliberalization and weak calls for reform, the worldwide growth of food movements directly and indirectly challenge the legitimacy and hegemony of the corporate food regime. Regime change will require sustained pressure from a strong global food movement, built on durable alliances between Progressive and Radical trends. |
Politicizing African urban food systems: The contradiction of food governance in Rabat and Casablanca, Morocco (2020) 🗎🗎 | The governance of urban food supply in Morocco is subject to deep contradictions. It involves actors with diversified interests that are guided by sometimes divergent rationale. One of the main contradictions sets "modernization" against conservatism. The former aims to create new "westernized" wholesale markets, "upgrade" food products for export, traceability and safety, reduce the informal food trade and support large retailers. The latter aims to prevent sociopolitical destabilization, such as the risk of increasing prices, changes in the supply of food to keep up with demand and social unrest involving merchants and informal vendors. Our analysis of this contradictory situation is divided into two parts. First, we review the evolution of Morocco's food policy since independence. Then we present the main actors involved in the governance of urban food systems. We show that urban food governance is still dominated by the Ministry of the Interior, but that the decentralization process is likely to encourage modernization. In the second part, we highlight the tension between the "conservative" central actors and the "modernizing" local actors, by analysing the current controversy over the reform of the wholesale markets, a crucial issue for African urban food systems, in Casablanca and Rabat. |
Transition challenges in consumer acculturation: Role destabilization and changes in symbolic consumption (1999) 🗎🗎 | Consumer acculturation consists of three phases: Pre-immigration, transition, and outcomes. This study investigates role adjustment and symbolic consumption during the transition phase of consumer acculturation. Rode adjustment in the transition phase includes movement into a new culture, role destabilization, changes in symbolic consumption, new roles, and role stabilization. A better understanding of the relationship between transition, role destabilization and symbolic consumption will help marketers develop more effective marketing programs and meet the needs of rapidly growing immigrant communities. |