Renewal through Participation in Global Food Security Governance: Implementing the International Food Security and Nutrition Civil Society Mechanism to the Committee on World Food Security

The food commodity price rises from 2006 to 2008 engendered a period of political renewal and reform in the governance of global food security. The Committee on World Food Security (CFS) was designated as the main international forum dealing with food security and nutrition in 2009 as part of this reform. Through the CFS reform process, civil society organizations secured the right to co-ordinate autonomously their engagement in the Committee as official participants and are doing so through the International Food Security and Nutrition Civil Society Mechanism (CSM). The CSM is an innovative institutional form designed to allow a broad range of civil society organizations from different regions of the world and from diverse constituencies, notably those who face food insecurity on a regular basis, to participate in global food security governance. The challenges and complexities of setting up and operationalizing the CSM are presented and illustrated. These findings are considered in the context of the longer-term move towards widening participation in global governance, with a particular focus on the trajectory of civil society participation in food security governance. The broad neo-liberal logic, or embedded neo-liberalism, that underpins contemporary world politics provides boundaries within which the innovative CSM is being given shape through the political agency of the participating civil society organizations. The study concludes by suggesting that while the Civil Society Mechanism faces some internal challenges, these are not insurmountable, and that the CSM represents an effective politicizing, engaging and connecting model for food-focused civil society organization entering into global governance

Joined-up food policy? The trials of governance, public policy and the food system

To address the policy malfunctions of the recent past and present, UK food policy needs to link policy areas that in the past have been dealt with in a disparate manner, and to draw on a new ecological public health approach. This will need a shift within the dominant trade liberalization–national economic competitiveness paradigm that currently informs UK food policy, and the international levels of the EU and the WTO trade rules, and grants the large corporate players in the food system a favoured place at the policy–making tables. The contradictions of the food system have wrought crises that have engendered widespread institutional change at all levels of governance. Recent institutional reforms to UK food policy, such as the FSA and DEFRA, reflect a bounded approach to policy integration. Initiatives seeking a more integrated approach to food policy problems, such as the Social Exclusion Unit’s access to shops report, and the Policy Commission on the Future of Food and Farming, can end up confined to a particular policy sector framed by particular interests—a process of “policy confinement”. However, the UK can learn from the experience of Norway and Finland who have found their own routes to a more joined–up approach to public health and a sustainable food supply by, for example, introducing a national food policy council to provide integrated policy advice. Also, at the local and community levels in the UK, policy alternatives are being advanced in an ad hoc fashion by local food initiatives. More structural–level interventions at the regional and local governance levels are also needed to address the social dimensions of a sustainable food suppl

The challenges facing contemporary food systems: European policy and governance pathways to sustainable food consumption and production

The security and resilience of the food supply and its sustainability has risen up the public policy agenda in recent years. Policy makers must address a series of longer-term structural and fundamental challenges to a sustainable food supply that are situated both in demand and consumption and in production and environmental capacity. A key policy discourse has emerged around the sustainable consumption and production (SCP) of food, linking the need to rebalance the demand and the supply parts of the equation. In Europe, the public policy initiatives within the SCP framework have focused upon softer interventions such as advising consumers of the more sustainable food choices, often using existing private sector market based criteria enshrined in food and agricultural certification schemes and logos. The European Commission is beginning to address the scientific and methodological basis for identifying and measuring sustainable food by attempting to work with the food industry in framing environmental life cycle assessment methodology and promoting the policy goal of a more natural resource efficient Europe

'The right thing to do': ethical motives in the interpretation of social sustainability in the UK's conventional food supply

This paper explores the role of ethics and responsibility as drivers of a transition to a more sustainable agri-food system, by drawing on an investigation of the governance of social sustainability in the UK’s conventional food supply. The paper investigates how and why various non-state actors in the conventional food supply construe certain social obligations as being part of the remit of the food supply; whether ethics plays a motivating role; and the extent to which their activities are linked to sustainability. The paper uses data collected via two surveys of diverse entities in the conventional food supply, the first a survey of public-facing websites, the second a series of in-depth interviews. The entities ranged from primary producers, manufacturers and food service operators to consultancies, standard-setting organisations and advocacy groups. The study finds that actors view a variety of socially focused or socially beneficial activities as legitimate governance concerns for the conventional food supply, and that ethics plays a role in motivating or justifying these activities. However, the activities are inconsistently associated with sustainability, a finding that may undermine the use of sustainability programmes as tools for driving ethical agendas. Moreover, the dominant business framing of the conventional food supply means that ethical considerations are often expressed in terms of more instrumental priorities. Social sustainability or responsibility actions can be justified on moral grounds as ‘the right thing to do’ but usually have to be backed up in more pragmatic terms as a way of ‘doing well by doing good’

Food security and food sustainability: reformulating the debate

The notion of food security has an important history as a key concept for 20th-century policymakers. Two overarching perspectives on food security are identified. One centred on raising production as the core answer to under-consumption and hunger. The other is an emerging perspective, more social and ecological, accepting the need to address a complex array of problems, not just production. The first is primarily agricultural-focused; the latter a food systems approach. From its inception in post-World War 2 international reconstruction, the UN and governments have given tackling hunger a high profile, via a changing package of policy measures. Within a few decades, the production-oriented approach or paradigm was being questioned by the emerging paradigm with its more complex, multi-focused notion of the challenges ahead. When oil and agricultural commodity prices spiked in 2007–8, the complex agenda was marginalised by a renewed international focus on primary production and the needs of low-income countries. Against this background, the paper explores the diversity of perspectives on what is meant by food security, concluding that the core 21st-century task is to create a sustainable food system. This requires a more coherent policy framework than currently exists, a goal thwarted by competing solutions vying for policy attention and policy failure thus far to integrate the complex range of evidence from social as well as environmental and economic sources into an integrated policy response

Food Capacity: the root of the problem

Peer reviewe

Addressing the challenges of UK national food security

Food security has risen up the political agenda, but sufficiency of supply is not the whole challenge say Dr David Barling, Professor Tim Lang and Rosalind Sharpe. Instead, we should look at ‘food capacity’ and the sustainability of our models of production and consumption

Balancing competing policy demands: the case of sustainable public sector food procurement.

A focus on market-based green growth strategies to pursue sustainability goals neglects the pursuit of understanding how human health is interwoven with the health of eco-systems to deliver sustainability goals. The article argues that clarifying the difference between green and sustainable public sector food procurement, with political continuity that supports and enables policymakers and practitioners to take an incremental approach to change, makes an important contribution to delivering more sustainable food systems and better public health nutrition. Five European case studies demonstrate the reality of devising and implementing innovative approaches to sustainable public sector food procurement and the effects of cultural and political framings. How legislation is enacted at the national level and interpreted at the local level is a key driver for sustainable procurement. Transition is dependent on political will and leadership and an infrastructure that can balance the economic, environmental and social drivers to effect change. The development of systems and indicators to measure change, reforms to EU directives on procurement, and the relationship between green growth strategies and sustainable diets are also discussed. The findings show the need to explore how consistent definitions for green public procurement and sustainable public procurement can be refined and standardized in order to support governments at all levels in reviewing and analyzing their current food procurement strategies and practices to improve sustainability

The Application of Transformational Leadership Theory to Parenting: Questionnaire Development and Implications for Adolescent Self-Regulatory Efficacy and Life Satisfaction

We draw upon transformational leadership theory to develop an instrument to measure transformational parenting for use with adolescents. First, potential items were generated that were developmentally appropriate and evidence for content validity was provided through the use of focus groups with parents and adolescents. We subsequently provide evidence for several aspects of construct validity of measures derived from the Transformational Parenting Questionnaire (TPQ). Data were collected from 857 adolescents (Mage = 14.70 years), who rated the behaviors of their mothers and fathers. The results provided support for a second-order measurement model of transformational parenting. In addition, positive relationships between mothers’ and fathers’ transformational parenting behaviors, adolescents’ self-regulatory efficacy for physical activity and healthy eating, and life satisfaction were found. The results of this research support the application of transformational leadership theory to parenting behaviors, as well as the construct validity of measures derived from the TPQ. (AUTHORS' ABSTRACT