Sustainability assessment of short food supply chains (SFSC): developing and testing a rapid assessment tool in one African and three European city regions

Recent literature demonstrates the contribution of short food supply chains (SFSC) to regional economies and sustainable food systems, and acknowledges their role as drivers for sustainable development. Moreover, different types of SFSC have been supported by urban food policies (UFP) over the few last years and actors from the food chain became part of new institutional settings for urban food policies. However, evidence from the sustainability impact assessment (SIA) of these SFSC in urban contexts is limited. Our paper presents an approach for the development of an SIA framework for different SFSC types. In addition, a practical application of the tool in four metropolitan regions (Berlin, London, Ljubljana and Nairobi) is tested. The conceptual development of the SIA framework is based on an in-depth analysis of existing SIA frameworks and methods for assessing the sustainability of agriculture, food chains and food systems and adapted to the specific needs of analysing SFSC in metropolitan regions. The operational value and utility of the framework and the tool were tested with social and natural scientists and local stakeholders. The assessment results demonstrate that SFSC seems to be more sustainable than the baseline (long global food chains) in the social dimension, but also feature specific strengths and weaknesses concerning their economic and environmental sustainability. This might give an indication for regional adjusted strategies and food chain innovations that improve the sustainability performance may be required. We found the tool useful for framing the dialogue between food chain actors, consumers and policy, because it makes benefits and trade-offs of the chain types operating in an urban–rural context more visible and communicable. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10460-021-10288-w

CAP-reform and the provision of non-commodity outputs in Brandenburg

This paper presents an attempt to model the response of selected farms to decoupled direct payments and the associated impact on the provision of a defined set of non-commodity outputs (NCO’s) using a combined modelling approach consisting of the AgriPoliS and MODAM models. AgriPoliS focuses on the socio-economic dimension of multifunctionality at the individual farm and regional levels and explicitly models heterogeneous farms (in size, location and efficiency) within a competitive and dynamic environment. The linear-programming model MODAM allows a detailed representation of production processes and their impact on the environmental dimension of multifunctionality at the farm level. We simulate the impact of a uniform area payment and a fully decoupled single farm payment. Our case study region is the district Ostprignitz-Ruppin in Brandenburg. Results show that the decoupling schemes create a trade-off between the NCO’s and that adjustment reactions differ between farms depending on their legal form, size, and production.decoupling, multifunctionality, non-commodity outputs, modelling, simulation, policy analysis, ecological indicators, Agricultural and Food Policy, Land Economics/Use,

Potential Bioenergy Production from Miscanthus × giganteus in Brandenburg: Producing Bioenergy and Fostering Other Ecosystem Services while Ensuring Food Self-Sufficiency in the Berlin-Brandenburg Region

Miscanthus × giganteus (hereafter Miscanthus) is a perennial crop characterized by its high biomass production, low nutrient requirements, its ability for soil restoration, and its cultivation potential on marginal land. The development of the bioenergy sector in the state of Brandenburg (Germany), with maize as the dominant crop, has recently drawn attention to its negative environmental impacts, competition with food production, and uncertainties regarding its further development toward the state’s bioenergy targets. This study aimed to estimate the potential bioenergy production in Brandenburg by cultivating Miscanthus only on marginal land, thereby avoiding competition with food production in the Berlin-Brandenburg city-region (i.e., foodshed), after using the Metropolitan Foodshed and Self-sufficiency Scenario (MFSS) model. We estimated that by 2030, the Berlin-Brandenburg foodshed would require around 1.13 million hectares to achieve 100% food self-sufficiency under the business as usual (BAU) scenario, and hence there would be around 390,000 ha land left for bioenergy production. Our results suggest that the region would require about 569,000 ha of land of maize to generate 58 PJ—the bioenergy target of the state of Brandenburg for 2030—which is almost 179,000 ha more than the available area for bioenergy production. However, under Miscanthus plantation, the required area would be reduced by 2.5 times to 232,000 ha. Therefore, Miscanthus could enable Brandenburg to meet its bioenergy target by 2030, while at the same time avoiding the trade-offs with food production, and also providing a potential for soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration of around 255,200 t C yr-1, leading to an improvement in the soil fertility and other ecosystem services (e.g., biodiversity), compared with bioenergy generated from maize.Peer Reviewe

Typology of urban agriculture in Germany

Die Formen der stadtregionalen, d. h. stadtnahen ruralen, peri-urbanen und intra-urbanen Landwirtschaft („urbanen Landwirtschaft“), wurden in dieser Studie auf der Basis einer Online-Recherche qualitativ erfasst.Die Formen der Landwirtschaft wurden Hauptakteuren und deren Hauptintention zugeteilt. Als Hauptakteure wurden gewinnorientierte Betriebe, nicht-gewinnorientierte Initiativen des urbanen Gärtnerns, einschließlich inklusiver, gemeinwohlorientierter Unternehmen, und die Verwaltungen der Städte und Kommunen benannt.In der Stadtregion bewirtschaften landwirtschaftliche Initiativen sowohl Freilandflächen als auch Gewächshausflächen, arbeiten gebäudeintegriert oder gebäudegebunden. Sie nutzen Freiflächen, Käfige, Stallungen, Pflanzenwachstumskammern oder kombinierte Systeme wie Aquaponik zur Herstellung vielfältiger Produkte. Sie verwenden Boden, Erden und Substrate, Hydrokulturmedien oder Nährmedien.Ihre Leistungen reichen von der Produktion ackerbaulicher und gartenbaulicher Kulturen bis hin zur Tierhaltung; Verarbeitung und Veredelung von Rohstoffen sind eingeschlossen. Die Rohstoffe dienen zur Nahrungserzeugung für Menschen, als Tierfutter oder zur Energieerzeugung. Naturschutz- und Biodiversitätsleistungen werden zunehmend integriert. Hinzu kommen soziale Leistungen. Für die Ausrichtung vieler Initiativen kommt Fördermaßnahmen eine wichtige Rolle zu.Nicht-gewinnorientiertes, urbanes Gärtnern findet im öffentlichen Raum, Gemeinschaftsgärten, Hausgärten und Kleingärten statt. Hier stehen Fragen der Lebensgestaltung, Selbstverwirklichung, Partizipation und Kooperation, Selbstversorgung, Gestaltung des Umfeldes und Naturerfahrung im Mittelpunkt.Die Gemeinwohl-orientierte Arbeit der Städte und Kommunen selbst führt im Sinne der Daseinsvorsorge zu Programmen und Konzepten, aber auch eigenen Maßnahmen, die den Rahmen für die urbane Landwirtschaft darstellen. Dazu werden Leitkonzepte wie die Essbare Stadt, stadtregionale Ernährungsstrategien, Ernährungsräte, Schwammstadt oder Grüne Stadt angepasst und weiterentwickelt.Die gezielte Ansprache, Vernetzung und ggf. finanzielle Förderung der ökonomisch arbeitenden Betriebe, der sozial-orientiert arbeitenden urbanen Gärtnerinnen und Gärtner und der gemeinwohl-orientierten Städte und Kommunen, die die Rahmenbedingungen für die urbane Landwirtschaft schaffen müssen, können die urbane Landwirtschaft in ihrer Multifunktionalität unterstützen und ihr vielfältiges Potenzial zeitnah und effizient weiterentwickeln.The types of the city-regional, i.e. city-near rural, peri-urban and intra-urban agriculture (“urban agriculture”) were qualitatively recorded in this study on the basis of an online research.The types of agriculture were assigned to main actors and their main intention. Profit-oriented companies, non-profit-oriented urban gardening initiatives and the administrations of the cities and municipalities were named as the main actors.The companies manage both open land areas and greenhouse areas, work in building-integrated or building-bound agriculture. They use open spaces, cages, stables, plant growth chambers or combined systems such as aquaponics to produce a wide variety of products. They use soil, substrates, hydroponic media or growing media. Their services range from the production of arable and horticultural crops to animal husbandry; Processing and refining of raw materials are included. The raw materials are used to produce food for humans, animal feed or to generate energy. Nature conservation and biodiversity services are increasingly being integrated. There are also social benefits. Funding measures play an important role in the orientation of many companies.Not-for-profit, urban gardening takes place in public spaces, community gardens and in house and allotment gardens. The focus here is on questions of lifestyle, self-realization, participation and cooperation, self-sufficiency, shaping the environment and experiencing nature.The common good-oriented work of the cities and municipalities themselves leads to programs and concepts in terms of services of general interest, but also to their own measures that represent the framework for urban agriculture. For this purpose, guiding concepts such as the edible city, urban-regional food systems, food councils, sponge city or green city concepts are adapted and further developed.The targeted addressing, networking and, if necessary, financial support of the economically working farms, the socially oriented working urban gardeners and the public welfare-oriented cities and municipalities that have to create the framework conditions for urban agriculture appear to be of central importance in order to support and promote agriculture in its multifunctionality and to develop its huge potential

How European Agricultural Policy affects the development of farms

Die Unterschiede zwischen Regionen in Europa müssen bei der Umsetzung von Politikansätzen berücksichtigt werden. Das gilt insbesondere für die verschiedenen Faktoren, die die Landwirtschaft beeinflussen. Durch eine integrierte Modellierung kann die Anpassung politischer Entscheidungen unterstützt werden

Definition of common urban agriculture terms in German language and English equivalents

Die Integration landwirtschaftlicher Aktivitäten in Stadtentwicklungskonzepte und die Planung der produktiven grünen Infrastruktur im urbanen Raum erfordert eine räumliche und inhaltliche Definition des Begriffs der „urbanen Landwirtschaft“. Auf der Grundlage existierender Begrifflichkeiten haben sich hier die Bundesforschungseinrichtungen aus dem Geschäftsbereich des Bundesministeriums für Ernährung und Landwirtschaft auf eine für sie verbindliche Definition geeinigt. Die urbane Landwirtschaft umfasst danach alle Produktionssysteme und -verfahren der Landwirtschaft im weitesten Sinn, die auf Flächen, in Gewässern oder auf, an oder in Gebäuden in der Stadt oder ihrem nahen Umfeld für die kommerzielle oder nicht-kommerzielle Erzeugung von Produkten und Leistungen einschließlich Ökosystemleistungen im stadtregionalen, d. h. stadtnahem ruralem, peri-urbanen und intra-urbanen Raum genutzt werden. Zusätzlich wird ein Glossar von gebräuchlichen Begriffen der urbanen Landwirtschaft vorgeschlagen.The integration of agricultural activities into urban development concepts and the planning of productive green infrastructure in urban areas requires a comprehensive definition of the term "urban agriculture". On the basis of existing terminology, the federal research institutions of the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture have agreed on a definition that is binding for them. According to this, urban agriculture includes all agricultural production systems and processes in the broadest sense that are used on land, in or on water bodies, in or on buildings in the city or its immediate vicinity for the commercial or non-commercial production of products and services including ecosystem services in the city-regional, i.e. city-near rural, peri -urban and intra-urban space. A complementary bilingual glossary of urban agricultural nomenclature is provided

Provision of public goods and bads by agriculture and forestry. An analysis of stakeholders’ perception of factors, issues and mechanisms

The provision of public goods by agriculture and forestry has been a major topic of the agricultural policy debate in the EU. The objective of this paper is to investigate local stakeholder perceptions regarding the cause-effect relations between agriculture and forestry activities and a broad set of public goods and bads, and hence to contribute to the identification of improved policy options for a more efficient delivery of public goods from rural areas. The study presents an assessment based on 71 stakeholder questionnaires collected from seven case study regions in different EU countries. The survey was based on a list of the most relevant public goods and bads developed with the local stakeholders, and aimed to collect stakeholder perception of positive and negative impacts of agriculture and forestry on a range of environmental assets and their relationship with local drivers, socio-economic and cultural features, and policy mechanisms. The analysis shows that the role of agriculture and forestry in the provision of public goods is perceived as generally positive across the selected case study regions. Stakeholder opinions concerning the negative impacts on the environment were more divergent. In particular, differences regarding the impact of different socio-economic and cultural features, and policy mechanisms are evidenced. The results outline the importance of regulations. Also, payments for environmental services are considered relevant in particular for biodiversity, landscape, and water quality. Beside that, aspects such as expectations of society and the attitude of farmers towards the environment resulted noteworthy

Strategies for Sustainable Urban Development and Urban-Rural Linkages

An important driving force behind urban expansion is the growth of the urban population. But for Europe, this is not a sufficient explanation. The major trend is that European cities have become much less compact. Since the mid-1950s European cities have expanded on average by 78%, whereas the population has grown by only 33%. In the PLUREL project - an integrated project within the EU’s 6th Research Framework Programme - more than 100 researchers from 15 countries analysed the impacts of urban land consumption at a pan-European level and, through six European and one Chinese case studies, identified how land use conflicts and the pressure towards periurban areas can be strategically managed in different development and regulatory contexts. To summarise, the following strategies were identified as important steps towards more sustainable urban-rural futures: (i) better coordination of transport, land use and open space planning; (ii) urban containment and densification – development of a green compact city; (iii) preservation of blue and green infrastructure; and (iv) preservation of agricultural land and the promotion of local production. The need also remains to strengthen governance at the regional level while at the pan-European level there is clearly a need for more policy attention to be given to urban-rural linkages

Conceptualising fields of action for sustainable intensification A systematic literature review and application to regional case studies

[EN] After two decades of research on sustainable intensification (SI), namely securing food production on less environmental cost, heterogeneous understandings and perspectives prevail in a broad and partly fragmented scientific literature. Structuring and consolidating contributions to provide practice-oriented guidelines are lacking. The objectives of this study are to (1) comprehensively explore the academic SI literature, (2) propose an implementation-oriented conceptual framework, and (3) demonstrate its applicability for region-specific problem settings. In a systematic literature review of 349 papers covering the international literature of 20 years of SI research, we identified SI practices and analysed temporal, spatial and disciplinary trends and foci. Based on key SI practices, a conceptual framework was developed differentiating four fields of action from farm to regional and landscape scale and from land use to structural optimisation. Its applicability to derive region specific SI solutions was successfully tested through stakeholder processes in four European case studies. Disciplinary boundaries and the separation of the temporal and spatial strands in the literature prevent a holistic address of SI. This leads to the dominance of research describing SI practices in isolation, mainly on the farm scale. Coordinated actions on the regional scale and the coupling of multiple practices are comparatively un-derrepresented. Results from the case studies demonstrate that implementation is extremely context-sensitive and thus crucially depends on the situational knowledge of farmers and stakeholders. Although, there is no 'one size fits all' solution, practitioners in all regions identified the need for integrated solutions and common action to implement suitable SI strategies at the regional landscape level and in local ecosystems.This research was financially supported by the European Commission under grant agreement 652615 and conducted in the context of the ERA-Net FACCE SURPLUS project VITAL, with the national funders NWO (Netherlands), BMBF (Germany), INIA (Spain), ANR (France).Weltin, M.; Zasada, I.; Piorr, A.; Debolini, M.; Geniaux, G.; Moreno-Pérez, OM.; Scherer, L.... (2018). Conceptualising fields of action for sustainable intensification A systematic literature review and application to regional case studies. Agriculture Ecosystems & Environment. 257:68-80. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2018.01.023S688025