Systemic sustainability characteristics of organic farming: a review

Agriculture for food production has come to crossroads: while conventional agriculture needs to improve environmental and social performance, organic agriculture needs to increase the production volumes and to re-establish the connctedness between producers and consumers. Through re-localising the food production there is an increasing convergence of the farming practices towards sustainable agriculture acknowledging the prospects, advantages and limitations of the different production systems. The aim is to find combination of production methods that is optimal in given circumstances and to adapt the production system accordingly. Assessment of the environmental impacts should be integrated into assessment of the overall sustainability. Formulation of the management strategies requires evaluation and integration of reaseach results from many different disciplines, and the focus of the interdisciplinary research should be on food systems bioregions rather than on the level of farms or farming systems. The present article is a review on today's discussion and research dealing with conventional, organic and local farming for food production. The future prospects of organic production to respond to the challenges of advancing global food security and to contribute to overall sustainable development are discussed. It seems that as a developing production mode organic agriculture has a role to play in the green global network of local food systems

Institutional consumers' views of GHG emission reduction by optional milk systems within sustainability frame

An on-going study examines how Green House Gas (GHG) emission information could be used to support consumption driven changes in production, leading to reduction of GHG emissions in agriculture. This paper presents a pre-study, looking for discursive grounds by which institutional consumers make choices when confronted with the knowledge of GHG emission characteristics of five optional milk systems. The milk systems to be compared in terms of agricultural GHG emissions were (Option I) conventional milk system based on imported soy protein feed, (Option II) conventional milk system using domestic protein source and (Option III) organic milk system, as well as vegetable milk systems based on (Option IV) imported soy and (Option V) domestic oat. The discursive turn to these optional milk systems was taken by five catering information professionals, who tried to respond to the idea of catering for sustainability. The results revealed four different discourses, with variable ability to make use of emission information when systemic change is to be approached in everyday productive activities. Regarding emission information, the least sensitive discourse was the one of modernization, emphasising the use of conventional, cheap products. Sustainability and ecological modernization discourses exhibited most imaginative and novel solutions in productive activities. Bioregionalism discourse joined other discourses connecting them with the idea of domestic production. The discourses identified in this pre-study were, however, very fine-grained and intermingled, offering rather lean support for novel choices. Additionally the market position of organic milk suffered due to emission information, stressing heavily the reliability of environmental information as a ‘change agent’ on the market

Towards sustainable food systems through innovative networks in public catering

Sustainability of food systems inherently implies food security, but in search for cost savings, the decision‐makers tend to belittle the significance of food security, to overlook the various aspects of sustainability in statutory catering and to ignore the environmental, societal and cultural aspects of food. An extensive survey on the present status of statutory public catering shows, that although the severe natural circumstances present great challenges for food production in Finland, municipal public catering is still today largely based on domestically produced food. Thus, even in extreme circumstances national food security is possible. However, because food security is not seen as constituting an essential part of sustainable development (SD), the situation may alter in future. There is also large variation among Finnish municipalities as to how those involved in catering understand the concept SD, how SD has been accounted for and how it can be promoted in practice. In addition, there is very little direct co‐operation between researchers, extension and practical actors of municipal catering. The results imply that in order to encourage sustainable food consumption, the concept of SD should be brought clearly into the context of public catering. The municipalities differ as to the foci and development needs. Therefore, there are no universal solutions, but the solutions need to be slotted to the prevailing local circumstances and reconciled in mutual understanding among the actors. Innovative networks involving municipal actors, researchers and an expert as a broker provide one promising channel for finding the local way to improve sustainability of public catering. This study aims at reconnecting people to the origin of food in their own surroundings and encouraging them to actively promote sustainable food systems and sustainability in public catering through empowerment of the actors within innovative local networks. The presentation captures the results from the survey and discusses future perspectives of increasing sustainability within public catering in light of first experiences from the actors’ innovative networks

Impact of consumers' diet choices on greenhouse gas emissions

This study explores the impacts on agricultural and total GHG emissions of Finnish consumption if the share of animal based food products was reduced and if the share of ecologically produced food was to increase in Finland. GHG emissions associated with production of basic food items were quantified (per capita per annum) for current food consumption, for national standard diet recommendations, for a diet with no milk and beef and for a vegan diet including an oat-based milk susbstitute. The major source of GHG in primary food production is the cultivated soil. For the present average food consumption the emissions from the soil comprise 62 %, the share of emissions due to enteric fermentation is 24 %, whereas energy consumption and fertilizer manufacture both contribute about 8 %. Because of the extensive production mode, regarding GHG emissions the environmental performance, of organic production is poor

Translation process research as interaction research: from mental to socio-cognitive processes

The main methodological approaches used in cognitive translation process research have hitherto been inspired by methods originally developed in the behavioural sciences, especially psychology. This article contends that mainstream experimental research in laboratory settings needs to be complemented with other methodological approaches such as qualitative, ethnographic research in order to be able to account for the situated, embedded and extended aspects of cognition – as described in current cognitive science approaches. In addition, it presents the empirical research design and initial results of an ethnographic field study into the socio-cognitive aspects of translation. The results show the complexity of the social network involved in the observed case of freelance translation, the tendency of the translator to externalize parts of the process and thus transform the internal processing into an interaction with self-produced outer stimuli—thereby reconfiguring the cognitive space—and the existence of distinct, iterative interaction patterns that stand out as behavioural and cognitive routines in the way the translator works.Die zentralen methodologischen Ansätze der kognitiven Translationsprozessforschung orientierten sich bisher an jenen Methoden, die ursprünglich im Rahmen der Verhaltensforschung, allen voran der Psychologie, entwickelt worden waren. In diesem Beitrag wird argumentiert, dass die etablierte Tradition der experimentellen Laborforschung mit weiteren methodologischen Herangehensweisen, etwa dem ethnographischen Forschungsansatz, ergänzt werden sollte. Entsprechend der gegenwärtigen Auffassung in der Kognitionswissenschaft bietet eine derartige Erweiterung die Möglichkeit, dem Konzept der situated, embedded und extended cognition Rechnung zu tragen. Des Weiteren werden in diesem Beitrag das empirische Forschungsdesign sowie erste Ergebnisse einer ethnographischen Feldstudie zu soziokognitiven Aspekten von Translation beschrieben. Die Beobachtungen einer freiberuflichen Übersetzerin offenbaren zunächst die Komplexität ihres sozialen Netzwerkes. Zudem wird die Tendenz der Übersetzerin deutlich, Teile des Arbeitsprozesses zu externalisieren, wobei interne Verarbeitungsprozesse zu Interaktionen mit selbst generierten Artefakten umgewandelt und kognitive Räume somit neu konfiguriert werden. Nicht zuletzt wird die Existenz verschiedener, iterativer Interaktionsprozesse veranschaulicht, die spezifische Verhaltens- und Denkmuster der Übersetzerin darstellen

Case study fact sheet- PolarShiitake,Finland

Short compilation of the full case study repor

Tutkimuskohteen esittely. Järvifisu, Kiuruvesi

Compilation in Finnish of the full case study repor

Luomua vai kestävää elintarviketuotantoa?

Koveneva taloudellinen kilpailu suosii suurtuotantoa. Myös Suomen maataloustuotannossa on käynnissä voimakas rakennemuutos. Tämä näkyy sekä maatilojen että viljelijöitten määrän vähenemisenä, keskimääräisen tilakoon kasvuna ja tuotannon lisääntyvänä alueellisena erikoistumisena. Viimeisten vuosikymmenien aikana tuotanto on myös merkittävästi voimaperäistynyt. Kasvinviljelyn hehtaarisadot ovat liki kaksinkertaistuneet, mutta maatalouskemikaalien käyttö ja energiankulutus ovat kasvaneet melkein samaa tahtia.vo

Cooperation and Quality Assurance in Technical Translation Projects

The professional profile emerging to address today’s demands in business and industry bears little resemblance to the traditional view of translators as solitary all-rounders. Translators and technical writers are now increasingly seen as problem-solvers, working in teams and interacting with other experts. They act as text coordinators, language leads, localisers, information designers or content managers