Urban food strategies in Central and Eastern Europe: what's specific and what's at stake?

Integrating a larger set of instruments into Rural Development Programmes implied an increasing focus on monitoring and evaluation. Against the highly diversified experience with regard to implementation of policy instruments the Common Monitoring and Evaluation Framework has been set up by the EU Commission as a strategic and streamlined method of evaluating programmes’ impacts. Its indicator-based approach mainly reflects the concept of a linear, measure-based intervention logic that falls short of the true nature of RDP operation and impact capacity on rural changes. Besides the different phases of the policy process, i.e. policy design, delivery and evaluation, the regional context with its specific set of challenges and opportunities seems critical to the understanding and improvement of programme performance. In particular the role of local actors can hardly be grasped by quantitative indicators alone, but has to be addressed by assessing processes of social innovation. This shift in the evaluation focus underpins the need to take account of regional implementation specificities and processes of social innovation as decisive elements for programme performance.

The resilience of short food supply chains during the COVID-19 pandemic: a case study of a direct purchasing network

IntroductionThe COVID-19 pandemic has presented challenges to global food supply chains. Since the beginning of the pandemic researchers have studied various food supply chain issues influenced by the COVID-19 crisis, including impacts on consumer behavior, and logistical and organizational changes to food supply chains. Despite the proliferation of studies on food supply chains during the pandemic, only a few researchers have focused on short food supply chains and their resilience. Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore the resilience of short food supply chains during the COVID-19 pandemic using a direct purchasing (DP) network as a case study. The study considered three research questions. (1) How has the functioning of the DP network changed during the COVID-19 pandemic? (2) What role do resilience elements (i.e., readiness to shocks, responsiveness to disruption, and recovery from the crisis) play in the short food supply chain response to the COVID-19 crisis? (3) Which innovations in the short food supply chain would further the recovery process, and thus resilience, after the crisis?MethodsThis article presents a case study of a direct organic food purchasing network in Latvia. The analysis of economic data regarding the dynamics of organic product demand and supply in the DP network was supplemented with an analysis of qualitative data gathered through semi-structured in-depth interviews with representatives of three groups of DP network participants: consumers, producers, and DP network organizers.Results and discussionFrom the consumer and producer experiences, the DP network was a flexible short food chain that could adapt quickly in a crisis. While the number of DP distribution points and total number of purchases decreased during the pandemic, a statistically significant increase in the number of product units sold compared to the pre-COVID-19 period was observed. From the perspective of food chain resilience elements, the reactive strategies of the DP network as a short food supply chain were highlighted. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the organizational and product innovations introduced in the DP network played a key role in enhancing the resilience of the short supply chain in the context of the wider food system

Final Report of the SOLINSA project. Project Deliverable D8.2 of the SOLINSA project (GA 266306)

The Final Report outlines results of the Project “Agricultural Knowledge Systems in Transition: Towards a more effective and efficient support of Learning and Innovation Networks for Sustainable Agriculture” (Project acronym: SOLINSA). The project was conceived and implemented as a response to the need for identifying new ways of transition from “productivist” practices to more sustainable agriculture and rural development, where traditional institutions in charge of fostering innovation are not always relevant and effective. The EU SOLINSA project proposes a new organisational pattern aimed at fostering innovation for transition. It illuminates the role of learning and innovation in transition processes, explores networks as drivers of innovation and proposes the concept of Learning and Innovation Networks for Sustainable Agriculture (LINSA) as policy device to help farmers and rural actors generate innovations for transition. The consortium was comprised by 11 research institutions from 8 European countries. To achieve the project objective of identifying effective and efficient approaches for the support of successful LINSA, researchers collaborated with 17 LINSA using a transdisciplinary method based on participation. This report is a summary of the most relevant empirical results and theoretical advancements achieved in the project

MAKING REGIONAL FOOD SYSTEMS MORE SUSTAINABLE

This paper analyses and compares regional food systems in Latvia and Lithuania from the perspective of sustainable food security and poses three questions: (i) what are the general food system characteristics and drivers of change in Latvia and Lithuania? (ii) how are the regional food systems constructed and performing? (iii) what are the conditions and pathways for regional food systems to become more sustainable?  The paper examines in-depth the food systems in two regions – Pierīga region in Latvia and Vilnius region in Lithuania. The research is carried out within the framework of the EU projects TRANSMANGO and SALSA, and the Latvian Council of Sciences project SINFO. We find that food chain concentration and the interests of big food industries and retailers drive food systems in Latvia and Lithuania while civic and consumer-driven initiatives are becoming more important in stimulating a transition towards sustainable diets. The regional food systems are a complex intertwinement between the agro-industrial, proximity, domestic, and ecological subsystems. The pathways towards more sustainable regional food systems are difficult to negotiate and enforce as they require collaboration among various stakeholders who have different agendas. The long-term prospects of the regional food systems in terms of social and economic sustainability cannot be viewed in isolation from the demographic trends in the region, the steady depopulation in rural areas and efforts in strengthening urban-rural synergies

Bricolage for self-sufficiency: an analysis of alternative food networks

In this article the bricolage concept is applied to compare the organisational dynamics of two alternative food networks (AFNs) in Riga and Bristol respectively. It is argued that bricolage is a useful concept to understand the dynamics of AFNs. The concept “bricolage” refers to the free use of any materials at hand. Bricoleurs accept that these materials might not be ideal, but nevertheless use them as long as they offer characteristics that help to reach the AFN goals (which, for the AFNs featured in this article, are establishing a functioning farmers’ market, and founding a market garden). Such use of “what fits” and “what’s at hand” may lead to new and unexpected ways how these initiatives operate. The article argues that bricolage is a liberating concept in the organisational study of AFNs because it frames them as characteristically dynamic and constantly active in relation to changes in local contexts. Bricolage thus helps determine the nature of AFN dynamism

Urban Food Strategies. The rough guide to sustainable food systems

This guide provides motivation and support for those actors interested in building more sustainable food systems in urban contexts

Supporting the role of small farms in the European regional food systems: What role for the science-policy interface?

[EN] Small farms dominate the European agricultural landscape, but they are much less represented in agricultural decision-making structures than larger farms. The weak political representation of small farms diminishes the degree to which their needs are addressed in public agricultural policies and support measures. This under representation has been constraining small farms? contribution to food and nutrition security and sustainability. This paper explores the science ? policy interface as boundary networks between researchers and policy-makers, to generate policies that are better-informed and better tailored to small farms? situations. It gathers researchers? experiences, from the Horizon 2020 project SALSA, through a range of project-generated activities and knowledge, of their engagement in the policy process. From the case studies analyzed, three types of SPI emerge: expert advice, networking platform and collaborative governance. Cooperation between researchers and policy-makers, that is often embedded in broader stakeholders? networks, generate three kinds of contributions: better-informed policy process; increased social capital and empowerment of participants; and improved participant knowledge and skills.This work has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 677363.Sumane, S.; Ortiz Miranda, D.; Pinto-Correia, T.; Czekaj, M.; Duckett, D.; Galli, F.; Grivins, M.... (2021). Supporting the role of small farms in the European regional food systems: What role for the science-policy interface?. Global Food Security. 28:1-10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2020.100433S1102

Unseen food: The importance of extra-market small farm's production for rural households in Europe

Small farms are a key part of the system of food flows that happen outside of marketing channels, and which is a crucial source of food for to the most vulnerable part of the world population living in the rural or connected to the rural through family and other social links. Food Self-Provisioning (FSP) is the largest share of these informal flows. For Europe and European small farms today, the role of FSP is relatively un-known. In this paper we address the relative weight and relevance of extra-market arrangements in small farms in Europe, thus contributing to the understanding of the multi-dimensional role of small farms in the regional food system they are part of, and also in the wellbeing of their own household. The analysis is based on 739 face-to-face interviews to small farms, in 24 regions of Europe across a North-South and East-West gradient. We show evidence that FSP is important in all types of small farms, and even if all small farms are in some way linked to the market, they continue producing food which circulates outside the market and may be quite relevant for the farm household, as well as for strengthening social ties in the rural communities and rural-urban interactions