SENSE-project: : environmental assessment for the fruit juice industry (III)

The SENSE research project proposes a set of Key Environmental Performance Indicators (KEPI) to measure the environmental impact of the fruit juice production. The Blueprint Roadmap summarizes the policy context for the SENSE-tool and identifies opportunities and synergies between SENSE and other initiatives.Non peer reviewe

Challenges to the food supply in the UK: collaboration, value and the labour force

© 2020 Springer-Verlag. The final publication is available at Springer via https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-020-10088-8.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Symposium introduction - ethics and sustainable agri-food governance: appraisal and new directions

© Springer Nature B.V. 2019This Symposium contributes to a theoretical and methodological discussion on the role of ethics and responsibility in the governance of agri-food systems, as drivers for transitions towards sustainability. The papers in the Symposium are the outcomes of a collective reflection that was initiated at the European Society for Rural Sociology (ESRS) 2017 congress, within the Working Group on Ethics and sustainable agri-food governance. The session examined how ethics and ethical values drive change in the agri-food system, and how they increasingly evolve and influence food system governance. Building on the outcomes of the ESRS Working Group, the collection of papers in this Symposium fosters and deepens the discussion on the role of ethics in food systems, ranging across different food system actors, activities and contexts and presents new theoretical and methodological frameworks to understand the construction of more ethical agri-food systems.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Characterisation framework of key policy, regulatory and governance dynamics and impacts upon European food value chains: Fairer trading practices, food integrity, and sustainability collaborations. : VALUMICS project “Understanding Food Value Chains and Network Dynamics” funded by EU Horizon 2020 G.A. No 727243. Deliverable D3.3

The report provides a framework that categorises the different European Union (EU) policies, laws and governance actions identified as impacting upon food value chains in the defined areas of: fairer trading practices, food integrity (food safety and authenticity), and sustainability collaborations along food value chains. A four-stage framework is presented and illustrated with examples. The evidence shows that European Union policy activity impacting upon food value chain dynamics is increasing, both in terms of the impacts of policies upon the chains, and, in terms of addressing some of the more contentious outcomes of these dynamics. A number of policy priorities are at play in addressing the outcomes of food value chain dynamics. unevenness of the distribution of profit within food value chains, notably to farmers. Regulation of food safety and aspects of authenticity has been a key focus for two decades to ensure a functioning single market while ensuring consumer health and wellbeing. A food chain length perspective has been attempted, notably through regulations such as the General Food Law, and the rationalisation of the Official Controls on food and feed safety. However, there are still gaps in the effective monitoring and transparency of food safety and of food integrity along value chains, as exemplified by misleading claims and criminal fraud. This has led to renewed policy actions over food fraud, in particular. EU regulations, policies and related governance initiatives provide an important framework for national-level actions for EU member states and for EEA members. The more tightly EU-regulated areas, such as food safety, see fewer extra initiatives, but where there is a more general strategic policy and governance push, such as food waste reduction or food fraud, there is greater independent state-level activity. Likewise, there is much more variation in the application of both national and European (Competition) law to govern unfair trading practices impacting upon food value chains. This report presents the findings of a survey of members from the VALUMICS stakeholder platform, that were policy facing food value chain stakeholders across selected European countries, including both EU and EEA Member States. The survey was conducted to check the significance of the main policies identified in the mapping exercise at EU and national levels and so to incorporate the views of stakeholders in the research. The responses suggest the policy concerns identified in EU and national-level research resonate with food value chain stakeholders in participating nations. The report concludes by exploring in more detail how the themes of fairness and of transparency are being handled in the policy activities presented. Highlighted are the ways that both fairness and transparency can be extended within the existing frameworks of EU policy activity. The findings in this report provide an important context for further and detailed research analysis of the workings and dynamics of European food value chains under the VALUMICS project

Policy and Governance Questions about the National Food Strategy

A new National Food Strategy for England (Part II) has just been published (following on from Part I in 2020). The team in the University of Hertfordshire’s Food Systems & Policy research group have been conducting research on food policy for more than twenty years. Their previous work on the topic has addressed: joined-up food policy ; the challenges of integrating health, environment and society in food policy ; the history of UK food policy and attempts to create a national food policy ; who makes food policy in England ; how food issues are connected across government ; the food policy response to the Covid-19 pandemic ; and policy levers for food system transformation. Here, they provide some immediate reflections on the National Food Strategy Part Two (NFS), focusing on the policy and governance measures proposed, followed by a background briefing on national food strategies

The dynamics of the contemporary governance of the world's food supply and the challenges of policy redirection

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version. The final publication is available at Springer via https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-015-0429-x.This paper identifies the governance dynamics and the international policy architecture that frame contemporary policy actions in relation to the food supply and elaborates on key governance tensions that policy makers need to address to feed the world’s growing population by the mid-21st century. Two main dimensions of governance are examined: the international policy space, composed of nation states collaborating through international regimes with other international actors; and the private corporate led governance of the food supply. At the international levels, policy discontinuities and gaps are identified, for example between international environmental regimes and food security institutions. The so-called Washington Consensus has given way to a post Washington divergence of policy approaches amongst states, reflecting the “varieties of capitalism” thesis, and a more multi-polar international policy space over food and agriculture. In the past decade, policy makers have engaged industry in the international pursuit of sustainability, with a focus on policy actions around achieving sustainable consumption and production of food. The resulting contemporary governance trajectories are providing a disjointed but widespread set of policy guidelines with some evidence of convergence. These governance forms are helping to shape the terms of debate but the reliance on industry mediated food sustainability will need to be augmented by stronger political leadership from the individual nation states. Policy advances will need to build on the more collaborative and inclusive forms of governance that are being put in place, and continue to improve the balance of sustainable production and consumption of foodPeer reviewe

Identifying the Policy Instrument Interactions to Enable the Public Procurement of Sustainable Food

© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)A public food procurement policy has been identified as having significant potential to drive food consumption and production towards greater sustainability, delivering social, economic, environmental, and health benefits to multiple beneficiaries. However, empirical research reveals that the potential of public procurement of sustainable food (PPSF) is not currently being realised, with studies from a range of different countries identifying stubborn barriers. Situating PPSF within the complex multi-instrument setting of the broader policy system, and utilising the concept of policy interactions, can help to explain, articulate, and provide pathways to address barriers identified in empirical studies on PPSF. A desk survey of PPSF in different countries identified the range of instruments which interact with procurement policy. The findings detail PPSF instruments interacting with many other policy instruments, resulting in both positive reinforcing and negative undermining effects. Taken as a whole, these interactions suggest a ‘policy package’ of instruments which should be considered in PPSF policy design to maximise effectiveness and capitalise on its transformative potential.Peer reviewe

England’s Food Policy Response to Covid : Review of policy issues and intervention

This report was produced as part of a project on England's food policy and food security, funded through Research England’s Quality-related Research Strategic Priorities Fund at the University of Hertfordshire. The aim of the project is to analyse England's food policy response to the Covid-19 pandemic, to gain insights into the current state of its food policy processes and operations. A particular focus is the coordination of national food policy approaches, and their implications for food policy and food security going forward. This report presents a review of food-related issues and interventions related to the Covid-19 pandemic. An accompanying journal paper focuses on the role of coordination in the response. The report has two main parts, the first presents issues and interventions, using the different segments of the supply chain as an organising framework. Part II presents a timeline of interventions between March-September 2020, with a primary focus on government policy interventions

Organizing for thoughtful food: A meshwork approach

© 2020 Springer-Verlag. The final publication is available at Springer via https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-020-10139-0This paper provides an alternative narrative for organizing food systems. It introduces meshwork as a novel theoretical lens to examine the ontological assumptions underlying the shadow and informal dynamics of organizing food. Through a longitudinal qualitative case study, we place relationality and becoming at the centre of organizing food and food systems, demonstrating how entangled relationships can create a complex ontology through the meshwork knots, threads and weave. We show how issues of collective concern come together to form dynamic knots of interactions, how the threads within the meshwork indicate processes of movement, and how the weave suggests degrees of food system resilience - but always in flow. This theoretical approach thus provides a platform for addressing thoughtful concerns about “food matters” including the integrity of our global food system, the negative health and environmental impacts of industrialized food production, and food safety issues.Peer reviewe

Dynamics of Food Value Chains: Resilience, Fairness and Sustainability

© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).Peer reviewedFinal Published versio