Global challenges for sustainable food production

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Transforming food systems through food sovereignty: an Australian urban context

This article draws on La Via Campesina's definition of food sovereignty and its potential for reconceptualising food as a basic human right within the dominant Australian food discourse. We argue that the educative value that emerges from urban food production in Australia stems from the action of growing food and its capacity to transform individuals’ social and environmental concerns over food systems. Community participation in urban food production can promote a learning process that generates political understanding and concerns over food systems. We use the education theories of transformative learning and critical consciousness to discuss how Australian urban food production systems can create this social and environmental support for alternative food systems. By having control over food production practices and building collective understandings of how food choices impact global food systems, elements of food sovereignty can develop in an Australian urban context

Issues of sustainable food production in Latvia

The article presents main results of the first in Latvia study addressing the issues of the development of Latvia’s sustainable food production. For detailed research two main themes for Latvia’s agri-food sector’s sustainability were chosen: 1) the issues related to further development of the organic farming and processing; where the special attention has been paid to organic milk processing; and obtaining of organic pigmeat and beef in different Latvia’s regions; 2) quality and environment management systems enforcement - mandatory and voluntary and the trends of implementation of the international management standards (ISO 9001, ISO 22000; HACCP DS 3027:2002; ISO 14001). The publications, legal documents and databases of Latvia’s governmental and nongovernmental institutions were used as materials and the qualitative and quantitative research methods were applied for this empirical research. The assessment of present situation and the proposals for further development has been given

Virna - a database on organic food production

Virna is an article reference database on organic food production. It contains material about such matters as organic and ecological crop production and horticulture, soil, fertilization, plant protection, animal production, processing of organic products, marketing and the environmental impacts of agriculture. The literature references have been taken from periodicals and congress publications as well as compilations

Towards more ecoefficient food production: MFA approach

The key for the sustainable development is dematerialisation and ecoefficiency. Applied to agriculture ecoefficiency means production of nutritionally better food by using less inputs and by reducing the environmental burden. In restricting the material throughput it is essential to identify the most voluminous material flows and to direct the measures to them. Improving ecoefficiency of the food production requires that the benefits and the inputs are quantified in an unambiguous way and that the inputs are estimated for the whole production chain. A comprehensive view of the whole system is necessary. The food system comprises four mutually linked loops: 1) the plant production 2) the livestock husbandry, 3) the food processing industry and 4) the human consumption. In the present paper MFA approach has been used to describe the system. A general framework for estimating and balancing the materials flow is outlined. The focus is on agriculture, specifically on the materials flow created by the biological metabolism of the animal husbandry. The holistic MFA approach provides means to evaluate environmental and economic consequences of the production. For the decision-makers the MFA approach is a tool to guide the development and to assess the progress towards increasing ecoefficiency within the food system. The results can be used in developing new sustainability indicators. Some of the possibilities are shortly discussed. The study is the first step in developing MFA methods to analyse and to monitor the materials flow of the Finnish food systems. It is a part of the project “The Materials Flow and Ecoefficiency of Agriculture and the Sustainable Compatibility of the Food Production” carried out in collaboration between the MTT - Agrifood Research Finland and the Thule Institute at the University of Oulu. The results are used also in compiling the Finnish physical input-output tables. The study, thus, contributes to the overall development of the materials flow accounting statistics

Towards more ecoefficient food production: MFA approach

The food flux comprises four mutually linked loops: 1)plant production, 2)livestock husbandry, 3) food processing industry and 4) human consumption. In the present paper MFA approach has been used to describe the system. A general framework and practical solutions for estimating and balancing the materials flow are outlined. The focus in this paper is agriculture

Do Organic Consumers Oppose Genetically Modified Food Stronger than Others? Results of a Consumer Research in Germany

The majority of consumers, in particular European consumers oppose genetic modifi-cation of food. Although consumers oppose strongly genetic modification of food, genetically modified food production increases world wide. The co-existence of both, genetically modified food production and food production free of genetic modification cannot be ensured. There is always a risk that non-genetically modified food gets contaminated despite safety regulations. Thus, even organic production, which is supposed to be free of genetic modification, is endangered and can maybe not ensure to produce food definitely free of genetic modification. Against that background, this consumer research focuses on organic consumers and their attitudes towards geneti-cally modified food. The findings indicate clearly that organic consumer oppose ge-netically modified food stronger than others

PRODUCTIVITY FOR THE FUTURE: FOOD PRODUCTION

The ability to increase food production from unconventional sources does exist, however, is it attractive from an economic point of view?Productivity Analysis,