| 1. |
- Bergame, Nathalie
(författare)
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More than flowers! : On the transformative practice of commoning urban gardens
- 2023
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Urban gardening is a burgeoning practice that increasingly takes place in urban centres of the world. In this thesis, I define urban gardens as socially mediated yet materially rooted phenomenon through which social and material relations are elaborated in common through time and space. And, I understand the garden not as an object, but as an entity that emerges out of the relationships between gardeners and non-human nature. I draw on the recent turn in commons’ theory shifting the focus on commoning, and not, as in earlier commons research, on the commons as structure. Grounded in the case of a new wave of urban gardening initiatives in the City of Stockholm, Sweden, I examine how commoning urban gardens transforms the people doing the gardening, the commoners, including their agency, subjectivity, and identity. But also how the commoners shape their structural environment.Ontologically, I deploy a critical realist social theory perspective which means that I acknowledge the a priori existence of structures and agency and their conditioning by each other relationally. This means that I (i) look at how spatial, societal and temporal structures affect the agency of gardeners (ii) how those gardeners are affecting their structural environment through the practice of urban gardening, as (iii) well as how their agency is conditioned by the practice.I deploy a qualitative mixed methods approach, comprising of interviews, a questionnaire, observations, participatory dissemination and poetic inquiry and find that high green public space availability in the City of Stockholm, municipal policies in favour of urban gardening, and a rich historic culture of associational life in Sweden provide a supportive context for urban gardening. I find that commoning gardens in public spaces bring together people and build collective relations despite a context of neoliberal individualisation. It emancipates individuals by reorganising the management of urban space, and changes how the City of Stockholm is urbanising towards more collective organising. Among those that partake in urban gardening, some remain grounded in a need-fulfilment (“I want to garden to be more in nature”), whereas others change through the commitment of being part of an urban garden, become political and collective subjectivities with a social identity that overlaps with their personal identity. This shows that structures condition people differently, and do not deterministically affect agency in the same way for everyone. Yet many remain entirely excluded from the new urban garden commons, such as people of colour, indicating that urban gardening, while it can be transformative for those that partake, is reproductive of structures of whiteness in urban public space. At the same time, historical structures of patriarchy in public spaces are being transformed. At the expense of the unpaid social reproductive labour of female gardeners, who make out the majority of urban gardeners, public green space is being transformed into spaces of care and community.I conclude that urban gardening deserves a critical analysis of its immanent contradictions to safeguard against unwanted and unintentional reproduction of injustices and for the promotion of practices that emancipate and empower people.
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| 2. |
- Bergame, Nathalie, et al.
(författare)
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Preparing the grounds for emancipation. Explaining commoning as an emancipatory mechanism through dialectical social theory
- 2022
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Ingår i: Environment and Planning E. - : SAGE Publications. - 2514-8486 .- 2514-8494. ; , s. 1-20
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- While there is evidence that commons have the potential to counteract socio-spatial injustices unleashed by neoliberal and capitalist forms of urbanisation, less is known about how commons lead to emancipatory change. Anchored in dialectical social theory, this article explains commoning as a mechanism through which people reproduce/transform their structural context and agency, arguing that the potential for emancipation through commoning lies in the commoners’ ability to induce processes of structural/agential transformation. Empirically grounded in interviews with urban community gardeners in the City of Stockholm, Sweden, we show that collective gardening conceptualised as practice of commoning contributes to structural change in that female volunteer labour collectivises the mandate over municipally managed public space, transforming socio-spatial relations. Yet, garden commoning proves to reproduce structural whiteness and middle-class agency in public space, fails to establish autonomy from waged-labour relations, and is unable to abolish the separation from the sources of reproduction and subsistence.
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| 3. |
- Darnhofer, Ika, et al.
(författare)
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Adaptiveness to enhance the sustainability of farming systems : A review
- 2010
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Ingår i: Agronomy for Sustainable Development. - : Springer. - 1774-0746 .- 1773-0155. ; 30, s. 545-555
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- During the last decade the context in which farmers must manage their farm has changed rapidly, and often with little warning. Dramatic price swings for agricultural commodities, more stringent quality requirements, new environmental regulations, the debates surrounding genetically modified crops, extreme climatic events, the demand for energy crops, the revision of the Common Agricultural Policy and the consequences of the financial crisis all create uncertainty regarding future threats and potentials. During such turbulent times, a one-sided focus on efficient production is no longer enough. Farmers also need to be able to cope with unexpected events and to adapt to new developments. Based on a literature review, we identify three strategies that strengthen the adaptive capacity of a farm: learning through experimenting and monitoring its outcomes, ensuring a flexible farm organisation to increase the options for new activities by the farm family, and diversifying to spread risks and create buffers. Implementing these strategies enlarges the farmer's room to manoeuvre and allows identifying transition options. These options do not depend only on the farm itself, but also on the farmer's ability to mobilise external resources and to engage in collective action. Change is then no longer seen as a disturbance, but as a trigger for the reorganisation of resources, and for the renewal of the farm organisation and activities. Implementing these strategies comes at a cost, so that farmers need to tackle the inevitable trade-offs between efficiency and adaptability. However, unless farmers master this challenge they cannot ensure the sustainability of their farms.
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| 4. |
- Jaklin, Ulrike, et al.
(författare)
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Why do farmers collaborate with a food cooperative? : Reasons for participating in a civic food network in Vienna, Austria
- 2015
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Ingår i: International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food. - : Cardiff University; Florida Atlantic University. - 0798-1759. ; 22:1, s. 41-61
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Food cooperatives can be qualified as a civic food network as they can create more embedded market relations between consumers and farmers and increase knowledge about food consumption. In this study, we explore why farmers collaborated with the consumer-initiated food co-op D’Speis in Vienna, and assess the food co-op’s potential to support a peasant mode of farming. Farmers and working members of the food co-op were interviewed. As the food co-op selected their suppliers depending on their production methods, i.e. small-scale and organic farming, all farmers showed some elements of peasant farming. The interaction between farmers and co-op members, especially regarding price negotiations and quality standards, provided farmers with more room to manoeuvre. As the food co-op’s contribution to farmers’ incomes was negligible, the food co-op mainly supported peasant farming in the sphere of social and cultural capital. However, the degree of collaboration differed substantially as more peasant farmers interacted more closely with the food co-op. The farmers and co-op members shared their criticism of the hegemonic food system, but on the other hand missed clear common goals. Both farmers and food co-op members regarded their practices as political acts for a different food system. Values deduced from these practices point towards food sovereignty, which could serve as a compass for common political actions.
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| 5. |
- Katzeff, Cecilia, Associate professor, 1957-, et al.
(författare)
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Encouraging Organic Food Consumption through Visualization of Personal Shopping Data
- 2020
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Ingår i: Sustainability. - Basel, Switzerland : MDPI. - 2071-1050. ; 12:9, s. 1-15
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Although food retailers have embraced organic certified food products as a way to reduce their environmental loading, organic sales only make up a small proportion of total sales worldwide. Most consumers have positive attitudes towards organic food, but attitudes are not reflected in behaviour. This article addresses consumers' attitude-behaviour gap regarding their purchase of organic food and reports on how visualization of personal shopping data may encourage them to buy more organic food. Through the design of the visualization tool, the EcoPanel, and through an empirical study of its use, we provide evidence on the potential of the tool to promote sustainable food shopping practices. Of 65 users that tested the EcoPanel for five months, in-depth interviews were made with nine of these. The test users increased their purchase of organic food by 23%. The informants used the EcoPanel to reflect on their shopping behaviour and to increase their organic shopping. We conclude that the visualization of food purchases stimulates critical reflection and the formation of new food shopping practices. This implies that food retailers may increase sales of organic food through using a visualization tool available for their customers. In this way, these retailers may decrease their environmental impact.
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| 6. |
- Kummer, Susanne, et al.
(författare)
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The Diversity of Organic Box Schemes in Europe-An Exploratory Study in Four Countries
- 2020
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Ingår i: Sustainability. - : MDPI AG. - 2071-1050. ; 12:7
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Box schemes provide an opportunity to scale up local organic food systems by aggregating products from multiple producers and efficiently delivering them to consumers. However, there is limited knowledge about the overall organic box scheme landscape and how it develops. This article explores organic box schemes in four European countries and thus contributes by comparing box schemes of different sizes in different geographical and organisational contexts. Survey results from 44 box schemes were used to analyse box schemes in relation to size and growth, organisation, communication with customers, delivery modes, distances travelled by produce and boxes, and values adhered to. Although the surveyed box schemes differed in size and organisation, similarities between box schemes were found in many aspects. For example, most surveyed box schemes had grown considerably since their start, and wished to grow further, and they all rated certain values as important. A tendency for larger box schemes to offer more imported produce, to have operated for a longer time, and to use social media for advertising more often was found. Despite the heterogeneity of the box schemes in the survey, we conclude that box schemes are a useful category to explore in the sustainability transition of food systems.
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| 7. |
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| 8. |
- Milestad, Rebecka, 1973-, et al.
(författare)
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Managing growth in medium-sized organic businesses : Implications for local orientation and resilience building
- 2023
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Ingår i: Sociologia Ruralis. - : Wiley. - 0038-0199 .- 1467-9523. ; 63:1, s. 45-65
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article explores how locally oriented organic businesses adapt to handle crises during a growth process to build resilience, how these businesses maintain the local orientation when growing and what the implications are for the relationship between territoriality and organic production. We explored four cases of organic businesses in Sweden, Norway, Germany and Austria. The cases can be described as Values-based Territorial Food Networks. All cases experienced challenges and crises during their growth processes and sought to provide stability and flexibility in order to deal with change. The restructuration process required internalising learning into their organisations, using diversity in a strategic way and forming long-term partnerships within their value chains. While organic certification was never at stake, the meaning of ‘local’ shifted in some of the cases.
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| 9. |
- Milestad, Rebecka, 1973-, et al.
(författare)
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Tensions in future development of organic production—views of stakeholders on Organic 3.0
- 2020
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Ingår i: Organic Agriculture. - : Springer. - 1879-4238 .- 1879-4246.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study analysed Swedish stakeholders’ views on future developments of organic production and consumption based on Organic 3.0, a strategic initiative by the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM). Focus group discussions were carried out with actors representing different parts of the organic value chain in Sweden. These identified a number of tensions, four of which represented an unresolved dichotomy in the way forward for the organic movement and its relevance for organic production in most settings. The first tension was between the drive for increased efficiency to achieve higher yields and an agroecological approach with broader sustainability values. The second concerned availability of plant nutrients in organic agriculture including safe recirculating of nutrients from society. The third tension set new technology against the precautionary principle and the notion of naturalness. The fourth concerned the role of organic as an innovation system; whether organic should be a forerunner, i.e. performing well above average and fostering innovation, or whether organic should be a broader movement including more farmers but then requiring more regulations that may hinder innovation. These tensions will result in important choices on direction for the organic sector as it pursues the Organic 3.0 goal of sustainably feeding a growing population based on farming systems based on organic principles.
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| 10. |
- Milestad, Rebecka, 1973-, et al.
(författare)
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The Hogdalen urban farm : a real case assessment of sustainability attributes
- 2020
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Ingår i: Food Security. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1876-4517 .- 1876-4525. ; 12, s. 1461-1475
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- While urban indoor farming is a fairly new phenomenon, there is a growing interest from producers, authorities and consumers alike. However, many assumptions are made, and expectations held, about urban indoor farming from a sustainability, food production and food provisioning point of view. These assumptions and expectations need to be tested and assessed. This study assessed greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and a number of social aspects of a newly established indoor urban farm in Stockholm. The farm was the result of a project created by commercial, civil society and municipal actors with the aim to make use of unused urban space, create jobs and produce food. While lettuce grown on the indoor farm emitted more GHG than lettuce cultivated outdoors in Sweden, it was more climate friendly than imported lettuce in our comparison. Furthermore, the indoor farm created value for the actors involved and for the city district, albeit on a small scale. Many of the positive environmental and social features owed to the small scale of the indoor farm and the context in which it developed. Thus, when evaluating production systems like this one, we need to be cautious and refrain from extrapolating the results.
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| 11. |
- Ostrom, Marcia, et al.
(författare)
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What’s going into the box? An inquiry into the social and ecological embeddedness of large-scale EU and US box schemes
- 2017
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Ingår i: International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food. - 0798-1759. ; 24:1, s. 113-134
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Food distribution systems referred to as box schemes have gained a foothold in organic markets across Europe and North America. This model has the potential to scale up direct-marketing strategies by aggregating products from multiple producers and efficiently assembling and delivering them on a regular basis to large networks of consumers. Box scheme organizers generally seek to attract regular customers based on the distinctive attributes and values associated with their products and their unique business model that attempts to build long-term relationships between consumers and farmers. This article explores the organizational dynamics of five large, multi-farm box schemes in relation to their stated values and organizational strategies using cases from Sweden, Denmark, Austria, and the United States.Different aspects of ecological and social embeddedness are considered and analysed for the five cases based on their stated values and their organizational strategies, including to what degree non-economic values are identified, communicated, and applied throughout the supply chain. The value of geographical proximity is examined with respect to the tension created by consumer demand for variety throughout the seasons and the spatial organization of sourcing and distribution that such a system entails. Additionally, the organizational challenges encountered by box schemes during periods of rapid growth are compared and contrasted with respect to the different organizational strategies employed across the five cases. This article seeks to contribute to the research literature by analysing box schemes as an institutional innovation that can potentially bridge the interests shared by producers and consumers in harnessing market relationships to accomplish larger social and environmental goals.
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| 12. |
- Perrin, Augustine, et al.
(författare)
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Identification of resilience factors of organic dairy cattle farms
- 2020
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Ingår i: Agricultural Systems. - : ELSEVIER SCI LTD. - 0308-521X .- 1873-2267. ; 183
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Uncertain and changing agricultural contexts challenge the resilience of farms to disturbances. Organic farming has long been considered a niche practice and has provided farmers with a market that is more protected and regulated than that for conventional farming. However, the organic market is globalising, especially for the dairy sector. This globalisation exposes farms to higher volatility in organic milk price. Thus, identifying resilience factors for organic dairy farms is necessary to support farmers" strategic decisions. Our objective was to identify factors that promote resilience of organic dairy cattle farms over time. We surveyed 81 organic dairy-cattle farms in six French regions. We collected data on farm structure (e.g. utilised agricultural area, number of cows) and on farmers' practices (e.g. calving period, grazing duration, date of turnout to grazing). Unlike most resilience assessments, which rely on technical and economic indicators and threshold values defined by experts, we used the evolution of farmers' satisfaction since they converted to organic farming as a surrogate for subjective (i.e. self-perceived) resilience. We postulated that stable or increasing well-being of farmers, which is visible through their satisfaction, would demonstrate subjective resilience of farms in a holistic way. Using sparse Partial Least Square regression, we related the evolution of farm structures and farmers' practices over time to the evolution of farmers' satisfaction in the face of a variety of disturbances (e.g. droughts, decrease in milk prices). Results showed that practices that focused on self-sufficient pasture-based grazing systems improved farmers' satisfaction and thus the subjective resilience of organic dairy cattle farms. On average, farmers who improved their satisfaction increased the duration of full grazing (i.e. no other feedstuff distributed) by 0.7 months and advanced the date of turnout to grazing by 6.5 days over a 10-year period. We developed an original method, based on farmers' perceptions, to assess the subjective resilience of farms to multiple disturbances (e.g. climatic, economic, health-related) and for the first time showed the potential of pasture-based grazing systems to promote the subjective resilience of organic dairy farms.
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| 13. |
- Perrin, Augustine, et al.
(författare)
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Resilience applied to farming : organic farmers' perspectives
- 2020
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - : Resilience Alliance, Inc.. - 1708-3087. ; 25:4
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The increasingly uncertain and changing agricultural context raises questions about the resilience, i.e., ability to cope with disturbances, of farms to climate change and other disturbances. To date, the resilience concept has been discussed mainly in the scientific field leading to an abundant literature on social-ecological system resilience and on livelihood resilience. A farm resilience framework is developing and borrows from those two frameworks. However, consistent application of the farm resilience concept remains difficult and requires better consideration of farmers' perspectives. Our objectives in this study were to highlight farmers' perceptions of farm resilience to the variety of disturbances they have to cope with in their daily farm management and to highlight resilience factors. We conducted 128 semistructured interviews on French organic dairy cattle (85) and sheep (43) farms. We asked farmers six open-ended questions about resilience in organic dairy farming. Inductive content analysis of the data was conducted. According to farmers, a resilient farm relies on a high degree of autonomy in investments, animal feeding, and decision making, and is economically efficient. Other resilience indicators include consistency of the farming plan, with, e.g., herd size corresponding to the production potential of the land, and transferability of the farm to relatives, through, e.g., the financial capital required to take over the farm. Farmers also highlighted different ways to achieve resilience. Because of the higher cost of organic inputs, converting to organic farming indirectly promotes adaptations of farms toward autonomy and economic efficiency, and is thus regarded as a major resilience factor. Farmers also highlighted the central role of pastures and grazing to achieve autonomy and improve cost control. Diversification within the farm via crop rotations, herd composition, and farm products was also considered to improve farm resilience. In this study, we are the first to explore organic farmers' perception of farm resilience. Better understanding farmers' perceptions is necessary for developing training and advisory programs to support farm resilience to a variety of disturbances.
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| 14. |
- Tye, Mari R., et al.
(författare)
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Examining urban resilience through a food-water-energy nexus lens to understand the effects of climate change
- 2024
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Ingår i: iScience. - : Elsevier BV. - 2589-0042. ; 27:7
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Urban centers located on the coast expose some of the most vulnerable populations to the effects of climate change. In addition to the challenges faced by high population densities and interdependent social-ecological systems, there is an increasing demand for resources. Exposing the pinch points that are already sensitive to extreme weather, highlights the urban systems that will be least resilient in the face of climate change. We map the projected changes in water availability onto the components of the food-water-energy Nexus at several spatial scales. Resilience thinking acknowledges the different spatial scales at which governance operates, resilience occurs, and Nexus systems function. We use a case study to illustrate how the effects of climate change at locations remote from the city could impact resilience of urban communities in multiple ways through cascading effects from the Nexus. This article underscores the need to examine resilience from multiple spatial and governance angles.
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| 15. |
- Van der Voorn, Tom, et al.
(författare)
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Towards multi-target backcasting approach for robust climate change mitigation strategies : A Swedish case study on an environmental assessment of climate mitigation scenarios
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In the face of climate change, a major challenge for policy makers is to develop robust scenario-based strategies for climate change adaptation and mitigation options. This paper presents a novel approach for environmental assessment of climate change mitigation scenarios. Scenarios, and particularly backcasting scenarios, are often used as a strategy for exploring options and measures for achieving environmental targets, such as climate change mitigation. Measures and options generated through backcasting scenarios are often opted for achieving one particular target and such scenarios are seldom assessed in relation to other environmental aspects. This limits the achievability of other goals and policies. When the implementation of a measure makes it more difficult to fulfil some other goal that the decision maker aims to achieve, a conflict arises between these goals. This paper presents a qualitative environmental assessment of scenarios that identifies conflicts and synergies in regard to a broad range of environmental targets. The method is illustrated in an assessment of four future scenarios assuming zero greenhouse gas emissions 2060 in relation to a variety of environmental aspects, operationalized in policy goals. The scenarios concern rural land use in Sweden, and the goals were the Swedish environmental goals. In this paper potential goal conflicts and synergies that could arise if the strategies and developments in the scenarios were to be realised are analysed. We discuss the assessment and point at research needs that have to be addressed if we are to understand how to better assess1environmental goal conflicts, and produce scenario outcomes that can inform specific policies, but with less risk of imposing on fulfilment of other policy goals.
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| 16. |
- von Oelreich, Jacob, 1978-, et al.
(författare)
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Sustainability transformations in the balance : exploring Swedish initiatives challenging the corporate food regime
- 2016
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Ingår i: European Planning Studies. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0965-4313 .- 1469-5944.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper explores to what extent organic initiatives that go beyond mainstream organic (so-called Organic 3.0) can challenge the corporate food regime and how they can push the food system towards sustainability transformations. We depart from the assumption that individual initiatives may differ in their potential to influence the corporate food regime and that this potential can be assessed by examining traits linked to reformist, progressive or radical food regime/food movement trends that they may possess. Rather than establishing a dichotomy between niche and food regime or categorising Organic 3.0 initiatives within one of these trends, we explore the nuances in niche-regime relationships within the food system from a multi-level perspective, using the cases of two Organic 3.0 initiatives in Sweden. The results show that relations between these initiatives and the food regime share key characteristics, but also differ in important respects. While a reformist strategy facilitates niche growth, progressive and radical approaches are more likely to challenge the regime. The choice of approach in both cases involves trade-offs between growth and organic values. We conclude that one of the primary roles of Organic 3.0 initiatives may be to illustrate the viability of alternative models.
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