| 1. |
- Almered Olsson, Gunilla, 1951, et al.
(author)
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Food systems sustainability: For whom and by whom? – An examination of different 'food system change' viewpoints
- 2018
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In: Development Research Conference 2018: “Rethinking development”, 22–23 August 2018, Gothenburg, Sweden.
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The United Nations identifies the food crisis as one of the primary overarching challenges facing the international community. Different stakeholders in the food system have widely different perspectives and interests, and challenging structural issues, such as the power differentials among them, remain largely unexamined. These challenges make rational discourse among food system actors from different disciplines, sectors and levels difficult. These challenges can often prevent them from working together effectively to find innovative ways to respond to food security challenges. This means that finding solutions to intractable and stuck issues, such as the food crisis often stall, not at implementation, but at the point of problem identification. Food system sustainability means very different things to different food system actors. These differences in no way undermine or discount the work carried out by these players. However, making these differences explicit is an essential activity that would serve to deepen theoretical and normative project outcomes. Would the impact and reach of different food projects differ if these differences were made explicit? The purpose of this initial part of a wider food system research project is not to search for difference or divergence, with the aim of critique, but rather to argue that by making these differences explicit, the overall food system project engagement will be made more robust, more inclusive and more encompassing. This paper starts with some discussion on the different food system perspectives, across scales, regions and sectors but focuses primarily on the design of processes used to understand these divergent and at times contradictory views of what a sustainable food system may be. This paper draws on ongoing work within the Mistra Urban Futures project, using the food system projects in cities as diverse as Cape Town, Manchester, Gothenburg and Kisumu as sites for this enquiry.
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| 2. |
- Chodkowska-Miszczuk, Justyna, et al.
(author)
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Biogas enterprises: A chance or a challenge for rural development?
- 2018
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In: 5th Nordic Conference for Rural Research: “Challenged ruralities: Nordic welfare states under pressure”, 14–16 May, 2018, Vingsted, Denmark. - Copenhagen : University of Copenhagen – Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management. - 9788779037922
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This paper addresses the question whether biogas plants (businesses based on renewable energy) often marketed as a great opportunity for rural development can at the same time pose a hidden challenge. Departing from the concept of embeddedness of enterprises in the local environment, our objective is realized with the help of two models of biogas plants. In the first model, biogas plants operate as an integral part of agricultural farms (biogas on-farm model); in the second model, they operate as independent companies established through investments by external entrepreneurs (biogas off-farm model). The two models have proven to affect the economies of particular biogas enterprises very differently. In the first model, the support of existing agricultural farms is of great importance as those usually are important for local stakeholders. In the second model, biogas plants that emerge as new external investments must build interactions with local entities from scratch. From an economic point of view, the lack of functioning mechanisms in this sense may influence further directions of development for many rural areas traditionally associated with agriculture.
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| 3. |
- Isemo, Sanna, et al.
(author)
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Urban food revisited: Green business development through co-creation
- 2018
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In: Thinkfood, Thinkpoint Innovation Arena, 15–16 September 2018, Gothenburg, Sweden.
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The ongoing urbanization and globalization of food products is challenging food and nutrition security for urban and rural areas. Dependence on the global food supply chain also increases vulnerability and implies risks for cities and their wider regions. An important way to address these challenges is by examining the relationship between cities and their surroundings through a focus on food. Embracing theses insights, Urban Rural Gothenburg is an EU-sponsored project that tests low-carbon approaches and links them to food production, logistics, tourism, and new business models. Through promoting cooperation between the city, the business sector, residents, civil society and academia, Urban Rural Gothenburg aims to contribute to the fulfilment of the city’s wider sustainability goals, as set in 2017. These span the holistic frame of sustainability to involve, for example, combining innovations for social improvement with reduction of the city’s environmental and climate impact, promoting a sustainable Gothenburg with global and locally equitable emissions. Research Forum Urban Rural Gothenburg (RFURG) constitutes the academic component of the ‘Urban Rural Gothenburg’. Departing from co-creative methodology (the so-called penta-helix model), RFURG provides the research community with advice, support, consultancy, networks and a communication platform with the purpose to initiate and implement research endeavours related to the project’s objectives. Another important task is to ascertain that the activities within the project are scientifically sound through constant monitoring of national and international calls that may be of interest for the project. Compilation and dissemination of results through recurring conferences, seminars, workshops and special issues in scientific journals form indispensable steps towards that goal. And while Urban Rural Gothenburg is only one amongst a flurry of intrepid projects globally trying to think outside the box, it manages to capture and epitomise the character of several recurring problems haunting our society today and, arguably, progress within it.
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| 4. |
- Haysom, Gareth, et al.
(author)
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Food systems sustainability: An examination of different viewpoints on food system change
- 2019
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In: Sustainability. - : MDPI AG. - 2071-1050. ; 11:12
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Global food insecurity levels remain stubbornly high. One of the surest ways to grasp the scale and consequence of global inequality is through a food systems lens. In a predominantly urban world, urban food systems present a useful lens to engage a wide variety of urban (and global) challenges—so called ‘wicked problems.’ This paper describes a collaborative research project between four urban food system research units, two European and two African. The project purpose was to seek out solutions to what lay between, across and within the different approaches applied in the understanding of each city’s food system challenges. Contextual differences and immediate (perceived) needs resulted in very different views on the nature of the challenge and the solutions required. Value positions of individuals and their disciplinary “enclaves” presented further boundaries. The paper argues that finding consensus provides false solutions. Rather the identification of novel approaches to such wicked problems is contingent of these differences being brought to the fore, being part of the conversation, as devices through which common positions can be discovered, where spaces are created for the realisation of new perspectives, but also, where difference is celebrated as opposed to censored.
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| 5. |
- Biegańska, Jadwiga, et al.
(author)
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From policy to misery? The State Agricultural Farms vs. 'the rural'
- 2019
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In: Quaestiones Geographicae. - : Adam Mickiewicz University Poznan. - 2082-2103 .- 2081-6383 .- 0137-477X. ; 38:4
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- 1989 was a turning point within the socio-economic development in the former Eastern bloc, initiating a system transformation that affected the society at large. It also contributed to the crystallisation of certain cultural landscapes, hitherto largely illegible due to the inhibition of spatial processes encountered during Communism. In Poland, after a quarter-century of free market economy, the focus on social problems began to expand to the spatial realm as well. It became apparent that the progressive social polarisation that followed was most prominent in environments striated by a particular landscape type – the former State Agricultural Farm (PGR). Considering PGRs “the epitome of rurality” subject to ideas informing the direction of contemporary “rural development” prompts a different way of looking at the problem. In this paper, we investigate the concept of rurality in the discursive tenor of implemented policy and contrast it with contextualised empirical examples. Our findings suggest that efficient policy should be confronted with the expectations of residents at the local level, while introducing top-down actions usually ends in failure as in the case of post-PGR estates.
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| 6. |
- Almén Linn, Jenny, et al.
(author)
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Food tourism as a way of integration into the Swedish labor market?
- 2018
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In: Tomorrow’s Food Travel (TFT) conference, Centre for Tourism – University of Gothenburg, 8–10 October 2018, Gothenburg, Sweden.
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The tourism industry is a sector with a large income and is expected to continue its expansion both in Sweden as well as internationally. The last couple of years have seen the total consumption within the tourism industry amount to 270 billion SEK. Due to Sweden’s rich natural and cultural values, attractive and clean nature and well-functioning cities, growth is expected. However, not all parts of the country partake in the expansion at the same rate. In Gothenburg, its north-eastern districts receive almost every second newly-immigrated resident, while the pressing housing shortage locks in a familiar pattern of poor living conditions, ill health and dire future outlooks. Gothenburg continues to be a socio-economically segregated city, while its northern districts are in strong need of enhanced development to increase their level of self-sufficiency and of breaking negative patterns. At the same time, there are great assets vested in the area in the form of agricultural landscapes, attractive natural settings and a strong cultural life with influences from all over the world. To this background, this presentation looks into whether socio-economic problems inherent of a segregated city can be partly solved by engaging in the growing tourism sector and by focusing on food production, sustainable tourism, and the natural and cultural advantages of the area. This is done by investigating an ongoing municipal sustainability project in the north-eastern areas of Gothenburg. It is an interdisciplinary endeavor involving several different municipal authorities, research institutions and non-governmental organizations, with the intent to increase the areas sense of involvement and to strengthen sustainable business development within: food production, tourism, green business and climate-smart logistics platforms and networks for cooperation. The aim of this presentation is to explore how social inclusion and labor market integration can be facilitated through tourism and food.
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| 7. |
- Almered Olsson, Gunilla, 1951, et al.
(author)
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City–Region Food Systems: Scenarios to re-establish urban-rural links through sustainable food provisioning
- 2018
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In: Tomorrow’s Food Travel (TFT) conference, Centre for Tourism – University of Gothenburg, 8–10 October 2018, Gothenburg, Sweden.
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- City–Region Food Systems (CRFS) is a cutting-edge concept and an emerging field of research. As a new analytical lens, it offers an integrated and multi-dimensional perspective on food’s origins, how it is grown and the path it follows to our plates and beyond. Building on this concept, this presentation reflects a prospective research project which seeks to explore opportunities for innovative and sustainable food systems in the Gothenburg region of Sweden by focusing on how rural and urban regions, food production and market can be integrated to promote regional food security. The project intends to: 1) develop scenarios with stakeholders for local food production in the region; 2) analyze the consequences of the scenarios on landscape change and biodiversity; 3) explore socio-economic consequences for producers and local communities; and 4) evaluate the sustainability and feasibility of scenarios with stakeholders. Five municipalities in Western Sweden (Gothenburg, Kungälv, Lerum, Alingsås and Essunga) will serve as study areas for the project, selected to reflect different kinds of potential for local food production in terms of dissimilar environmental conditions, prerequisites for farming and economic histories. The project responds to expressed interests and knowledge needs in the region and will be developed and implemented in direct cooperation with local and regional actors such as Västarvet, the Västra Götaland Region, the municipalities and various producer organizations. In sum, there are premises suggesting that recent urban food strategies and plans with sustainability ambitions are embracing several Sustainable Development Goals in the environmental, social, economic, and equity dimensions. This, in turn, is a characteristic of the Transition Movements pathway, in which the utility of food strategies in the work with sustainability transitions seems inevitable. The results are therefore likely to be transferable to other regions.
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| 8. |
- Biegańska, Jadwiga, et al.
(author)
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The ”agri-ghetto”: On dysfunctional landscapes and the rural-urban paradox
- 2014
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In: Unraveling the logics of landscape. Eds.: Stenseke, M., Dymitrow, M., Saltzman, K. et al.; 26th session of the Permanent European Conference for the Study of the Rural Landscape, 8–12 September, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg & Mariestad, Sweden.
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- 1989 was a turning point within the socio-economic development in the former Eastern bloc, initiating a system transformation that affected both rural and urban areas. It also contributed to the crystallization of certain cultural landscapes, hitherto largely illegible due to the inhibition of spatial processes encountered during Communism. After a quarter-century of free market economy, the focus on social problems began to expand to the spatial realm as well. It became apparent that the progressive social polarization that followed was most prominent in environments striated by a special landscape type – “socjałki”. In Poland, the dysfunctional character of socjałki is noticeable in a wide array of dimensions: unemployment, poverty, social anomies and pathologies, claiming attitudes, substandard housing, and ghettoization. The main characteristic of socjałki, however, is their equal prevalence in both urban environments (dormitory suburbs) and in rural areas (state agricultural farms). Particularly in the context of the latter – of which socjałki are an integral part – they differ significantly from traditional rural landscapes of Poland. Nevertheless, being formally rural, they are subject to development programs labeled as “rural”, despite the striking similarity to their urban counterparts, which, in turn, prompt “urban” developmental endeavors. To illustrate this discrepancy, two similar Polish socjałki were investigated – one formally urban and one formally rural. By taking account of the residents’ perceptions of their everyday lives, we allowed them to define their own problems in view of the rural-urban bias that frames and impregnates them. The main research problem revolves around the assumption that socjałki are distinct landscapes that are poorly explicated using the pervasive rural-urban axis as an analytical tool. In this respect, we highlight the consolidation of a new type of landscape that transcends formal dichotomies. We argue it could benefit from being studied and evaluated on the basis of commonalities other than the rural-urban stereotype.
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| 9. |
- Dymitrow, Mirek, et al.
(author)
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Nutrition, health and climate: What have we learned so far?
- 2019
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In: Conference on Food Science and Nutrition: “Forum for food science and nutrition for a better tomorrow”, 25–26 February 2019, Rome, Italy.
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Food and meals are central elements in our lives: a source of pleasure, a social activity and a bearer of culture. Our eating habits are also very important to health, which implies that the organization and content of meals is a prerequisite for well-being and learning. Schools, in particular, have unique opportunities to promote healthy lifestyles, help develop good eating habits and raise environmental and climate awareness among children and youths by embedding food in a wider context. Unsurprisingly, there is also an increasing interest in school meals and food-related education among researchers, many of whom agree that the quality of school meals can be seen as one of the most accurate indicators of the cities’ sustainability potential. Systematic quality work, however, requires shared targets and ambitions, regular quality checks and discussions on development and improvement. In that vein, the City of Gothenburg has launched the project Urban Rural Gothenburg, which assembles, develops, tests and implements new solutions for the city’s public kitchens. This involves climate-smart and environmentally sound perspectives and programs regarding meal planning, food procurement, food preparation and food-related teaching and learning. One important approach deals with the normalization of increased vegetarian consumption and greater awareness of food’s origins and travel from farm to table. Another approach deals with conscious choices of raw materials that are beneficial for both the environment and health. A third notable approach focuses on new ways of handling food waste to reduce climate impact. In line with the third Sustainable Development Goal, this presentation captures and reaffirms the fundamental assumptions and methods involved in Gothenburg’s work with food sustainability in public kitchens, with an emphasis on health and climate as cross-cutting issues that matter to us all.
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| 10. |
- Fermskog, Kristina, et al.
(author)
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From skipped free school lunches to poverty-induced food deserts: Some thoughts on Gothenburg’s local food strategy – and how to make it happen
- 2018
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In: Mistra Urban Futures Annual International Conference “Comparative Co-Production”, SunSquare Conference Centre, 5–7 November 2018, Cape Town, South Africa.
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The city of Gothenburg is devoted to establishing a local food strategy (GAFS) able to transform the local food system into one of healthy and sustainable food supply to all Gothenburgers, while at the same time decreasing the environmental impact globally. Departing from the Gothenburg municipality’s environmental and climate programs, the GAFS also relates back to the Swedish environmental goals and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As such, GAFS is a municipal mission with global ambitions, but it is also an active testbed within the project Urban Rural Gothenburg with the goal to lay bare GAFS’s preconditions to obtain the desired effect. While the idea is an attractive one and in line with current calls for food sustainability, the practical work process has been marred by loose and indirect interaction between the actors as well as insufficient knowledge of the stakeholders’ preconditions and priorities to secure stronger impact. An important factor in this dimension has been the overwhelming scope of what the food strategy must cover in order to be successful. This presentation focuses on two of them: skipped free school lunches and poverty-induced food deserts. On the one hand, the city of Gothenburg offers free school lunches to all its school children, which nonetheless are surreptitiously skipped due to children’s poor understanding of the nutritious, ecological and just value of such lunches. On the other hand, certain areas of Gothenburg, like Hammarkullen with 8,000 inhabitants, have not had a supermarket since the 1990s due to major food chains’ disinterest in establishing themselves in poor immigrant neighborhoods (due to demand for very cheap foods or certain types of foods, e.g. halal or kosher). Instead the citizens are forced to travel up to 1 hour to procure affordable food (car ownership is extremely low) or to buy small portions of grossly overpriced products from local street vendors. These two examples show how both the use and underuse of political power is problematic in different circumstances, with similarly adverse effects for a sustainable local food strategy. In this presentation, we focus on this worrying divergence by discussing the hidden traps within, but also by bringing forth known success stories as possible ways forward.
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