Thesis (MPhil (Sustainable Development Planning and Management))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / Local food systems are growing in scope and impact in communities around the world in an attempt to solve many of the environmental, social, and economic costs of global food production and conventional food chains. Communities may attain greater sustainability by reconfiguring their relationship to agriculture and food but critics of local food systems doubt its ability to fundamentally change the predominant global agricultural system due in part to the limited transformative range. Furthermore, local food systems are often viewed in reference to “food miles”, a concept that is oversimplified and ignores the complexity of food supply chains. This paper is motivated by these larger debates about local food systems and addresses a local food system in Portland, Oregon. The research for this paper is based on interviews conducted in the restaurant and farming sectors in the Portland area in an effort to learn what motivates restaurants and farms to engage in local partnerships, the challenges and opportunities they face selling and buying local food, and the practices along their food supply chains. The objective of this study is to understand the degree to which restaurant farm partnerships in Portland are supporting a sustainable local food system and to help identify strategies and opportunities for more restaurants and farms to engage in local partnerships. Furthermore, this research provides pragmatic examples for other communities interested in stimulating a local food system based on direct marketing. The findings of this study suggest Portland’s restaurant farm partnerships are making a small, yet significant effort to encourage innovative environmental and social practices, address the sustainability of urban and rural Portland, and deepen the food miles debate. Further efforts need to be made by the restaurant farm partnerships in Portland to expand on restaurant’s sustainable practices, find more innovative transportation means, and improve consumer education.

In recent years, studies have linked various structural and environmental factors to disproportionately increased rates of morbidity, mortality, and adverse health outcomes in low-income racial and ethnic minority neighborhoods. Among the adverse health outcomes, is the constraint on the ability to access and afford a healthy diet. While local food systems play a significant role in influencing urban health and well-being outcomes, they also present an opportunity to develop community-based assets and resilience. By identifying limitations and successes in current food system literature and practice, this report examines how a more comprehensive approach to equitable community health and wellness can be achieved and sustained. Effective disparity reduction relies on cross-sectoral partnerships that not only promote food equity, but also provide participatory social, economic, and educational opportunities to marginalized communities. / text

Face à une marginalisation historique, les paysanneries andines ont développé diverses stratégies d’adaptation et de résistance, les nouveaux circuits alimentaires de proximité (CIALP) en constituant une forme récente. Ces derniers interrogent sur de nouvelles relations entre les paysans et les marchés, la société et les territoires. Ils émergent dans de nouveaux contextes sociopolitiques dans lesquels sont mis à l’agenda la souveraineté alimentaire, l’agriculture paysanne, l’économie solidaire et l’agroécologie, et s’inscrivent dans de nouvelles dynamiques socio-spatiales associant des paysans et une diversité d’autres acteurs. La thèse défendue est celle d’une contribution des CIALP à la reconnaissance des paysanneries andines. À travers une approche géographique, en mobilisant des sources et des données de terrain nombreuses et diverses, nous analysons, d’une part, les paysanneries, les sociétés andines et les CIALP dans leur environnement global et à l’échelle du temps long, et, d’autre part, les trajectoires d’émergence et de développement des CIALP sur la base études de cas dans trois territoires en Équateur, au Pérou et en Bolivie. En analysant les dynamiques d’activation et de construction de proximités géographiques et socio-économiques, nous montrons par quels processus les CIALP contribuent à la requalification positive du rôle et de la place des paysanneries dans l’espace et la société. Les paysans sont reconnus progressivement, par eux-mêmes, par la société et par les pouvoirs publics, comme des acteurs de systèmes alimentaires territorialisés et durables, et / Faced with historical marginalization, Andean peasantries have developed various adaptation and resistance strategies, recently including new local food systems (LFS). These LFS raise questions about new relations between peasants and markets, society and territories. They are developed in new sociopolitical contexts that now take into account concerns like food sovereignty, peasant agriculture, solidarity economy and agroecology, and they are part of new socio-spatial dynamics associating peasants with a diversity of stakeholders. We argue that these LFS contribute to recognition of Andean peasantries. Based on a geographical approach, we mobilize and cross-check various and numerous sources (scientific and grey literature) and field data (comprehensive interviews, ethnographic observations, written and audiovisual records, Internet social networks), first to analyze peasantries, Andean society and LFS in their global context and over the long-time scale, and second to study emergenceAndean territories in Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. By analyzing the activation and construction of geographical (spatial), and socio-economic (cognitive, material, relational and mediation) proximities between peasants and other stakeholders, we identify the processes along the LFS trajectories contributing to positive reevaluation of the role and of the position of peasantries in Andean society and space. Peasants are being gradually recognized by themselves, by society and by public authorities, as key actors of sustainable and territorialized food systems, and as mediators of new proximitie

The modern global agrifood system has had significant negative impacts on consumers and producers. This has precipitated the rise of local food systems that are purported to improve the health and livelihoods of consumers and producers. High expectations have led to significant public and private resources dedicated to the development of local food systems. Despite this, there has been little systematic research exploring the social and institutional conditions that facilitate or frustrate local food system development. Using a comparative case study approach, this study explored the ways local structural conditions, collective action, food system policies, and the political context affect the development of local food systems. Findings suggested truly robust local food system development requires either collective action or public policies and are more likely to exist and be successful depending on the political climate and the balance of power between land use interests in the community.

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The incorporation of consumption-oriented activities into rural space can be observed in the appearance of newly valued rural amenities and the increasing frequency and popularity of culinary tourism destination marketing. In exploring the relationships between local food and culinary tourism, this research sought to better understand the impact of culinary tourism on the production and consumption of local food in Prince Edward County, ON. Interviews revealed that opportunities presented by culinary tourism are a prime motivation for restaurants to engage in the local food system, and that local food producers are less tied to their restaurant linkages than to alternative marketing channels owing to high levels of product substitutability and the opportunity costs associated with direct exchange. Additionally, it was observed that culinary tourism both inherently and paradoxically contributes to expansion of local food systems beyond regional boundaries, giving rise to a discussion on the positioning of local food as an alternative or complementary component to the globalized food system.

No description available.