Lectio Praecursoria: Patchworks of Care: Ethics and practice of care in the organic food movement in Latvia

Bankovska, Agnese

doi:10.30676/jfas.v45i2.103109

Cited by 3 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…The DP network originated as a modest partnership involving a limited number of consumers and organic farmers. Over a few years, it evolved into a fully operational food distribution network encompassing organic farms, consumers, and distribution points (Bankovska, 2020). In 2022, there were 16 functioning DP distribution spots, 11 of which were situated in Riga and the other five -in towns outside Riga.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental Sustainability Aspects in Short Food Supply Chains: the Views of Organic Farmers and Consumers

Ušča,

Aļeksējeva

2023

Rural Sustainability Research

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Globally, food systems are the most significant cause of environmental change; therefore, efforts to create more environmentally sustainable food systems are presented. One of the directions is strengthening the local actors and short food supply chains. Simultaneously, changes in farming systems are needed, and organic agriculture is one of the ways to make food systems more environmentally sustainable. Despite the abundance of research on the environmental consciousness of consumers in short food supply chains, the question is raised whether local food chain farmers are also committed to environmental sustainability. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the importance of environmental sustainability to organic short food supply chain actors. More specifically, the research depicts the views of organic farmers and consumers and their relation to the actual environmental sustainability of short food supply chains. During the research, a specific short food supply chain – a direct purchasing network – was explored. A qualitative approach was applied to reach the aim. Thus, in-depth interviews and observations were used as a research method. The research results demonstrated the views of farmers and consumers of the specific network regarding environmental sustainability aspects in the network. In the research, such environmental aspects as the circularity of resources, biodiversity, chemicals in the environment, seasonality and locality of diets, and the distance (food miles) were admitted as crucial ones by the specific short food supply chain actors. The differences in opinions of consumers and farmers emerged when thinking about the scale of their views.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental Sustainability Aspects in Short Food Supply Chains: the Views of Organic Farmers and Consumers

Ušča,

Aļeksējeva

2023

Rural Sustainability Research

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“…Therefore, the DP developers started to look for alternative ways to buy local organic products. The DP network started as a small-scale collaboration between one family and a few organic farmers, developing into a fully functioning food provisioning network with organic farms, consumers, and distribution points (Bankovska, 2020).…”

Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Most consumers in the DP network were women aged 25-45 years. They were mainly educated and knowledgeable, married with one to three children, and had an average or below-average income (Bankovska, 2020). The consumers purchased products for the whole family.…”

Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

The resilience of short food supply chains during the COVID-19 pandemic: a case study of a direct purchasing network

Ušča,

Tisenkopfs

2023

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

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IntroductionThe COVID-19 pandemic has presented challenges to global food supply chains. Since the beginning of the pandemic researchers have studied various food supply chain issues influenced by the COVID-19 crisis, including impacts on consumer behavior, and logistical and organizational changes to food supply chains. Despite the proliferation of studies on food supply chains during the pandemic, only a few researchers have focused on short food supply chains and their resilience. Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore the resilience of short food supply chains during the COVID-19 pandemic using a direct purchasing (DP) network as a case study. The study considered three research questions. (1) How has the functioning of the DP network changed during the COVID-19 pandemic? (2) What role do resilience elements (i.e., readiness to shocks, responsiveness to disruption, and recovery from the crisis) play in the short food supply chain response to the COVID-19 crisis? (3) Which innovations in the short food supply chain would further the recovery process, and thus resilience, after the crisis?MethodsThis article presents a case study of a direct organic food purchasing network in Latvia. The analysis of economic data regarding the dynamics of organic product demand and supply in the DP network was supplemented with an analysis of qualitative data gathered through semi-structured in-depth interviews with representatives of three groups of DP network participants: consumers, producers, and DP network organizers.Results and discussionFrom the consumer and producer experiences, the DP network was a flexible short food chain that could adapt quickly in a crisis. While the number of DP distribution points and total number of purchases decreased during the pandemic, a statistically significant increase in the number of product units sold compared to the pre-COVID-19 period was observed. From the perspective of food chain resilience elements, the reactive strategies of the DP network as a short food supply chain were highlighted. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the organizational and product innovations introduced in the DP network played a key role in enhancing the resilience of the short supply chain in the context of the wider food system.

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“…But the internal Latvian market, with approximately 2 million inhabitants, was by then largely saturated, and although they sold their sea buckthorn products through various gray and green channels—including Latvia's Organic Food Movements' Solidarity Provisioning Groups, known as Tieša Pirkšana (Bankovska 2020)—turnover remained small.…”

Section: Modality Ii: Entrepreneurial‐cooperative Farmingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Becoming In‐visible: Family Farms in Rural Latvia in the Framework of theEUCommon Agricultural Policy

Thiemann¹,

Rolle²

2022

Culture Agric Food & Envi

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Historically, Latvia has been integrated into several (multi‐) national state formations that have shaped agricultural practices. Beginning in 1991, newly independent Latvia reintroduced a family farming model and prepared to join the European Union. The ability of small farmers to adapt to and implement the new EU regulations that support farming either as efficient food production or alternatively as cultural landscaping has been contingent upon many socio‐economic and cultural factors. Today, most family farmers have only reluctantly formalized their practices to satisfy the requirements of the EU, while others have readily embraced the current discourses, policies, and laws to strategically access agricultural funds and scale up operations. We discuss these agricultural tensions by contrasting two forms of selective formalization: the reluctant “projectification” of a subsistence farm by founding a cultural NGO vs. the strategic founding of an “entrepreneurial” cooperative of sea buckthorn producers to access transnational markets and development subsidies.

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Lectio Praecursoria: Patchworks of Care: Ethics and practice of care in the organic food movement in Latvia

Cited by 3 publications

References 3 publications

Environmental Sustainability Aspects in Short Food Supply Chains: the Views of Organic Farmers and Consumers

Environmental Sustainability Aspects in Short Food Supply Chains: the Views of Organic Farmers and Consumers

The resilience of short food supply chains during the COVID-19 pandemic: a case study of a direct purchasing network

Becoming In‐visible: Family Farms in Rural Latvia in the Framework of theEUCommon Agricultural Policy

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