Opportunities and challenges of food policy councils in pursuit of food system sustainability and food democracy–a comparative case study from the Upper-Rhine region

Abstract

Conventional food systems continue to jeopardize the health and well-being of people and the environment, with a number of related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) still far from being reached. Food Policy Councils (FPCs)—since several decades in North America, and more recently in Europe—have begun to facilitate sustainable food system governance activities among various stakeholders as an explicit alternative to the shaping of food systems by multinational food corporations and their governmental allies. In contrast to the former, FPCs pursue the goals of food system sustainability through broad democratic processes. Yet, at least in Europe, the agenda of FPCs is more an open promise than a firm reality (yet); and thus, it is widely unknown to what extent FPCs actually contribute to food system sustainability and do so with democratic processes. At this early stage, we offer a comparative case study across four FPCs from the Upper-Rhine Region (Freiburg, Basel, Mulhouse, Strasbourg)—all formed and founded within the past 5 years—to explore how successful different types of FPCs are in terms of contributing to food system sustainability and adhering to democratic and good governance principles. Our findings indicate mixed results, with the FPCs mostly preparing the ground for more significant efforts at later stages and struggling with a number of challenges in adhering to principles of democracy and good governance. Our study contributes to the theory of sustainable food systems and food democracy with the focus on the role of FPCs, and offers procedural insights on how to evaluate them regarding sustainable outcomes and democratic processes. The study also offers practical insights relevant to these four and other FPCs in Europe, supporting their efforts to achieve food system sustainability with democratic processes.

A scoping review of the impact of Food Policy Groups on local food systems in high-income countries

“…Previous research has asserted that evaluations were historically viewed by FPGs as a threat to their growth and new FPG establishment, and there is also a dearth of evidence about FPG impacts outside of the USA. The resource and capacity issues faced by FPGs, such as a lack of funding for operations or core staff and thus a large reliance on volunteers, is a substantial reason why more evaluation about their impact has not occurred to date (78) . Given many FPGs lack long-term funding, this could provide further explanation for a lack of longitudinal evaluation (15) .…”

“…Given many FPGs lack long-term funding, this could provide further explanation for a lack of longitudinal evaluation (15) . The lack of evaluation also prevents many FPGs from accessing 'impact-oriented funding' (78) . Another strength of our work is positioning findings within food system domains indicated by leading FPG academics (18,38) .…”

Policy for sustainable consumption – an assessment of Swedish municipalities

“…More recently, the Nature Food editorial Democratizing Food Systems (2020) listed citizencenterd innovations such as supporting communal urban gardens or kitchen-sharing facilities, provision of experimental spaces, and social innovations for sustainable consumption that municipalities support in order to transform food systems. In terms of governance, networks and actor engagement, there are proposals for initiatives such as Food Policy Councils (Michel et al, 2022;Schiff et al, 2022) or the use of participatory food governance structures (Mattioni et al, 2022) to support sustainable food system governance and new approaches to food. One example of this type of approach revealed in this study was the intention of one case study to develop processing operations for a local or regional food market to meet increased demand for locally produced goods.…”

Using the Net-Map tool to analyze stakeholder networks in the city region food systems of seven European cities

“…Simultaneously, there is an increasing willingness among citizens to contribute to the sustainable development of this issue (Tucci, 2020). Civil society initiatives such as food policy councils are emerging with the goal of transforming urban food systems (Bassarab et al, 2019;Trivette, 2019;Kropp and Da Ros, 2021;Michel et al, 2022). This exerts pressure on local policies and signals a movement toward integrating the topic of food into city administration (Morgan, 2015).…”