Urban food systems as vehicles for sustainability transitions

Olsson, E. Gunilla A.

doi:10.2478/bog-2018-0019

Cited by 17 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Urban agriculture has the ability to make an important contribution to sustainable development and the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable development goals (eg, no poverty, zero hunger, sustainable cities and communities, climate action, life on land). 88,89 There are a large number of works focused on mapping soil heavy metal contamination in urban, industrial, 40,90,91 and agricultural areas, 92,93 as well as at the continental scale. 94 New methods such as proximal and remote sensing techniques have recently been applied to map heavy metals in soils.…”

Section: Remerging As a Problem In Europe 740 Million People Currentmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Soil and Human Health: Current Status and Future Needs

Brevik

Slaughter

Singh

et al. 2020

Air, Soil and Water Research

173

109

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Soil influences human health in a variety of ways, with human health being linked to the health of the soil. Historically, emphasis has been placed on the negative impacts that soils have on human health, including exposures to toxins and pathogenic organisms or the problems created by growing crops in nutrient-deficient soils. However, there are a number of positive ways that soils enhance human health, from food production and nutrient supply to the supply of medications and enhancement of the immune system. It is increasingly recognized that the soil is an ecosystem with a myriad of interconnected parts, each influencing the other, and when all necessary parts are present and functioning (ie, the soil is healthy), human health also benefits. Despite the advances that have been made, there are still many areas that need additional investigation. We do not have a good understanding of how chemical mixtures in the environment influence human health, and chemical mixtures in soil are the rule, not the exception. We also have sparse information on how most chemicals react within the chemically and biologically active soil ecosystem, and what those reactions mean for human health. There is a need to better integrate soil ecology and agronomic crop production with human health, food/nutrition science, and genetics to enhance bacterial and fungal sequencing capabilities, metagenomics, and the subsequent analysis and interpretation. While considerable work has focused on soil microbiology, the macroorganisms have received much less attention regarding links to human health and need considerable attention. Finally, there is a pressing need to effectively communicate soil and human health connections to our broader society, as people cannot act on information they do not have. Multidisciplinary teams of researchers, including scientists, social scientists, and others, will be essential to move all these issues forward.

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Section: Remerging As a Problem In Europe 740 Million People Currentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Soil Pollution and Human Healthmentioning

confidence: 99%

Soil and Human Health: Current Status and Future Needs

Brevik

Slaughter

Singh

et al. 2020

Air, Soil and Water Research

173

109

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…There are a few urban food policy studies that do provide a more elaborate discussion of social justice. Ilieva (2017) and Olsson (2018), who use the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) framework for their content analyses, demonstrate how various elements of justice are being tackled through urban food policy actions. This ranges from gender equality (SDG5), reduced inequalities (SDG10) and peace and justice (SDG16), to more implicit, but targeted injustices related to poverty, hunger, health, jobs and land.…”

Section: Social Justice In Urban Food Policies: State-of-the-artmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social justice-oriented narratives in European urban food strategies: Bringing forward redistribution, recognition and representation

et al. 2020

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More and more cities develop urban food strategies (UFSs) to guide their efforts and practices towards more sustainable food systems. An emerging theme shaping these food policy endeavours, especially prominent in North and South America, concerns the enhancement of social justice within food systems. To operationalise this theme in a European urban food governance context we adopt Nancy Fraser’s three-dimensional theory of justice: economic redistribution, cultural recognition and political representation. In this paper, we discuss the findings of an exploratory document analysis of the social justice-oriented ambitions, motivations, current practices and policy trajectories articulated in sixteen European UFSs. We reflect on the food-related resource allocations, value patterns and decision rules these cities propose to alter and the target groups they propose to support, empower or include. Overall, we find that UFSs make little explicit reference to social justice and justice-oriented food concepts, such as food security, food justice, food democracy and food sovereignty. Nevertheless, the identified resources, services and target groups indicate that the three dimensions of Fraser are at the heart of many of the measures described. We argue that implicit, fragmentary and unspecified adoption of social justice in European UFSs is problematic, as it may hold back public consciousness, debate and collective action regarding food system inequalities and may be easily disregarded in policy budgeting, implementation and evaluation trajectories. As a path forward, we present our plans for the RE-ADJUSTool that would enable UFS stakeholders to reflect on how their UFS can incorporate social justice and who to involve in this pursuit.

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“…Two different approaches form part of the Gothenburg process. One approach considers a more theoretical position on the state of the UFS by linking changes in the local food system to sustainability transitions in society [37][38][39]. The theoretical work was informed by a critique of the wider global food system.…”

Section: Gothenburg Swedenmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Central to such a shift is a change in governance, from top-down expert dominated knowledge to bottom-up decision-making with the active involvement of local farmers and communities in specific geographic areas (local agency). At the core of this project is the initial theoretical development of as a food shed approach, one that sought the re-establishment of urban-rural linkages via local-regional food production [37,38].…”

Section: Gothenburg Swedenmentioning

confidence: 99%

Food Systems Sustainability: An Examination of Different Viewpoints on Food System Change

et al. 2019

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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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Urban food systems as vehicles for sustainability transitions

Cited by 17 publications

References 30 publications

Soil and Human Health: Current Status and Future Needs

Soil and Human Health: Current Status and Future Needs

Social justice-oriented narratives in European urban food strategies: Bringing forward redistribution, recognition and representation

Food Systems Sustainability: An Examination of Different Viewpoints on Food System Change

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