Can Organic Farming Reduce Vulnerabilities and Enhance the Resilience of the European Food System? A Critical Assessment Using System Dynamics Structural Thinking Tools
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Methodology: System Dynamics Structural Thinking Tools for Food System and Vulnerability Analysis
3. Problem Articulation: Boundary Selection
3.1. Food and Nutrition Security
3.2. Socio-Economic Welfare
3.3. Environmental Welfare
3.4. Signs of Vulnerabilities and Resilience
4. System Conceptualization: Internal Processes and External Disturbances
4.1. Internal Causal Structure Driving the European Food System
4.2. Entry Points for External Disturbances in the European Food System
- Food production can be affected by unfavorable weather conditions (e.g., severe droughts led to reoccurring famines in Russia) and pest outbreaks (e.g., potato disease caused crop failure that led to Great Irish Famine) that reduce crop yield, livestock diseases (e.g., avian flu or bovine spongiform encephalopathy) that lead to removal of large numbers of animals from the system as well as geopolitical dynamics causing disruptions to supply of external inputs used to maximize crop yield (e.g., phosphorus fertilizer, fossil fuels).
- Profits of food producers can be affected by an economic crisis that causes price of external inputs to increase considerably or become volatile as well as unfavorable political environment that leads to sudden or gradual removal of financial support (e.g., subsidies) for agriculture.
- Natural resource conditions can be affected by urbanization and population pressure that cause loss of agricultural land to other purposes, competition for resources (e.g., water, fossil fuels) from other industries that reduces the amount of natural resources available for food production or climate change impacts that disrupt provision of ecosystem services needed for food production.
- Labor employed in food producing activities can be affected by widespread disease outbreaks that reduce productivity of labor force or even the number of people able to produce food.
- Food consumption can be affected by population growth and ageing, changes in household incomes, changes in dietary patterns as well as routine and habits (e.g., food waste), values and ethical stances of consumers.
5. Vulnerability Analysis: Interplay between Internal Causal Structure and External Disturbances
6. Policy Analysis: The Potential Role of Organic Farming
7. Conclusions
Acknowledgments
Author Contributions
Conflicts of Interest
Abbreviations
AWU | annual work unit |
CAP | Common Agriculture Policy EU: European Union |
FNS | Food and Nutrition Security |
FNVA | farm net value added |
NGO | non-governmental organization |
R&D | Research and Development |
SES | social-ecological systems |
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Brzezina, N.; Kopainsky, B.; Mathijs, E. Can Organic Farming Reduce Vulnerabilities and Enhance the Resilience of the European Food System? A Critical Assessment Using System Dynamics Structural Thinking Tools. Sustainability 2016, 8, 971. https://doi.org/10.3390/su8100971
Brzezina N, Kopainsky B, Mathijs E. Can Organic Farming Reduce Vulnerabilities and Enhance the Resilience of the European Food System? A Critical Assessment Using System Dynamics Structural Thinking Tools. Sustainability. 2016; 8(10):971. https://doi.org/10.3390/su8100971
Chicago/Turabian StyleBrzezina, Natalia, Birgit Kopainsky, and Erik Mathijs. 2016. "Can Organic Farming Reduce Vulnerabilities and Enhance the Resilience of the European Food System? A Critical Assessment Using System Dynamics Structural Thinking Tools" Sustainability 8, no. 10: 971. https://doi.org/10.3390/su8100971
APA StyleBrzezina, N., Kopainsky, B., & Mathijs, E. (2016). Can Organic Farming Reduce Vulnerabilities and Enhance the Resilience of the European Food System? A Critical Assessment Using System Dynamics Structural Thinking Tools. Sustainability, 8(10), 971. https://doi.org/10.3390/su8100971