Special Issue "Operationalising the Transition to Sustainable Food Systems"

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Food".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 August 2021.

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Adanella Rossi
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment, University of Pisa, 56127 Pisa, Italy
Interests: sustainability transition of food systems; social innovation around food; food movements; food governance
Dr. Giaime Berti
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute of Management, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, 56127 Pisa, Italy
Interests: food governance and policy; digital disruption in food systems; food supply chains; food systems sustainability; rural development
Special Issues and Collections in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Never before has there been such a widespread awareness of the need to redesign our food systems to meet the social and environmental challenges we are and will be facing. The recent experience of the coronavirus pandemic has called on us to reflect on the unsustainability of our lifestyles and production–consumption patterns, and urged us to look at alternative models, including in relation to food. Events like these bring to light conditions that however come from afar.

Looking at the characteristics of the dominant agri-food system, an awareness has long been developing of how much this system has lost its contact with nature and society, losing capacity to stay in balance and, even more, to co-evolve with the environment and meet the needs for food quality and social justice. In recent decades, food movements and alternative food networks have denounced these shortcomings and created alternative pathways, prefiguring important innovations aimed at radical change. Indeed, to tackle the above-mentioned challenges, systemic deep changes in structure, practices, and culture are required, involving both business and society, the private and the public sphere.

This Special Issue aims at developing a debate on this transformation process by exploring the potential of a radical change of the food system. We aim to look beyond what has already been said and analysed many times, opening up to innovative views and discussing how the innovative experiences can scale out of their niches. Contributions from many diverse perspectives will be welcome, coming from scholars and from all other researchers engaged in alternative pathways around food. We invite researchers to adopt a holistic approach: complex problems cannot be solved through partial views, but require comprehensive approaches that are able to take into consideration all the different components, interdependencies, and processes involved.

We thus seek papers addressing—but not limited to—the following issues in dealing with a transition to socially and environmentally sustainable food systems:

  • Re-designing food systems according to agroecological and social justice principles;
  • Definition of new food policies as a public framework for private activities;
  • Power relationships at play in agri-food systems and their re-balancing;
  • Development of new food governance systems enabling transformation and distributive justice;
  • Urban–rural interactions and their role in supporting sustainable food systems;
  • Deliberate interventions, everyday practices, and policies to meet everyone’s right to high-quality food;
  • Ways to overcome path dependency and lock-ins that characterize the dominant agri-food socio-technical system;
  • Changes in the value chains: new food business models aiming to create shared value with society;
  • Changes in the culture of food: new ways to conceive food and tackle food-related practices;
  • Changes in the global discourse of food, food security, and food sovereignty.

Prof. Dr. Adanella Rossi
Dr. Giaime Berti
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Transition to sustainable food systems
  • Alternative food networks
  • Food governance
  • Food discourse
  • Innovation around food

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

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Article
Policy Interventions Promoting Sustainable Food- and Feed-Systems: A Delphi Study of Legume Production and Consumption
Sustainability 2021, 13(14), 7597; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13147597 - 07 Jul 2021
Viewed by 737
Abstract
The food- and feed-value systems in the European Union are not protein self-sufficient. Despite the potential of legume-supported production systems to reduce the externalities caused by current cultivation practices (excessive use of N fertilizer) and improve the sustainability of the arable cropping systems [...] Read more.
The food- and feed-value systems in the European Union are not protein self-sufficient. Despite the potential of legume-supported production systems to reduce the externalities caused by current cultivation practices (excessive use of N fertilizer) and improve the sustainability of the arable cropping systems and the quality of human diets, sufficient production of high-protein legume grains in Europe has not been achieved due to multiple barriers. Identifying the barriers to the production and consumption of legumes is the first step in realizing new pathways towards more sustainable food systems of which legumes are integral part. In this study, we engage stakeholders and decision-makers in a structured communication process, the Delphi method, to identify policy interventions leveraging barriers that hinder the production and consumption of legumes in the EU. This study is one of a kind and uses a systematic method to reach a common understanding of the policy incoherencies across sectors. Through this method we identify policy interventions that may promote the production of legumes and the creation of legume-based products in the EU. Policies that encourage reduced use of inorganic N fertilizer represent an important step toward a shift in the increased cultivation of legumes. Relatedly, investment in R&D, extension services, and knowledge transfer is necessary to support a smooth transition from the heavy use of synthetic N fertilizer in conventional agriculture. These policy interventions are discussed within current EU and national plant-protein strategies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Operationalising the Transition to Sustainable Food Systems)
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Article
The Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Food Security in Rural and Urban Settlements in Benin: Do Allotment Gardens Soften the Blow?
Sustainability 2021, 13(13), 7313; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13137313 - 30 Jun 2021
Viewed by 602
Abstract
A Rapid Food Security Appraisal among 240 rural and urban dwellers in southern Benin was conducted, using univariate and bivariate analyses, to evaluate the effects of the imposed COVID-19 ‘cordon sanitaire’ on food consumption patterns. As this is one of the first empirical [...] Read more.
A Rapid Food Security Appraisal among 240 rural and urban dwellers in southern Benin was conducted, using univariate and bivariate analyses, to evaluate the effects of the imposed COVID-19 ‘cordon sanitaire’ on food consumption patterns. As this is one of the first empirical studies on the COVID-19 food security nexus, we found that the raging pandemic has affected the food security pillars (availability, accessibility, utilization, and stability) in both rural and urban areas, within and outside the cordon sanitaire. The steepest decline was observed among respondents who live inside the cordon sanitaire, where rural producers and urban inhabitants without access to allotment gardens were hit hard. Increased food prices, disruptions in food logistics, and inability to work due to movement restrictions were most frequently indicated as reasons for the decline. Access to allotment gardens effectively supported households in mitigating the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the food crisis. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Operationalising the Transition to Sustainable Food Systems)
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Article
Enacting Transitions—The Combined Effect of Multiple Niches in Whole System Reconfiguration
Sustainability 2021, 13(11), 6135; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13116135 - 29 May 2021
Viewed by 727
Abstract
The environmental and social issues caused by agricultural and food distribution practices call for a profound reconfiguration of the agri-food system. This paper is aimed at contributing to a better understanding of the way such a reconfiguration may be fostered. Building on recent [...] Read more.
The environmental and social issues caused by agricultural and food distribution practices call for a profound reconfiguration of the agri-food system. This paper is aimed at contributing to a better understanding of the way such a reconfiguration may be fostered. Building on recent developments of transition studies that analyze whole system reconfigurations, it proposes a pragmatist, whole system approach to examine the socio-political dimension of sustainability transitions. Based on the ethnographic and longitudinal study of a unique case of (territorial) agroecological transition in France, it identifies the mechanisms involved in a transition and the way actors enacted them. It characterizes required prior, incremental system changes, and stresses the role of multiple niches that influence simultaneously the various components of the agri-food system. From an action-oriented perspective, these results suggest that transitions may be fostered by: (1) supporting the diffusion of an alternative technological paradigm within the regime that niches may be congruent with; (2) stimulating the development of a diversity of radical innovations related to the various dimensions of the agri-food system and fostering their interactions with the regime; and (3) moving from a technology-driven approach of innovation towards an emphasis on organizational innovations that foster the rebalancing of power relations. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Operationalising the Transition to Sustainable Food Systems)
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Review

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Review
Benefits of Organic Agriculture under the Perspective of the Bioeconomy: A Systematic Review
Sustainability 2021, 13(12), 6852; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13126852 - 17 Jun 2021
Viewed by 400
Abstract
The opportunities for the global growth of the bioeconomy (BE) are generated by the need to expand the food supply for an increasing world population without compromising the environment even further. Organic agriculture (OA) claims to be more environmentally friendly than conventional agriculture [...] Read more.
The opportunities for the global growth of the bioeconomy (BE) are generated by the need to expand the food supply for an increasing world population without compromising the environment even further. Organic agriculture (OA) claims to be more environmentally friendly than conventional agriculture and capable of addressing sustainable development objectives by using green technologies, resulting in economic, social, and ecological benefits. The aim of this paper is to investigate the relation between OA and BE through a systematic literature review. We addressed the benefits of OA under perspective of the main aspects of BE. As demonstrated by previous papers assessed on this review, OA can be a means to facilitate strategies for the use of renewable resources to mitigate the emergencies arising from global warming, as claimed by the BE concept. This article introduces a necessary discussion due the lack of previous studies reporting the capacity of OA to connect with the BE. As a final contribution, we present a conceptual framework characterizing potential benefits of OA under the perspective of BE, for organic farmers and researchers to advance in sustainability and green innovation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Operationalising the Transition to Sustainable Food Systems)
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