Special Issue "Thought for Food: Enhancing Food Biodiversity and Creating Resilient and Sustainable Local Food Systems through Food Tourism"

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

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 January 2022.

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Tracy Berno
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Hospitality and Tourism, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand
Interests: relationships between agriculture, tourism and cuisine; sustainable food systems; food politics
Dr. Danny Hunter
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Alliance of Biodiversity International and CIAT, 00054 Rome, Italy
Interests: healthy; sustainable diets; sustainable food systems; sustainable food procurement; agroecology; agricultural biodiversity and genetic resources; biodiversity and human health; indigenous food systems
Special Issues and Collections in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Food is at the nexus of complex ecological, socioeconomic, sociocultural and sociopolitical issues. Biodiversity in and across food and agriculture systems is of great significance to present and future generations. The critical need to address biodiversity in our food systems is evident in SDG 15: “Life on Land”, which acknowledges that biodiversity is the foundation for our life on this planet. Food biodiversity—the global wealth of plants, animals and other organisms used for food and beverages, both cultivated and wild—has been utilized by humanity throughout history but is largely disregarded by current agriculture and food systems. Instead, we are producing too much of the wrong kinds of foods. Food systems that re-integrate food biodiversity can often provide appropriate, sustainable, local solutions to these issues and challenges.

Food and beverages are essential to tourism and are growing in importance not just as a transactional part of the tourist experience, but as bona fide experiences in their own right. Although commonly thought of as a means for destination branding and marketing and/or economic development, food tourism is more than just eating and drinking at a destination. Food tourism comprises a continuum spanning from food production through to post-consumption waste management. As such, food tourism can potentially be used to effect change across the agriculture-tourism value chain. This Special Issue aims to explore the relationships between food tourism, biodiversity and resilient, sustainable local food systems. Papers that consider critical perspectives on issues such as how food tourism can contribute to sustainable consumption and production patterns that support biodiversity in local food systems, climate action, connecting tourists to local agricultural production and indigenous food plants of ecological, nutritional and/or cultural value and understanding how actors across the food system (producers, chefs, restauranteurs, tourism operators etc.) can contribute to biodiversity-rich and resilient and sustainable local food systems are invited. These can be exploratory, empirical or conceptual papers. Multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary contributions are also encouraged, as are pracademic approaches and practitioner–academic collaborations.

The Guest Editors are particularly interested in contributions which illustrate and critically reflect on examples that:

  • Empower women and youth-led enterprises, including small and medium-sized food enterprises, to grow and sell underutilized but nutrient-rich foods;
  • Describe innovative and novel ways of working with local chefs and gastronomy movements to popularize and create greater desirability for food biodiversity;
  • Celebrate food biodiversity through food festivals, fairs and tours;
  • Link food tourism to territorial approaches for sustainable rural development;
  • Provide reliable and regular markets for food biodiversity which also act as a tool to enhance conservation of biodiversity through greater utilization;
  • Strengthen community-based agri- and eco-tourism development and empower Indigenous people and local communities to better manage their territories;
  • Approaches which help to promote agroecology and regenerative agricultural approaches and strengthen environmental sustainability.

Dr. Tracy Berno
Dr. Danny Hunter
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

  • biodiversity
  • resilient food systems
  • local food systems
  • sustainability
  • food tourism

Published Papers

This special issue is now open for submission.
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