Search

Transitions never take place in isolation, and that will not be the case with a protein transition either. Our food system is truly globalized. This means that a change in production or consumption in one country does affect consumers and producers elsewhere. In order to assure a transition that is genuinely sustainable and equitable, we argue in this chapter, we have to take a global perspective.

In Case C-363/18 Organisation juive européenne, Vignoble Psagot Ltd v Ministre de l’Économie et des Finances (“Occupied Territories case”), the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU or Court) was tasked with deciding what information on its country of origin or place of provenance is mandatory for business according to existing European legislation. This casenote summarizes the interpretative decisions taken by the Advocate General Hogan (Advocate General or AG) and the Court in their opinion and judgment, respectively. It then considers the broader implications of this case from several perspectives: first, from the perspective of political consumerism and its (potential) role in EU internal market law; second, from the perspective of the enforcement of international law; and third, from the perspective of the coherence of EU food and consumer law including its behavioural dimension.

This article briefly discusses the different systems for tracing sustainability in global food chains and pays particular attention to the marketisation of sustainability through certificates.

In this paper, we examine the processes of initiation, construction and transformation of the organic cocoa network from Ghana. We address in particular how the state responded to and engaged with civil-society actors in the organic cocoa network and to what extent state involvement reshaped state–business–civil society relations? While most of the literature argues that globalization and liberalization processes weakened the state's position as key player in the development and management of agro-food networks, the case of the (organic) cocoa sector in Ghana is often depicted as an exception because of the strong position the state still occupies in it. Employing a global commodity network perspective to analyse the Ghanaian organic cocoa case, this paper emonstrates that although the state is still a major player in the contemporary (organic) cocoa network, some hybrid governance arrangements, involving state, transnational and national NGO networks, and businesses, are emerging. The organic cocoa network also prompted a double process of ‘dis- and re-embedding’ at the local level that helped shape and strengthen the organic cocoa network.

This article briefly discusses the different systems for tracing sustainability in global food chains and pays particular attention to the marketisation of sustainability through certificates.

Increasing demand for sustainable foods can be a driver for environmental improvements along the food-supply chain as a whole. Research in Western Europe has confirmed the importance of distribution channel s in supplying sustainable food and particularly in how they are able to combine consumer concerns with the specific presentation of sustainability in the shop. In the urban areas of Thailand only some distribution channels for sustainable food are available, such as supermarkets and specialized shops (including specialized restaurants). Supermarkets mostly offer sustainable products, but the range of sustainable products depends on the location of supermarket. Specialized shops focused on organic products, healthy food, or special dietary needs. This paper reviews sustainable food providers i.e. supermarkets and specialized shops in Bangkok and combines literature review and empirical fieldwork. The focus was on the shop as the location where providers enco unter consumers. Sustainability was observed at three levels; the general level, the shop level, and the product level. In particular communication, information, and other trust-building mechanisms at shop level were explored. The paper concludes by confirming the central role of specialized shops and supermarkets in transition processes towards more sustainable food provision. Their engagement creates a pressure on other actors in the food supply chain such as producers, government agencies, and consumers to also shift their practices. Different strategies can be identified as ways to increase sustainability in food provision

This edited volume presents and reflects upon empirical evidence of ‘sustainability’-induced and -related transition in food practices. The material collected in the various chapters contributes to our understanding of the ways in which ideas and preferences, sociotechnological developments and changes in the governance of food interact and become visible in practices of consumption, retail and production.

This edited volume presents and reflects upon empirical evidence of ‘sustainability’-induced and -related transition in food practices. The material collected in the various chapters contributes to our understanding of the ways in which ideas and preferences, sociotechnological developments and changes in the governance of food interact and become visible in practices of consumption, retail and production.

Global environmental certification systems base their legitimacy on consumer concerns, which are facilitated by non-governmental organisations and retailers, and which steer fishers and fish farmers to comply with pre-determined production standards. But while such information flows are clearly demonstrated in complying exporters, it is often less clear how the information is transferred from them to producers. Evidence suggests that in the absence of strong vertical integration, the link between exporters and producers remains a “black box”, confounding assumptions that producers have transparent access to global markets. In order for certification schemes to foster environmental and social sustainability in fisheries and aquaculture, new arrangements for engaging local practices and relations of production and trade are needed

In developed countries the sanitation challenge is to initiate a transition from strongly centralized, water-based infrastructure regimes towards more sustainable, source-separation oriented, sanitation regimes. This calls for social scientific research and demonstration on different levels and scales, including concept development, institutional learning and governance building. In the developing world the sanitation challenge is to provide sanitation services to the poor and the very poor, without compromising on sustainability. New configurations employing the best practices of sanitation technology and management for rural and urban contexts are needed. The sanitation challenge in both worlds is to go beyond traditional dichotomies between ‘small, appropriate’ and ‘modern/advanced’ technologies and to develop rural and urban sanitation with a mix of scales, strategies, technologies, payment systems and decision-making structures, that better fit the physical and human systems for which they are designed.

Environmentalism and social sciences appear to be in a period of disorientation and perhaps transition. In this innovative collection, leading international thinkers explore the notion that one explanation for the current malaise of the ¿politics of ecology¿ is that we increasingly find ourselves negotiating ¿technonatural¿ space/times. International contributors map the political ecologies of our technonatural present and indicate possible paths for technonatural futures. The term ¿technonatures¿ is in debt to a long line of environmental cultural theory from Raymond Williams onwards, problematizing the idea that a politics of the environment can be usefully grounded in terms of the rhetoric of defending the pure, the authentic, or an idealized past solely in terms of the ecological or the natural. In using the term ¿technonatures¿ as an organizing myth and metaphor for thinking about the politics of nature in contemporary times, this collection seeks to explore one increasingly pronounced dimension of the social natures discussion. Technonatures highlights a growing range of voices considering the claim that we are not only inhabiting diverse social natures but that within such natures our knowledge of our worlds is ever more technologically mediated, produced, enacted, and contested

The provision of food is undergoing radical transformations throughout the global community. Peter Oosterveer argues that, as a consequence, conventional national governmental regulations can no longer adequately respond to existing and emerging food risks and to environmental concerns. This book examines these challenges. Translating recent innovative thinking in the social sciences - as seen in the work of Manuel Castells and John Urry amongst others - to the world of food, this book reviews the challenges facing global food governance and the innovative regulatory arrangements that are being introduced by different governments, NGOs and private companies. The analysis includes case-studies on the European BSE crisis, GM-food regulation, salmon and shrimp farming and food labelling. The author highlights how contemporary governance arrangements also have to acknowledge increasing consumer demand for food produced with care for the environment, animal welfare and social justice. Developing and implementing adequate global food governance arrangements therefore demands the active involvement of private firms, consumers, and civil society organisations with national governments.

Over the past few years many policy reports have been published which call for new attention as to the pivotal role of agriculture in (rural) development. These reports raised the question at both the Netherlands’ Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality (LNV) and the Netherlands’ Directorate-General for International Co-operation (DGIS) whether the Netherlands policy needs adjustment and what role both ministries might play in view of the changing perceptions. In order to answer these questions, the ministries felt the need to have better insight in the debate as fuelled by the various reports: “How do the recommendations of the different reports relate, and what is the expert judgment about these recommendations?” To answer these questions, a Review Team of Wageningen University and Research Centre was requested to analyze the most-relevant reports, summarize their recommendations, organize expert-meetings within and outside Wageningen and define emerging issues in various domains that need to be addressed. This report is the result of that Review

Globalisation in food production and consumption is fundamentally transforming a wide variety of social practices at different levels in society. Simply adding another level of governance will therefore not solve the problems related to food production and consumption in global modernity. Different layers in the social reality of global modernity are mutually connected and, besides their internal dynamics, interaction between them also takes place. This study has clarified the usefulness of the concepts of global flows and networks to understand these interactions regarding food.