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This paper builds on a review of literature and EU policies for rural development, innovation, entrepreneurship and the bio-based economy. It provides a basis for conceptualizing modern rural economies dealing with food, bio - based value chains, and valorization of ecosystem services regarding future conditions for rural entrepreneurship (including agriculture), remote areas (including those in coastal areas), and urban-rural integration. It will outline emerging opportunities to promote diversification, shared values, innovation, and resource conservation, and to reach a common understanding of the solutions to set up a “Modern Rural Economy” in different conditions. In general, there are many opportunities for rural development, many of them linked to emerging technologies which reduce the relevance of distance in marketing, sales and many other activity domains and to business opportunities evolving within the bio-economy and ecosystem services. However, it becomes obvious that the realization of opportunities needs to build on the simultaneous engagement of various stakeholders in business development, research, and public administration. Successful developments require an integrated development approach which combines opportunities into a comprehensive development program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Present trends towards urbanization are a challenge to rural development. However new opportunities in food markets, the use of renewable resources and the organization of ecosystem services, due to a.o. emerging developments in technology and logistics, may allow a (partial) reversal of the trend if supported by appropriate initiatives of research, policy and the business community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainability concerns are receiving increasingly attention by society and in turn, the food sector and consumers as the food sector's final customers. Investments towards improvements in sus tainability along the chain are usually not evenly distributed along the chain which affects the balance in the distribution of costs and returns. Transparency is a means for supporting an appropriate link between costs and returns. Various alternatives ar e being discussed. The chapter utilizes a case study approach for elaborating on the possibilities of regaining costs through price premiums, the communication of sustainability to consumers and the cooperation through horizontal and vertical networking alternatives that could support developments towards sustainability through gains in efficiency and concerted engagements in dealing with sustainability, costs and returns along the chain [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles in the issue on topics including environmental issues such as climate change and water scarcity, Agribusiness around the world, and global challenge of food security.

One of the core requests in assuring competitiveness and sustainability in the food value chain is transparency. Food is a basic human need and as such of paramount interest to consumers. They expect retail to provide guarantees assuring that food is safe to eat and of the quality they request. Increasingly, interests of consumers reach beyond these basic needs but involve environmental or ethical aspects related to the production and distribution of food. The provision of the guarantees is communicated to consumers through claims that are expressed in messages ('food is safe'), signals ('food miles'), labels of various kind, or just clusters of information items (as e.g. 'origin'). Appropriate communication provides transparency to consumers and allowed them to 'make informed decisions' that fit their needs. The complexity of the sector, the absence of focal players in the field, the complexity in the collection, processing and communication of information, and limitations in information and network technology have made it difficult to find concepts and solutions that could solve the transparency problem at consumers' end. This is where the Future Internet provides opportunities that allowed to meet the challenge and to appropriately address the transparency problem. This paper introduces into the subject through a detailed outline of the transparency complexity of the food sector and the requirements on concepts and systems that could deal with it. This is followed by a presentation and discussion of a suitable concept, building on network elements of the Future Internet. The concept is based on a range of generic functionalities and system components that provide stability but also assure that the concept could easily be adapted to a broad range of sector scenarios in different product lines and food value chain organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Improvements in the food sector imply enhancements of delivering food which is safe, affordable, readily available, and of the quality and diversity consumers expect. However, prevalent information systems (IS) of companies in the food industry are not ready to support further significant improvements. They especially lack the capability to exchange relevant information in an efficient manner. Since recently, two major developments can be observed from IS perspective: the spreading of service-oriented architectures (SOA) as well as an increase in mass serialization (due to public and private traceability requirements, e.g.). So far, though most important due to food safety, a growing need to become more efficient as well as an increasing information demand of consumers, the food sector has attracted little attention in literature concerning an analysis about the potential of both service-orientation and the Electronic Product Code (EPC) Network. This is why this paper will investigate to which extent these two developments can contribute to facilitate food companies' IS helping them to maintain their competiveness. As a starting point, the research paper will depict the state of the art including SOA and the EPC Network. After describing the research approach, it will proceed with a characterisation of the food sector including an examination why there is need for action. Based on current research findings as well as experience gathered in recent projects, the paper will investigate the application of the EPC Network with its three major components, i. e. EPCIS (EPC Information Services), ONS (Object Name Service) and the EPC Discovery Services, as part of future IS architectures in this sector. The paper will close with a discussion whether the envisioned IS architecture is appropriate to accomplish the previously identified challenges and requirements in the food sector in a more agile, efficient and effective way. What is more, it will highlight the most pressing challenges and provide an outlook as to the following steps of the research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The driver for this paper is the need to better understand the potential for learning and innovation that networks can provide especially for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) which comprise by far the majority of enterprises in the food sector. With the challenges the food sector is facing in the near future, learning and innovation or more focused, as it is being discussed in the paper, 'learning for innovation' are not just opportunities but pre-conditions for the sustainability of the sector. Network initiatives that could provide appropriate support involve social interaction and knowledge exchange, learning, competence development, and coordination (organization) and management of implementation. The analysis identifies case studies in any of these orientations which serve different stages of the innovation process: invention and implementation. The variety of network case studies cover networks linked to a focus group for training, research, or consulting, networks dealing with focused market oriented product or process development, promotional networks, and networks for open exchange and social networking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The continuing increase in burning fossil fuels over recent decades along with the changing land use have resulted in a considerable increase in the amount of greenhouse gases (GHGs) which can potentially lead to climate change. Adaptation processes will become necessary in order to cope with these challenges in the future. Despite individuals' and institutions' willingness to reduce the amount of GHG emissions caused by their actions or their "carbon footprints", they may lack the knowledge to make effective choices. Carbon calculators have been developed to address these knowledge gaps by measuring and communicating the overall magnitude of the impacts and also the extent to which different behavior patterns contribute to GHG emissions. LCA databases, as providers of inventory data for carbon calculators, have an important role in helping to develop more complete and accurate tools to measure and report produced GHG emissions. For emissions-intensive behavior patterns, the food life cycle is a significant contributor to emissions resulting from activities including agriculture, processing, transport, storage, retail, consumption, and waste handling. This research seeks to classify and characterize these calculators and the agricultural activities or practices they cover, to provide the reader with an idea on the differences between these calculators, and why some of them could be more applicable to the food sector. The intent is to bring clarity to the discussion which could be a step forward in paving the way for the development of more reliable and comprehensive carbon calculators for measuring the GHG emissions of the food sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Production, processing, distribution, and consumption of a wide variety of products in the food sector have different ranges of environmental impacts. Methodologies used in environmental impact assessment differ in which set of impact categories is covered and which models are used to assess them. In the food sector, life cycle assessment results are mostly presented without any clear distinction of the principles applied to selecting the relevant methodology. In this paper, the most relevant life cycle impact assessment methodologies are determined from the list of recommended methodologies published recently in the international reference life cycle data system (ILCD) handbook. The range of the relevant impacts covered is considered as the main indicator decisive in selecting a methodology. The selection of the relevant set of impact categories is performed through an overview of more than 50 recent LCA case studies of different products in the sector. The result of the research is a short list of three LCIA methodologies recommended to be used for environmental impact assessment of products in the food sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food Chain Management is a rather new research domain. As a consequence, the domain and the research challenges within the domain are not yet clearly defined. This corresponds with the variety in the definition of food chains and networks that might focus on either closely cooperating enterprises along the value chain with an executive coordination element or, alternatively, on a network of enterprises in dynamically evolving business relationships. Management challenges in closely cooperating enterprises are closely linked to challenges in enterprise management and can draw on research in this domain; however, management activities in and for networks involve additional challenges that require focused research engagement. The dependency of all participants in the chain on consumers as the ultimate customers and the dependency of the quality of final products on the engagement of all participants in the production and distribution of products require new managerial activities and, in turn, support by research. This article discusses the background of future research needs and formulates priority challenges for managerial improvements toward an increased sustainability of the food sector. [JEL classifications: Q010, Q130, D290, L140] © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the major challenges being faced by the agri-food sector that arise from the changes in the economic and non-economic sector, lifestyle changes, climatic changes, changes in food consumption, diminishing production base and the changing attitudes of society. It notes that to address the problem, the agri-food must coordinate its activities and exploit its innovation potential as well as ensure a systematic flow of the sector to prepare and support its dynamic adjustment to the challenges it has to face in the future.

In complex policy decision situations where policy objectives cannot be reached alone through the aggregate actions of individual actors, the classical approaches for measuring the effects of regulatory initiatives such as cost-benefit analysis do not provide the information necessary for decision support. This paper discusses a framework for a multi-level analysis approach that could provide decision support in multi-level policy decision situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electronic trade platforms support trading transactions between enterprises. They have entered the business landscape including the agri-food sector only a few years ago. However, there already have been dramatic changes in the agri-food sector's platform infrastructures. This paper analyzes developments in electronic trade platform infrastructures in the agri-food sector of the US and Europe between 2000 and 2002 and identifies development strategies of successful platforms. Of 85 platforms in existence in the year 2000, only 25 remained active in 2002. But there are still market entries of new platforms and existing platforms form various types of partnerships. The analysis could identify a range of strategic development lines of successful platforms. Initiating cooperation with other platforms on the use of specific features and the development and use of standards, gaining support by major market participants, the improvement of trading functionalities and the expansion of value-added services are the primary lines of development and evolvement of platforms. Platform evolvement tendencies and the present occurrence of the trade platform infrastructure allow for projecting the emergence of an agri-food sector with embedded, interconnected e-commerce infrastructure or mega-hub leading towards a more networked agri-food industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of case studies in dealing with problems of the food sector is gaining increasingly attention in the scientific community. Case-based reasoning supports as a scientific approach the analysis of problems, relationships, behavior, and development directions of the sector and may contribute to understanding the sector's opportunities and abilities in meeting the challenges of the future. This editorial provides a short introduction into the case study approach and links it to the publications in the special issue which cover case studies from the US, Canada, South America, Europe, and Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transparency in the Food Sector and especially towards consumers is an issue which receives increasingly attention in public and research. There is widespread agreement that the present state of transparency is not sufficient and needs engagement by research and the sector to move forward. A Strategic Research Agenda on Transparency (SRA) identifies opportunities and challenges for research to contribute to improvements in transparency supporting consumers' trust in food and the society's interest in food that is safe and considers the evolving environmental and social concerns [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discussions on the safety and quality of food as well as growing interest in the sustainability of the production, distribution and consumption of food have contributed to the emergence of 'transparency' as a critical success factor for the food sector. However, reaching transparency for different stakeholders from different backgrounds and cultural identities is a dynamic process which depends on certain capabilities of enterprises and organizations along the food value chain but also on the realization of a fitting communication scheme within the sector. This discussion asks for the identification and utilization of an indicator that could identify deficiencies and support enterprises and the sector in reaching a level of transparency that could serve specified transparency needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article describes the dynamics of the food system. Topics covered include the involvement of all actors, activities, resources and environments that produce food for people, environmental impacts of the food system, and changing social attitudes towards the consequences of the food system. Also noted is the innovation potential of the food system to secure the global availability of food.