Search

This paper investigates the factors that influence the adoption of RSPO and Thai-GAP certification by oil palm smallholder farmers in Thailand. A random sample of 77 RSPO certified, 108 non-certified RSPO, 87 Thai-GAP certified, and 67 non-certified Thai-GAP smallholder farmers were interviewed to investigate the factors explaining the RSPO and Thai-GAP scheme adoption, respectively. The logit model was used to analyse the relationships between the adoption and the decision-making factors of the farmers. The results show that membership of farmer groups, the goal of the scheme, and trust in the scheme are the most significant factors affecting the adoption of RSPO certification. Scheme payments have a negative influence on adoption. In case of Thai-GAP, the results show the scheme payment, the image, concerns about the quality of land and water, and trust in the scheme are the most significant factors affecting the adoption. Finally, these findings suggest new factors may be attributed to several issues, including trust in the scheme, membership of farmer groups, the scheme’s goal, and trust in the scheme are the most significant. Designing and extension in influencing factors may play multiple roles in driving smallholder farmers to adopt sustainable certification schemes. This finding repeats that the usability of sustainable certification schemes in developing countries needs to be mobilised around a particular socio-cultural context. Including, understanding the factors affecting smallholder farmers’ intention to adopt Thai-GAP or RSPO certification is very important to plan and promote these schemes among other farmers and transform the current cultivation practices into more sustainable palm oil production.

he article explores eating-out practices among poor urban consumers in Bangladesh and their strategies to cope with food safety concerns. Using social practice theory, we implemented interviews and a household survey to analyse the eating-out practices of adult slum dwellers in Dhaka, Bangladesh and their food safety coping strategies. We identified two different dominant eating out practices: ‘snacking’ and ‘having a complete meal’. By reviewing the food safety concerns and coping strategies, we found that despite varying concerns, coping strategies are broadly similar across these two practices. The concerns include food presentation, unhygienic conditions, and unknown processing, while searching for information, using heuristic tools, and avoidance are the main coping strategies. These strategies are applied in both practices and do not exhibit significant differences in socioeconomic considerations and safety concerns. This indicates that the urban poor lack the resource and competencies to manage their concerns. The conclusion section presents a conceptual framework for future research on food safety coping strategies in urban eating-out practices. We also underline the need for context-specific policy interventions to ensure food safety in the urban food system of the global south.

In the last decades, the rapidly growing urban population of China led to intensifying the flows of vegetables from rural to urban areas. Contamination of these vegetables with pesticides and heavy metal residues is prevalent. So far, vegetable value chain members and public regulation have achieved limited success in eliminating these chemical food safety hazards. This thesis attempts to explain the determining factors of chemical food safety hazards and to identify potential interventions that can reduce these threats.In this thesis, I aim to address the prevalence of vegetable safety hazards in urban China. Although the food safety issue in China has been intensively investigated, earlier research lacked a thorough analysis of the distribution of food safety hazards for urban China. By reviewing previous studies, research gaps were identified in the introduction section: food safety hazards might be more prevalent in some cities, retail outlets, wholesale markets and urban districts than in others. This disparity needs to be properly measured and explained. This thesis closes this research gap by first retrieving vegetable safety data from publicly accessible sources and preparing the data for empirical analysis. Next, I applied various theoretical approaches derived from the food system framework to explain the prevalence of food safety hazards. In contrast to normative research on the legal framework or on food safety standards, I conducted an empirical analysis to explain the variations in food safety hazards distribution among different food outlets and among different locations. Through the comparative studies in this thesis, I have identified the actors that are relevant for food safety management and derived feasible policy implications.In this thesis, I introduce and discuss cross-cutting themes with regard to the contribution of this thesis to food safety management. In China, the production of perishable vegetables is geographically concentrated in cert

This thesis addresses the critical issue of implementing a global private governance regime promoting sustainability in global commodities, such as RSPO-certification in palm oil, in a country with its specific local context.The central research question of this thesis is “how can more sustainable palm oil in Thailand be created involving the whole supply chain.” The following four research questions have guided the study; (1) What are the factors influencing the adoption of sustainable oil palm practices certified through Thai-GAP and RSPO by smallholders in Thailand?; (2) Does RSPO certification change governance arrangements and power relationships within the Thai palm oil value chain?; (3) What policy arrangement can effectively balance the use of palm oil in Thailand for the production of biodiesel, palm cooking oil, and other usages, and strengthen sustainability by reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions?; and (4) What interests exist among Thai consumers for sustainable palm oil and what arrangements would enable them to express their sustainability concerns for palm cooking oil?The study found that both local (Thai-GAP) and global (RSPO) voluntary certification schemes were adopted by Thai smallholders. The main factors contributing to the adoption of the Thai-GAP certification were the image of the scheme, concerns about the quality of their land, concerns about the water quality, and the trust farmers have in the scheme. In the case of RSPO-certification these factors were being a member of a farmers group and being the target of the scheme in combination with the trust farmers have in the scheme. There are four important characteristics of the certified and the non-certified palm oil value chains in Thailand. First, introducing RSPO-certification in the Thai sustainable palm oil value chain was mainly done by NGOs and private millers without much support from government agencies. Second, the RSPO-certified palm oil value chain is governed by a global sus

Understanding the interaction between urban daily lives and patterns of food consumption in the Global South is important for informing health and sustainability transitions. In recent years, the lives of poor urban dwellers have undergone significant transformations which have been associated with shifts in patterns of daily food consumption from household-based towards primarily out-of-home. However, as of yet, little research has explored how changing everyday contexts of consumers' lives interrelate with their food vending-consumption practices. This study seeks to understand the interrelations between everyday urban lives and out-of-home food consumption practices among the urban poor in Ibadan, Nigeria. A situated social practice approach is employed to understand how everyday contexts shape practices of out-of-home food vending consumption. Multiple methods were employed, including GIS mapping of food vending outlets, quantitative consumer surveys, in-depth consumer interviews, and participant observation. The study provides an overview of food vending-consumption practices in terms of the socio-demographic situation of consumers and the embeddedness of food vending in the practice arrangements making up their daily lives. The findings reveal three key daily life practices that interlock with their ready-to-eat foods consumption practices: daily mobility practices, working arrangements, and domestic engagements These three categories of daily urban practices that have undergone rapid transformation in line with socio-economic change and urbanisation and emerged as particularly important in shaping out-of-home food consumption. The paper concludes by considering the importance of understanding the embeddedness of food vending practices in the daily lives of the urban poor for sustainable food systems transitions in the Global South.

Private actors are essential partners in the sustainability governance of commodity-supply chains such as palm oil. However, their actual contribution to promoting sustainability is also contested. This article assesses the role of private actors in the governance of the palm oil-supply chain in Thailand by comparing supply-chain actors that are certified with the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) standards and non-certified supply-chain actors. The comparison entails input supply and production, collection and sales, processing and storage, and distribution. Building on the concept of (global) value chains, we examine the following governance dimensions in our comparison: the management of contracts and agreements, the role of trust in transactions, the relative power of various actors, and the control over smallholder farmers’ access to the market. Primary data were collected in the Surat Thani and Krabi Provinces in southern Thailand. We found that the RSPO-certified palm-oil chain was shorter, more transparent, and that farmers received higher prices than the non-RSPO-certified chains.

The way people access food in Nigeria is of central relevance for food security, health and sustainability. One key trend is the shift from household-based to primarily out-of-home food consumption as an increasing majority of the urban poor derive their daily nutrient intake from street foods. However, few studies have yet explored the role of the ready-to-eat food vending sector in urban food systems and the diets of the urban poor. This paper investigates the interrelations between these practices and the diversity of food groups provisioned among the urban poor in developing city contexts. A social practice approach is employed to explore differentiation among informal-ready-to-eat food vending practices in the city of Ibadan, Nigeria, in terms of their daily activities, competences and resources. Applied methods include GIS mapping, food log diaries, in-depth interviews and participant observation to map and classify informal-ready-to-eat food vending practices according to the nature of food provisioned and explore the everyday performances of different informal-ready-to-eat food vending practice initiatives and their relation to dietary diversity. The results reveal three key categories among these practices: traditional, processed and unprocessed—with varying levels of diversity in the food groups on offer. Traditional food vendors offer more diversified food compared to processed food vendors and unprocessed food vendors. The results reveal that material infrastructure, cooking bargaining and purchasing skills and nutritional knowledge are key to the diversity of food groups provisioned. The paper concludes by considering the wider relevance of these findings for urban food science and policy.

Food system analysis is used to understand relations between the production, distribution, and consumption of agricultural products. Many export commodities commodities are facing “consumer concerns” and certification requirement issues.In this paper, the certification requirements and schemes of two export commodities—banana and cocoa—are discussed using food system analysis. The “inclusiveness” of the food system, in terms of living wage, is also discussed.

This article explores the reconfigurations of fish consumption practices in Myanmar in a context of rapid urbanization and changing availability of wild and farmed fish. Using a social practice lens, we analyze how everyday fish consumption practices change as people move from the rural Ayeyarwady Delta to Yangon city. We show how these reconfigurations are shaped by new routines in urban areas and the transition from capture fisheries to aquaculture. Our analysis reveals a growing detachment of consumers from production processes but, at the same time, a continuity in their everyday food routines through the upholding of “mother’s traditional cuisine”, and a general drive to preserve commensality. We demonstrate the value of using a social practices lens integrating micro- and meso-scale socio-cultural processes to understand dietary change by examining how rural-urban migration influence the sourcing, cooking, and eating of wild and farmed fish. These insights have implications for the everyday geography of consumption, including the persistence of socio-culturally appropriate food practices and the hybridisation of rural-urban food environments. As such, social practice approaches to the study of food consumption open up a means of understanding and even steering complex food system transitions in dynamically changing regions such as Southeast Asia.

Food systems analysis is increasingly being applied to understand relations between production, distribution, and consumption of food products, the drivers that influence the system, and the outcomes that show how well the food system performs on health and nutrition, on environmental sustainability, and on income and inclusiveness. Little attention has gone to the position of global export commodities, where production and consumption are far apart. Banana in Costa Rica and cocoa in Cote d’Ivoire were the subject of this study to find out what major drivers determine the functioning of these systems. Next to identifying drivers such as population growth and increased plant disease pressure, it was found that the typical far-away setting and different living conditions between producer and consumer countries required a special eye on governance as a tripartite arena (government, private sector, civil society) with their power relations, and on certification schemes as a driver that follows from corporate social responsibility. The certification schemes addressed cover all food system outcomes, although health and nutrition in a less conspicuous way. The descriptions of the functioning of the schemes were also linked to living wages and incomes for banana plantation workers in Costa Rica and cocoa smallholder farmers in Côte d’Ivoire. Although very meaningful, certification schemes so far do not prove to be a silver bullet, but they do have the potential, in combination with other measures, to help positive food system transformations.

Efforts to involve consumers in the transition towards sustainable diets often presume a degree of reflexivity on the concepts of health and sustainability in the minds of consumers ‘doing healthy and sustainable food’. Departing from the hypothesis that people with type 2 diabetes have been confronted with a physical health issue which has spurred some reflexivity around food consumption, we study how this reflexivity subsequently relates to sustainability in food practices, through the process of de- and reroutinization of mundane food practices. We take a practice-theoretical approach to compare and contrast reflexivity and performance in food practices, combining in-depth interviews with observations during food shopping and cooking. Our findings illustrate a diversity in the extent to which food practices are disrupted after being diagnosed with diabetes. We conclude that reflexivity is not necessarily inspired only by being diagnosed with a major health issue, but that there are more factors determining whether or not lifestyle changes actually take place, such as experiencing bodily discomforts and broader societal attention to lifestyle change. In terms of sustainability, positive environmental effects could be identified ‘piggybacking’ onto changes in practices that were performed towards a healthier diet, such as diversifying protein intake and eating less processed foods.

This paper reviews development research and policies on freshwater fish in South and Southeast Asia. We conduct a systematic review of academic literature from three major science-based policy institutions to analyze development research and policies that have accompanied the ongoing transition from freshwater capture fisheries to aquaculture in the region.Using a ‘food fish system’ framework allows for the identification and systematic comparison of assumptions underpinning dominant development policies. We analyze the interrelations between the production, provisioning, and consumption of wild and farmed fish and demonstrate a shift toward food fish systems thinking in the sampled literature. We discuss gaps and weaknesses in the literature, as identified through the application of the food fish systems framework and present an agenda for future research aimed at securing the potential of fish as food.

This thesis studies shrimp aquaculture certification schemes that provide technical standards as a guidance for best practices and coordinate the assessment of the performance of producers against these standards by experts. However, the effectiveness of certification as an improvement tool is being challenged. For instance, limitations in the accessibility of certification for a broad section of producers, proliferation of standards creating confusion for producers and consumers alike, and the limited evidence of material improvement resulting from standard compliance. These limitations are studied in four case studies on sustainability standards and shrimp aquaculture in Thailand. This thesis argues that these questions logically emerge from rendering certification as a technical tool of improvement that translates expert knowledge to guide, impose the rules upon and set the conditions for producers. Therefore this thesis argues that certification is fundamentally a social process. In doing so, this thesis reimagines the role and contribution of certification as an agent of change that may reflexively shape the political, economic and social relations between key actors and social structures to create an enabling improvement for sustainable shrimp aquaculture.

Certification of sustainable palm oil as organised through the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil is based on a simplified understanding of the global palm oil value chain – according to which instructions about production practices can be directly translated from the palm oil mill to the primary producer. The reality of palm oil provision is much more complex than this as is shown in the case of Thailand. On the basis of qualitative field study in Southern Thailand this paper clarifies that intermediary stages, such as the collection of oil palm fruit bunches at the ramp, play a key role in the organisation of the chain. The fluidity and complexity of the palm oil flow at the local level complicates the promotion of sustainability through certification. Global and national stakeholders, such as processing and trading firms, non-governmental organisations and national governments, should therefore open this black box of local dynamics to more effectively contribute to sustainability in palm oil supply.

Palm oil is highly controversial within the European Union (EU) as is illustrated by regular items in public media and decisions by the European institutions, such as the European Parliament. Producing countries are hardly engaging in these public and political debates but their participation is essential to develop an effective sustainable palm oil strategy. This article reviews the recent and current debates within the EU on palm oil use for biofuels and for food and other purposes. It proves important to distinguish between these two different goals because their governance dynamics within the EU are completely different. The biofuels market is dominated by government institutions while the market for food and industrial goods is dominated by private companies and private governance initiatives. Engagement of producing countries is likely to have little impact on the EU’s biofuels policy. More opportunities exist in the market for food and other purposes, provided attention is being paid to legitimacy and accountability of producing countries’ engagement.

Sustainable development goal 2 (SDG 2) challenges the world to connect food production and consumption in a way that matches local contexts and enables everyone to enjoy a healthy diet that is produced sustainably and contributes to the other SDGs. We identify a Missing Middle between food production and consumption, and between globally defined goals and local implementation practices that may hinder progress towards SDG 2. Examples of this Missing Middle and how it can be bridged demonstrate that key challenges should be addressed in a more integrated manner for more effective action on SDG 2. We encourage actors in food provisioning to start addressing the Missing Middle by collaborating with relevant stakeholders in specified cases.

This study aims to identify key differences between farmers who spontaneously implement stone bunds (i.e. farmers implementing stone bunds by their own initiative) and farmers who do not. Data were collected in the Girar Jarso woreda in the central highlands of Ethiopia, through a household survey with 80 farmers: 40 with spontaneously implemented stone bunds and 40 without. Independent samples t test, principal component analysis and regression analysis were used to analyse the data. Results show that five key-factors explain differences between the two groups of farmers: (1) readiness to change, (2) available resources, (3) social capital, (4) type of family, and (5) commitment. These factors together explain 73% of the variance in the data set and show that particularly characteristics related to the farmer’s intrinsic motivation play a crucial role to spontaneously implement and integrate stone bunds into the farming system. Furthermore, results show that young farmers are most committed to soil conservation: they are often intrinsically motivated dynamic farmers who are ready to change their future and improve productivity and food security. The study suggests that government extension programmes should therefore focus more on these young and dynamic farmers and foster their readiness to change. This implies that extension workers and government officials should better understand the crucial role of farmers’ intrinsic motivation when dealing with sustainable land management, and also reformulate extension strategies and messages. This is particularly important when developing a scaling-up strategy that helps to sustainably increase agricultural production and achieve food security of small-holder farmers in Ethiopia.

Transparency in environmental governance is no longer an uncontroversial answer to problems of accountability and effectiveness. How to design effective transparency systems and in what policy contexts they are effective remain contested issues. This special section, consisting of this introduction and four research articles, interrogates complex and potentially conflicting links between transparency, accountability, empowerment and effectiveness in environmental governance. Building on existing literature and the four contributions, we discuss persisting diversity in varieties of transparency, the evolving dynamics of commodity chain transparency, and the consequences of emerging novel forms of digitalized transparency. As we show, the contributions to this special section interrogate in novel ways the transformative potential of transparency, through shedding light on the performative effects of transparency in ever more complex environmental governance contexts. These contexts may include, inter alia, the growing ubiquity of traceability in transnational commodity chains, the need for ever more anticipatory (ex-ante) forms of environmental governance, and an ever-broadening quest for digitally monitored environments. In particular, the impacts of the realtime ‘radical’ transparency engendered by use of novel digital technologies remain under-analyzed in the sustainability domain. We conclude by raising several critical concerns that deserve further scientific research and policy debate.

The need for a shift toward healthier and more sustainable diets is evident and is supported by universalized standards for a “planetary health diet” as recommended in the recent EAT-Lancet report. At the same time, differences exist in tastes, preferences and food practices among diverse ethnic groups, which becomes progressively relevant in light of Europe’s increasingly multi-ethnic cities. There is a growing tension between current sustainable diets standards and how diverse ethnic resident groups relate to it within their ‘culturally appropriate’ foodways, raising questions around inclusion. What are dynamics of inclusiveness in migrant food practices? And what does this mean towards the transition to healthy and sustainable food? We study this question among Syrian migrants with different lengths of stay in the Netherlands. Our theoretical framework is based on practice theories, which emphasize the importance of socio-material context and of bodily routines and competences. We use qualitative methods, combining in-depth semi-structured life-history interviews with participant observation. Our findings indicate that inclusiveness takes different forms as migrants’ food practices and the food environment change. Regarding health and sustainability in food practices, understandings and competences around particularly fresh food change over time among both short- and long-term migrants, replacing making things from scratch with seasonal products with buying more processed products and out-of-season vegetables and fruits. We conclude that the performances of food practices and their configurations in food environments and lifestyles are dynamic and cannot unequivocally be interpreted as in- or exclusive, but that a more nuanced understanding is required.

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.

In Ethiopia’s struggle to enhance agricultural production and attain food security, combating land degradation remains a huge challenge; particularly in the highlands of the country where the large majority of the population is dependent on subsistence agriculture for their living. Sustainable Land Management (SLM) is therefore crucial, and over the past decades, massive investments have been made in Ethiopia to promote and scale-up SLM practices. However, large-scale adoption of these practices by smallholder farmers has so far been limited. Nevertheless, there are examples of farmers who have spontaneously adopted SLM practices. These farmers – using their own knowledge and capacity – often adapt practices to make them fit to their particular farming system, and integrate them with other land management measures. The overall aim of this study was to analyze this process of spontaneous spreading (i.e. the adoption and implementation of measures by farmers on their own initiative) and learn lessons that could contribute to developing the way forward in scaling-up SLM in the Central Highlands of Ethiopia.Chapter 2 deals with the comparison between stone bunds that were spread spontaneously versus stone bunds implemented by mass mobilization campaigns. The results show that farmers who spontaneously implement stone bunds prefer to construct them on farmlands located nearby the homestead, often with a poor to medium soil fertility status, where erosion is perceived as moderate to severe, and which have moderate to steep slope gradients. This means that stone bunds spontaneously spread mainly where they were most needed. Farmers with spontaneously implemented stone bunds perceive a reduction in soil erosion, increase in soil moisture, better soil productivity and higher crop yields on these farmlands. These positive effects are the result of the fact that stone bunds of the spontaneous adopting farmers are well-maintained and integrated with the use of fertilizer, compo

Equitable access to healthy food is a critical challenge in urban Asia. Food safety governance promotes modern supermarkets over more traditional markets, but supermarkets are associated with unequal access to food. This study investigates how retail policies driven by food safety impact the diets of the urban poor in Hanoi, Vietnam. We do this by linking food retail infrastructures with the food shopping practices and measured dietary intake of 400 women. Our results reveal sub-optimal dietary diversity and reliance on foods sourced through traditional markets, which do not provide formal food safety guarantees. Modern channels supply formal food safety guarantees, but are mainly frequented for purchasing ultra-processed foods. The paper uncovers a conflicting duality governing food security and suggests that the public responsibility for ensuring access of the poor to nutritious and safe foods requires a more diverse retail policy approach.

The European Union (EU) stands at a crossroads regarding its biofuel policies. For more than a decade, the EU sought to create a market for and govern sustainable biofuels for the transport sector, even as debates over sustainability escalated. It did so by devising novel hybrid (public and private) governance arrangements. We took stock of the nature and outcomes of this experiment in hybrid biofuel governance. We relied on qualitative methods of analysis, whereby we reviewed and synthesized the evolution of EU biofuel governance arrangements over time, through detailed document analysis of secondary and primary literature, including EU and related policy documents and private certification scheme websites. Our analysis reveals that, instead of yielding an increasingly stringent sustainability framework, the hybrid EU governance arrangements resultedin a proliferation of relatively lax, industry-driven, sustainability standards, even as the notion of “sustainable biofuels” remained contested in public and political debate. These findings contribute to an ongoing debate about the merits of hybrid (public–private) governance arrangements, and whether a hybrid approach helps strengthen or weaken sustainability objectives. We conclude that a more stringent EU meta-standard on sustainability needs to be developed, to underpin future governance arrangements.

Renewable energy promotion is recognized as an important goal in international climate policies in order to reduce CO2-emissions. Biodiesel can potentially be an important contributor in this respect, especially in Thailand with its large biomass production from oil palm cultivation. Palm oil is the main raw feedstock for biodiesel production. However, biodiesel production is also controversial in many respects, in particular considering its sustainability. This paper assesses the collaboration between different actors in the Thai biodiesel and oil palm networks in organizing biodiesel provision. Through qualitative interviews with key political, economic, and societal actors the structure and the dynamic of the biodiesel and oil palm industry, as well as the relevant policy dynamics, were investigated. We found that the implementation of biodiesel policy was dominated by the need to secure the production of palm oil-basedcooking oil leading to frequent adjustments. Sustainable improvementand environmental considerations hardly played a role in the interactions between the actors involved in the palm oil and biodiesel industries. Governmentagencies were dominant and steered the biodiesel and the oil palm industries both directly and indirectly via economic and societal actors. Nevertheless, the promotion of biodiesel continues to be the basis of the national renewable energy master plan with its clear target to balance and stabilize the economic, social and environmental issues. As the renewable energy master plan does not fit with the possible feedstock, the main challenges in achieving these sustainable targets are therefore how to maintain a stable and consistent policy, especially concerning balancing the palm oil used for biodiesel production on the one hand and palm oil-based cooking oil on the other.

Pesticide use is a common practice to control pests and diseases in vegetable cultivation, but often at the expense of the environment and human health. This article studies pesticide-buying and use practices among smallholder vegetable farmers in the Central Rift Valley of Ethiopia, using a practice perspective. Through in-depth interviews and observations, data were collected from a sample of farmers, suppliers and key governmental actors. The results reveal that farmers apply pesticides in violation of the recommendations: they use unsafe storage facilities, ignore risks and safety instructions, do not use protective devices when applying pesticides, and dispose containers unsafely. By applying a social practice approach, we show that these pesticide-handling practices are steered by the combination of the system of provision, the farmers’ lifestyle and the everyday context in which pesticides are being bought and used. Bringing in new actors such as environmental authorities, suppliers, NGOs and private actors, as well as social and technological innovations, may contribute to changes in the actual performance of these pesticides buying and using practices. This article argues that a practice approach represents a promising perspective to analyse pesticide handling and use and to systematically identify ways to change these.

The production and expansion of palm oil have emerged as a major and controversial issue in political and public debates in the North and the South on sustainable food and agriculture. Scientific research has played a marginal role in these debates that are characterized by black and white views on palm oil as a good, bad or even ugly crop, and by solutions that are limited in scope. Our first argument is that new conceptualization of the complexity and dynamics of the palm oil sector can revitalize debate on sustainable palm oil and be used to identify sustainable pathways for palm oil production. For this purpose, we develop an interdisciplinary framework, conceptualizing the palm oil sector as consisting of systems, flows and networks. Our second argument is that a transdisciplinary approach is need to identify and develop sustainable pathways. We present six ideas on how to do so. Given the controversy in debates on the production and expansion of palm oil, we consider switchers as critical actors for shaping sustainable pathways, both in the palm oil sector and at the science-policy interface.

In light of global climate change the relevance of sustainable food consumption is growing, yet access to it has not correspondingly developed. This paper addresses the issue of accessing sustainable food from a practice theories perspective. The case of students in Paris is examined by means of interviews and participant observation. Four indicators serve to structure the results, i.e., mode of recruitment, mode of engagement, degree of commitment, and bundles of practices. Based on this analysis, three types are constructed, each with distinct access issues. We conclude that access to sustainable food is not necessarily determined by financial means only, nor by individual attitudes, but should be analysed as embedded in the complex dynamics of multiple social practices. Building on these insights means that more attention for the actual practice of accessing sustainable food, the different elements, and bundles involved is needed when looking for ways to increase access to sustainable food.

The presence of multiple eco-certification standards for sustainable aquaculture is thought to create confusion and add cost for producers and consumers alike. To ensure their quality and consistency, a range of so-called metagovernance arrangements have emerged that seek to provide harmonized quality assurance over these standards. This article aims to answer the question of how these metagovernance arrangements differ and whether they actually reduce confusion, with a focus on aquaculture in Southeast Asia. We compare three metagovernance arrangements, the Global Sustainable Seafood Initiative, the International Social and Environmental Accreditation and Labelling Alliance, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Good Aquaculture Practices, with respect to differences in their goals, their levels of inclusiveness, and their internal governance arrangement. The findings indicate that these metagovernance arrangements differ with respect to their goals and approaches and do not seem to directly reduce confusion. More critically, they represent a new arena for competition among market, state, and civil society actors in controlling the means of regulation when aiming for more sustainable aquaculture production.

Food provision in contemporary societies is transforming due to challenges of globalization, sustainability and equity. The interactions between civil society organizations, governments, the food industry, consumers and producers constitute dynamic fields of environmental change in global food provision. Promoting equitable and sustainable food provision in a globalizing world requires well-informed insights in these social dynamics involved because global food governance involves a complex array of different public and private actors. Today we are faced with a fragmented, differentiated, hybrid and contested constellation of global food governance arrangements and therefore we need a network rather than a formalized perspective on food governance. Such a network perspective can serve as the start of a new research agenda for the study of global sustainable food governance.

The international cut flower industry is strongly criticized because of its environmental impacts and unsafe working conditions. Increasing certification of cut flowers is used to improve the growers’ environmental and social performance. But what is the impact of this private governance instrument on regulating the use of pesticides? This paper assesses the potential of privatecertification on governing the environmental and social problems from pesticide use along the global cut flower supply chain. We use detailed farm-level data to analyse the environmental and social impacts of flower certification in Ethiopia by comparing different national and international certification schemes. Our analysis does not show significant differences between these different private standards for most environmental and health and safety variables. The Ethiopian cut flower industry remains far from improving its sustainability performance throughprivate certification. However, certification schemes may enable farmers to have access to international markets and keep up their reputation.

Consuming safe and sustainable food requires trust. Consumer trust in food can be established in different ways, including through personal relationships or various institutional arrangements established by government, private companies and/or civil-society organisations. The recent increase in food-safety incidents and sustainability concerns in China suggests a dwindling trust in the current government-dominated food governance arrangement. This paper investigates whether emerging alternative trust arrangements and modes of food supply are better able to build consumer trust in contemporary China. Based on a survey of urban middle-class consumers in Beijing using various (i.e., alternative and conventional) food-supply modes, the role and importance of personal and institutional trust arrangements are compared. We found that even among the wealthier and more educated consumers in Beijing, only a small proportion regularly use alternative food-supply schemes; most rely on conventional wet markets and supermarkets. Buying food is primarily constrained by convenience, freshness and the price of food and less by food-safety concerns. In Beijing, trust in food-safety information remains largely derived from the government and less from the market (private certification schemes) or civil society. These findings contribute to the increasing body of knowledge on the embedded character of food consumption and on the relevance of designing policy strategies that connect institutional context and particular consumption practices. In our conclusion, we argue that to secure safe and sustainable food provision, the present government-based trust regime in China requires strengthening through linking up with market- and civil society-based trust regimes, complemented by elements of personalised trust.

Agricultural pesticides are important chemicals that are used to mitigate crop damage or loss and improve productivity. However, pesticides may cause negative environmental and human health effects depending on their specific distribution and use. Securing environmental safety and sustainability of pesticide distribution and use is widely seen as an important challenge for pesticide governance. This paper analyses how, why and under what circumstances Ethiopian pesticide supply chain actors deal with (un)safe distribution and use of pesticides and assesses their potential contribution to securing the quality, environmental safety and sustainability of pesticides importation, distribution and use. The framework developed for this is based on sustainable supply chain governance in order to assess the roles of and the interactions between the different chain actors, supporters and influencers. On the basis of field research in Ethiopia among key chain actors (importers, retailers, farmers) we analyse their involvement in three different environmental governance mechanisms: governing material flows of pesticides, managing information on health and environmental safety and providing training and capacity-building services. The study found the organisation of the pesticides supply chain in Ethiopia as atomistic. Environment and health hardly played a role in pesticides handling by the different supply chain actors, which was dominated by immediate profit motives. As a consequence smallholder farmers are put at risk because they are refrained from training, support or information provision on pesticides. Indeed, it was a failure of state governance that led importers and retailers to aggressive marketing and distributing pesticides unsafely and hinder the proliferate of private mode of governance. At the same time, a small signs of hope have also been identified at the supporters’ and influencers’ side of the chain. Successful environmental supply chain governance for safe

This paper explores the externally-led vertical differentiation of third-party certification standards using the case of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). We analyze this process in two dimensions. First, fisheries employ strategies to capture further market value from fishing practices that go beyond their initial conditions for certification and seek additional recognition for these activities through co-labelling with, amongst others, international NGOs. Second, fisheries not yet able to meet the requirements of MSC standards are being enrolled in NGO and private sector sponsored Fisheries Improvement Projects (FIPs), providing an alternative route to global markets. In both cases the credibility and authority of the MSC is challenged by new coalitions of market actors opening up new strategies for capturing market value and/or improving the conditions of international market access. Through the lens of global value chains, the results offer new insights on how such standards not only influence trade and markets, but are also starting to change their internal governance in response to threats to their credibility by actors and modes of coordination in global value chains.

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 paper reviews the extent to which sustainability governance has been integrated into the literature on sustainable chains and networks. The analysis brings together four main approaches to chains and network studies – supply chain management (SCM), global commodity chains (GCC), global value chains (GVCs) and global production networks (GPNs) – to examine how and the extent to which sustainability and sustainability governance are conceptualised and incorporated into their analytical frameworks. The results point to a shift in this combined literature from conceptualising the formation of global chains and networks as sites of inequality under conditions of globalisation, towards a renewed vision on the potential of chains as a site for social and environmental reform. Overall, however, we conclude that the literature on global chains and networks has not adequately conceptualised distinct modes of sustainability governance. In response, we offer an amended typology for identifying how firm and non-firm actors govern sustainability in chains, of chains and through chains in globalised commodity production and consumption. The paper finishes with an exploration of the research frontiers, challenges and continuing potential of chain and network studies to understand the governance of sustainability and a call for further academic debate on the kinds of integrated governance arrangements necessary for future sustainability reform through hybridised public-private economic practice.

There is a blossoming of voluntary certification initiatives for sustainable agro-food products and production processes. With these certification initiatives come traceability in supply chains, to guarantee the sustainability of the products consumed. No systematic analysis exists of traceability systems for sustainability in agro-food supply chains. Hence, the purpose of this article is to analyze the prevalence of four different traceability systems to guarantee sustainability; to identify the factors that determine the kind of traceability systems applied in particular supply chains; and to assess what the emergence of economic and market logics in traceability mean for sustainability. Two conclusions are drawn. Globalizing markets for sustainable agro-food products induces the emergence of book-and-claim traceability systems, but the other three systems (identity preservation, segregation and mass balance) will continue to exist as different factors drive traceability requirements in different supply chains. Secondly, traceability itself is becoming a market driven by economic and market logics, and this may have consequences for sustainability in agro-food supply chains in the future.

A current debate on environmental sociology involves how the subdiscipline should conceptualise and investigate the environment and whether it should be prescriptive and deliver policy recommendations. Taking this debate as a point of departure this article discusses the current and future role of sociology in a globalised world. It discusses how environmental sociology in the US and Europe differ in their understandings of sociology’s contribution to the study of the environment. Particular stress is placed on how these two regions differ with respect to their use of the tradition of sociological thought, views on what constitutes the environment and ways of institutionalising environmental sociology as a sociological field. In conclusion, the question is raised of whether current versions of environmental sociology are appropriate for analysing a globalised world environment; or whether environmental sociology’s strong roots in European and US cultures make it less relevant when facing an increasingly globalised world. Finally, the article proposes some new rules for a global environmental sociology and describes some of their possible implications for the sociological study of climate change.

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 just two decades, fair trade has evolved from a niche market supplying products for a small group of dedicated consumers to a well-established market in several European countries, including the Netherlands. This transition has led to important changes in the dynamics in the fair-trade supply chain and the role of different participating actors. The success of this provisioning model depends upon producers and consumers as well as on the engagement of retailers, but to date researchers have not actively investigated their role. This article helps fill this gap by applying a social practices perspective to analyze the role of retailers in the fair-trade supply chain in the Netherlands. Our empirical research shows that Dutch retailers may apply different strategies when selling fair-trade products, but also that many of them are interested in supplying these goods for reasons other than economic advantage. The main challenge that retailers face is how to balance actively promoting fair-trade products to consumers and presenting their outlet as unique by selling such items in a consumer-silent manner and contributing to a broader transition toward sustainable production and consumption.

Vietnam is facing serious challenges with respect to the amount and toxicity of the pesticides used. With hardly any domestic pesticides production, Vietnam experienced an exponential growth of both the quantity and the value of imported pesticides in recent years. And the increasing import of newly formulated (and safer) pesticides has not replaced or reduced the highly toxic pesticides with low efficacy. The improper use of pesticides by farmers (too high dosages, cocktailing of pesticides, inadequate pre-harvest intervals etc.) has further contributed to the environmental and health problems resulting from pesticides, especially in poorer areas where farmers have to largely rely on cheap but often old and more toxic pesticides. Despite a growth in pesticide policies and regulation, the state has been unable to regulate the pesticide market. The main causes behind the state failure in pesticide market regulation are the governance structure (i.e., centralized decision making), large corruption, information distortion and a failing legal system. To some extent, and in some more wealthy areas, famers and retailers have emerged successfully as new pesticide governance actors. But an overall improvement of pesticide registration and pesticide use can only rely on better government intervention: more stringent implementation and enforcement of regulations, more effective promotion of IPM-based pest control, further public participation in implementation and higher ethics within government.

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

Aquaculture, the farming of aquatic organisms, provides close to 50% of the world's supply of seafood, with a value of U.S. $125 billion. It makes up 13% of the world's animal-source protein (excluding eggs and dairy) and employs an estimated 24 million people (1). With capture (i.e., wild) fisheries production stagnating, aquaculture may help close the forecast global deficit in fish protein by 2020 (2). This so-called “blue revolution” requires addressing a range of environmental and social problems, including water pollution, degradation of ecosystems, and violation of labor standards.

Dit rapport probeert allereerst een overzicht te geven van Fairtrade strategieën door enerzijds het beschrijven van de ontwikkelingsfasen binnen de Fairtrade beweging en anderzijds het belichten van bedrijfsstrategieën op lokaal niveau. Hiermee wordt een kader geschapen voor de aanzet tot dit onderzoeksproject van de Wetenschapswinkel van Wageningen UR: de vraag van de werkgroep Fairtrade Gemeente Renkum om ondersteuning bij het behalen van de titel Fairtrade Gemeente Renkum. Besloten is om de gemeente Renkum als voorbeeldcasus te gebruiken om hiermee andere gemeenten die de titel Fairtrade Gemeente willen halen te inspireren. Om de gemeente Renkum te ondersteunen in haar streven erkend te worden als Fairtrade Gemeente zijn scenario’s ontwikkeld met als doel verschillende keuzemogelijkheden te laten zien die kunnen leiden tot de status van Fairtrade Gemeente Renkum. Op basis van het gekozen scenario is een monitoring- & evaluatiestrategie ontwikkeld en is een lange termijn communicatieplan geschreven.

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

More and more food is traded all over the world, changing the general pattern of food production and consumption dramatically. This transformation includes increasing consumer demand for safe and environmentally friendly produced food. Food is no longer produced only by farmers in the vicinity where consumers can easily observe how they produce their food. Nowadays, food can be produced in Asia and presented on a supermarket’s shelf in Europe, this unknown origin makes consumers more concerned about the safety of their food. Food scandals such as mad cow disease, bird flu, and GMOs make consumers concerned, uncertain and worried about their food. In response to these concerns, modern retailers in many countries improve their sustainable development policy and actively increase the provision of sustainable food. As a newly industrialized country in Southeast Asia, Thailand can be expected to witness a similar increasing domestic demand for sustainable food products, particularly in its urban areas. The general patterns of global change affect Thailand as well, but the specific processes of change differ due to specific conditions of urban Thailand. This paper analyzes the process of change towards sustainable food provision in Bangkok by investigating how consumers and the system of provision interact in retail outlets.

This paper reviews the contribution the social sciences can make to the challenge of providing access to sustainable sanitation services and infrastructures for billions of people, in both the over- and underdeveloped parts of the world. The paper reviews and discusses three particular social scientific topics relevant for the sanitation challenge: the nature of socio-technical change, the issue of multilevel governance, and the role of the citizen-consumer. It is argued that sanitation is as much a social as it is a technical issue, and that the role of social scientific knowledge needs to be strengthened and given more attention in this context. The key contribution from the social sciences is to be found in its capacity to help widen the narrow, technical definitions of sanitation by including actors and their needs and belief systems, and by highlighting the alternative socio-technical tools and governance arrangements that are instrumental in moving beyond some of the dead-end roads of traditional water engineering and sanitation provision

In Uganda, environmental and natural resource management is decentralized and has been the responsibility of local districts since 1996. This environmental management arrangement was part of a broader decentralization process and was intended to increase local ownership and improve environmental policy; however, its implementation has encountered several major challenges over the last decade. This article reviews some of the key structural problems facing decentralized environmental policy in this central African country and examines these issues within the wider framework of political decentralization. Tensions have arisen between technical staff and politicians, between various levels of governance, and between environmental and other policy domains. This review offers a critical reflection on the perspectives and limitations of decentralized environmental governance in Uganda. Our conclusions focus on the need to balance administrative staff and local politicians, the mainstreaming of local environmental policy, and the role of international donors