Obesity and diabetes, the built environment, and the ‘local’ food economy in the United States, 2007

Obesity and diabetes are increasingly attributed to environmental factors, however, little attention has been paid to the influence of the ‘local’ food economy. This paper examines the association of measures relating to the built environment and ‘local’ agriculture with U.S. county-level prevalence of obesity and diabetes. Key indicators of the ‘local’ food economy include the density of farmers’ markets and the presence of farms with direct sales. This paper employs a robust regression estimator to account for non-normality of the data and to accommodate outliers. Overall, the built environment is associated with the prevalence of obesity and diabetes and a strong local’ food economy may play an important role in prevention. Results imply considerable scope for community-level interventions.

Sustainable horticultural supply chain: the case of local food networks in the United Kingdom

In the UK there is widespread support from Government, media and consumers for local food networks. These have the potential to provide a more sustainable supply chain and are well suited to the unique production and consumption characteristics of horticultural products. In terms of food marketing, local food is in its relative infancy and is still without any formal definition. This lack of clarity hampers research activities. Although the profile of local food buyers and their expectations has been explored, our knowledge of its social, economic and environmental aspects is minimal. This research contributes by exploring the structure and scope of local food activities in the UK in terms of profiling those specialised retail outlets who provide consumers with the opportunity to purchase locally grown horticultural products.

Market power and its effects on equilibrium in the food system

When food processors have conjectures about rival firms' responses, their profit functions can be used to estimate the degree of market power in the food system. The effects of this power are investigated analytically and through applying the results to the U.S. pork sector

Comparing hypotheses about competition in the food system

A procedure is presented for comparing hypotheses about competition that makes no parametric assumptions about cost and demand functions, can be implemented with a modicum of data, and relies on Bayesian comparisons of non-nested hypotheses. The methodology is applied to data on five of the major U.S. food industries

Food-system quality control and stage of distribution

This article models the interactions between safety and quality control and stage of distribution in the food marketing complex

Priority research questions for the UK food system

The rise of food security up international political, societal and academic agendas has led to increasing interest in novel means of improving primary food production and reducing waste. There are however, also many ‘post-farm gate’ activities that are critical to food security, including processing, packaging, distributing, retailing, cooking and consuming. These activities all affect a range of important food security elements, notably availability, affordability and other aspects of access, nutrition and safety. Addressing the challenge of universal food security, in the context of a number of other policy goals (e.g. social, economic and environmental sustainability), is of keen interest to a range of UK stakeholders but requires an up-to-date evidence base and continuous innovation. An exercise was therefore conducted, under the auspices of the UK Global Food Security Programme, to identify priority research questions with a focus on the UK food system (though the outcomes may be broadly applicable to other developed nations). Emphasis was placed on incorporating a wide range of perspectives (‘world views’) from different stakeholder groups: policy, private sector, non-governmental organisations, advocacy groups and academia. A total of 456 individuals submitted 820 questions from which 100 were selected by a process of online voting and a three-stage workshop voting exercise. These 100 final questions were sorted into 10 themes and the ‘top’ question for each theme identified by a further voting exercise. This step also allowed four different stakeholder groups to select the top 7–8 questions from their perspectives. Results of these voting exercises are presented. It is clear from the wide range of questions prioritised in this exercise that the different stakeholder groups identified specific research needs on a range of post-farm gate activities and food security outcomes. Evidence needs related to food affordability, nutrition and food safety (all key elements of food security) featured highly in the exercise. While there were some questions relating to climate impacts on production, other important topics for food security (e.g. trade, transport, preference and cultural needs) were not viewed as strongly by the participants.

Social innovation in local food in Japan: Choku-bai-jo markets and Teikei cooperative practices

The working paper depicts two innovative examples from Japan of the direct supply of food, which involves the development of closer producer-consumer relations, as well as closer producer-producer networks. Choku-bai-jo and Teikei networks are considered as examples of practices implicated in alternative food networks (AFNs). One example has become a quasi-public endeavour and is seen by the Japanese state as a legitimate part of rural development and is promoted in support of small producers. The other is borne from consumer concern over food quality and, despite its long-lived status, this arrangement remains marginal and with little institutional or governmental support. A model which blends the organization and aims of both examples holds potential for a more sustainable eco-economic future.

Exploring the market potential of 'local' in food systems

Local food initiatives create a niche market in many developed countries where consumer choice is being met with an expanding offering in both conventional as well as complementary retail outlets. Supermarkets in conjunction with the food service sector currently dominate food sales and consumption, and are likely to do so for the foreseeable future. However, the local food sector offers an opportunity for implementing niche marketing strategies for many businesses. Local food activities tend to be relatively independent activities and a clearer definition for “local” food would assist in consolidating this important component of the food system. Related to this, consumers would benefit from the establishment of some form of assurance system for the ‘localness’ of food. In the UK, with its well established local food market, farmers’ markets, farm shops and box schemes are currently having the largest impact in terms of total sales. Hence further research is required to confirm that support for similar business ventures in Australia would be a viable strategy for strengthening its local food systems.

Local versus organic: a turn in consumer preferences and willingness-to-pay

Demand for local food in the United States has significantly increased over the last decade. In an attempt to understand the drivers of this demand and how they have changed over time, we investigate the literature on organic and local foods over the last few decades. We focus our review on studies that allow comparison of characteristics now associated with both local and organic food. We summarize the major findings of these studies and their implications for understanding drivers of local food demand. Prior to the late 1990s, most studies failed to consider factors now associated with local food, and the few that included these factors found very little support for them. In many cases, the lines between local and organic were blurred. Coincident with the development of federal organic food standards, studies began to find comparatively more support for local food as distinct and separate from organic food. Our review uncovers a distinct turn in the demand for local and organic food. Before the federal organic standards, organic food was linked to small farms, animal welfare, deep sustainability, community support, and many other factors that are not associated with most organic foods today. Based on our review, we argue that demand for local food arose largely in response to corporate cooptation of the organic food market and the arrival of “organic lite.” This important shift in consumer preferences away from organic and toward local food has broad implications for the environment and society. If these patterns of consumer preferences prove to be sustainable, producers, activists, and others should be aware of the implications that these trends have for the food system at large.

A vision for attaining food security

Food is fundamental to human wellbeing and development. Increased food production remains a cornerstone strategy in the effort to alleviate global food insecurity. But despite the fact that global food production over the past half century has kept ahead of demand, today around one billion people do not have enough to eat, and a further billion lack adequate nutrition. Food insecurity is facing mounting supply-side and demand-side pressures; key among these are climate change, urbanisation, globalisation, population increases, disease, as well as a number of other factors that are changing patterns of food consumption. Many of the challenges to equitable food access are concentrated in developing countries where environmental pressures including climate change, population growth and other socio-economic issues are concentrated. Together these factors impede people's access to sufficient, nutritious food; chiefly through affecting livelihoods, income and food prices. Food security and human development go hand in hand, and their outcomes are co-determined to a significant degree. The challenge of food security is multi-scalar and cross-sector in nature. Addressing it will require the work of diverse actors to bring sustained improvements inhuman development and to reduce pressure on the environment. Unless there is investment in future food systems that are similarly cross-level, cross-scale and cross-sector, sustained improvements in human wellbeing together with reduced environmental risks and scarcities will not be achieved. This paper reviews current thinking, and outlines these challenges. It suggests that essential elements in a successfully adaptive and proactive food system include: learning through connectivity between scales to local experience and technologies high levels of interaction between diverse actors and sectors ranging from primary producers to retailers and consumers, and use of frontier technologies.

Local, national and imported foods: A qualitative study

The UK government is currently attempting to encourage consumers to buy more locally produced food. It is hoped that this will provide economic, environmental and social benefits to local areas, leading to more sustainable patterns of consumption. This qualitative study looks at the views and behaviour of consumers towards local foods with a particular focus on the barriers that prevent greater uptake of local produce. In total, four focus groups (n = 33) were conducted. Content analysis identified six relevant themes in relation to local, national and imported foods. These were cost, lifestyle, food quality, consumer ethnocentrism, choice and farmers. Overall, although participants reported buying few local products currently, there was widespread enthusiasm across socio-economic groups for local foods, with participants perceiving them as being of a higher quality than imported foods. They also generally endorsed the idea of supporting local farmers and their own national economy. The main barriers preventing participants from buying more local products were price and inconvenience. The results are discussed in relation to developing future strategies for encouraging people to buy more local food products. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.