Suchergebnisse

The security and resilience of the food supply and its sustainability has risen up the public policy agenda in recent years. Policy makers must address a series of longer-term structural and fundamental challenges to a sustainable food supply that are situated both in demand and consumption and in production and environmental capacity. A key policy discourse has emerged around the sustainable consumption and production (SCP) of food, linking the need to rebalance the demand and the supply parts of the equation. In Europe, the public policy initiatives within the SCP framework have focused upon softer interventions such as advising consumers of the more sustainable food choices, often using existing private sector market based criteria enshrined in food and agricultural certification schemes and logos. The European Commission is beginning to address the scientific and methodological basis for identifying and measuring sustainable food by attempting to work with the food industry in framing environmental life cycle assessment methodology and promoting the policy goal of a more natural resource efficient Europe.

IN RECENT YEARS THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY (EC) HAS BEEN ENGAGED IN LEGISLATION REGARDING THE APPLICATION AND PRODUCTS OF GENETIC MODIFICATION TECHNOLOGY (GMT), SEEKING TO FULFIL THE NEED TO SUPERVISE AND ADEQUATELY REGULATE THIS TECHNOLOGY WHILE PROMOTING THE GROWTH OF INDUSTRIAL SECTORS USING IT. HOWEVER, THESE GOALS ARE NOT ENTIRELY COMPLEMENTARY, AND THIS POLICY AREA HAS BEEN MARKED BY CONTROVERSY AND CONCERN. A RANGE OF ENVIRONMENTAL, CONSUMER, AND SECTIONAL INTERESTS HAS SOUGHT FIRM REGULATORY GUIDELINES AND EVEN PROHIBITION IN SOME APPLICATIONS OF GMT, IN ORDER TO ENSURE ADEQUATE PROTECTION OF THE ENVIRONMENT AND HUMAN SAFETY. THESE CONFLICTS HAVE ENGAGED THE VARIOUS INSTITUTIONS AND LEVELS OF THE EC'S LEGISLATIVE PROCESS AND ARE CONTINUING SINCE THE TREATY OF EUROPEAN UNION, INVOLVING THE TREATY'S NEW CODECISION PROCESS, IN ADDITION TO THE EXISTING LEGISLATIVE PROCEDURES.

The article considers how policy can address the local–global within a wider commitment to food sustainability and draws on research conducted for the EU-funded GLAMUR project (Global and local food assessment: a multidimensional performance-based approach). Case study data identifies four key policy challenges for policymakers. Addressing these challenges in order to make links between current (and future) more sustainable food policy involves three phases. The first identifies processes of engagement in three spheres (public policy, the market and civil society); the second identifies points of engagement offered by existing policy initiatives at global, EU, national and sub-national policy levels; and the third builds scenarios as possible "food futures", used to illustrate how the project's findings could impact on the "bigger policy picture" along the local–global continuum. Connections are made between the policy frameworks, as processes and points of engagement for food policy, and the food "futures". It is suggested that the findings can help support policymakers as they consider the effects and value of using multi-criteria interventions.

The functioning of food value chains entails a complex organisation from farm to fork which is characterised by various governance forms and externalities which have shaped the overall food system. VALUMICS food value chain case studies: wheat to bread, dairy cows to milk, beef cattle to steak, farmed salmon to fillets and tomato to processed tomato were selected to enable explorative and empirical analysis to better understand the functioning of the food system and, to identify the main challenges that need to be addressed to improve sustainability, integrity, resilience, and fairness of European food chains. The VALUMICS system analysis was executed through four operational phases starting with Groundwork & analysis including mapping specific attributes and impacts of food value chains and their externalities. This was followed by Case study baseline analysis, which provided input to the third phase on Modelling and exploration of future scenarios and finally Policy and synthesis of the overall work. This report is an overall synthesis of the VALUMICS results as follows: • Key findings from the VALUMICS project on the functioning of European food value chains and their impacts on more sustainable, resilient, fairer, and transparent food system are summarised through a compilation of 25 Research Findings and Policy Briefs. • By highlighting the major contributions from the research activities throughout the four phases of the VALUMICS project, this report delivers an assessment of various factors influencing sustainability, resilience, efficiency and fairness and effective chain relationships of different food value chains, and their determinants. • The synthesis of the outcome allows the identification of opportunities and challenges characterising the functioning of food supply chains, and thus, the prospects and potentials for strengthening the EU food sector. ; Citation: Olafsdottir, G., Bogason, S., Aubert, P.M., Barling, D., Thakur, M., Duric, I., Nicolau, M., McGarraghy, S., Sigurdardottir; H., ...

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. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht and International Society for Plant Pathology.