Suchergebnisse

Higher education institutions have traditionally largely ignored their role in identifying and addressing issues that their communities face. In an attempt to tackle this situation, models such as community-engaged scholarship (CES) have been developed and used to illustrate the active roles higher education institutions can play in sustainable social change. CES is guided by principles of mutually beneficial collaboration and reciprocity to address issues faced by the community. CES can guide the development of an in-depth understanding of social issues and can promote long-term and sustainable solutions. CES literature focuses largely on the impacts and benefits to students and faculty, but often ignores assessment of CES projects based on their impact on community partners and the community overall.This article illustrates the experiences of community partners in a Farm To Fork project and the impact of the project on community partners and the community at large. Developed at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, the Farm To Fork project is helping increase the quantity and quality of food donated to emergency food providers, such as food banks and food pantries, via the use of online tools. Based on a survey questionnaire, the experiences of community partners are summarised under four categories: mutual benefit, resources, networking and collaborations, and raising awareness and addressing social issues. The results demonstrate that community partners greatly appreciate the effort and dedication of students and faculty. Through the project, community partners gained experience and access to university resources and formed networks with academics as well as other community organisations that will benefit them in the future. In addition, the Farm To Fork project helped to raise awareness about food insecurity, not only among students and faculty working on the project, but also in the Guelph-Wellington area.Keywords: community-engaged scholarship, food insecurity, community impacts, Farm To Fork, Guelph-Wellington

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a major stress test for the agri-food system. While most research has analysed the impact of the pandemic on mainstream food systems, this article examines how alternative and local food systems (ALFS) in 13 countries responded in the first months of the crisis. Using primary and secondary data and combining the Multi-Level Perspective with social innovation approaches, we highlight the innovations and adaptations that emerged in ALFS, and how these changes have created or supported the sustainability transition in production and consumption systems. In particular, we show how the combination of social and technological innovation, greater citizen involvement, and the increased interest of policy-makers and retailers have enabled ALFS to extend their scope and engage new actors in more sustainable practices. Finally, we make recommendations concerning how to support ALFS' upscaling to embrace the opportunities arising from the crisis and strengthen the sustainability transition. ; Hungary's input was funded by NKFIH contract numbers K-129097 and FK135460, and by topic research number 2000412, contributed by the Centre for Economic and Regional Studies, Institute of Economics (Hungary). Research in France has been supported by the Fondation de France, the Fondation Carasso and self-funding; in Australia by the Australian Research Council (DE190101126), in Japan by the FEAST Project (No.14200116), Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RIHN); in Spain by the ROBUST project, as part of the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme of the European Union, under Grant Agreement No. 727988. The information and views set out in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of the European Union. ; publishedVersion