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Global food insecurity levels remain stubbornly high. One of the surest ways to grasp the scale and consequence of global inequality is through a food systems lens. In a predominantly urban world, urban food systems present a useful lens to engage a wide variety of urban (and global) challenges—so called ‘wicked problems.’ This paper describes a collaborative research project between four urban food system research units, two European and two African. The project purpose was to seek out solutions to what lay between, across and within the different approaches applied in the understanding of each city’s food system challenges. Contextual differences and immediate (perceived) needs resulted in very different views on the nature of the challenge and the solutions required. Value positions of individuals and their disciplinary “enclaves” presented further boundaries. The paper argues that finding consensus provides false solutions. Rather the identification of novel approaches to such wicked problems is contingent of these differences being brought to the fore, being part of the conversation, as devices through which common positions can be discovered, where spaces are created for the realisation of new perspectives, but also, where difference is celebrated as opposed to censored.
Gareth Haysom; E. Gunilla Almered Olsson; Mirek Dymitrow; Paul Opiyo; Nick Taylor Buck; Michael Oloko; Charlotte Spring; Kristina Fermskog; Karin Ingelhag; Shelley Kotze; Stephen Gaya Agong. Food Systems Sustainability: An Examination of Different Viewpoints on Food System Change. Sustainability 2019, 11, 3337 .
AMA StyleGareth Haysom, E. Gunilla Almered Olsson, Mirek Dymitrow, Paul Opiyo, Nick Taylor Buck, Michael Oloko, Charlotte Spring, Kristina Fermskog, Karin Ingelhag, Shelley Kotze, Stephen Gaya Agong. Food Systems Sustainability: An Examination of Different Viewpoints on Food System Change. Sustainability. 2019; 11 (12):3337.
Chicago/Turabian StyleGareth Haysom; E. Gunilla Almered Olsson; Mirek Dymitrow; Paul Opiyo; Nick Taylor Buck; Michael Oloko; Charlotte Spring; Kristina Fermskog; Karin Ingelhag; Shelley Kotze; Stephen Gaya Agong. 2019. "Food Systems Sustainability: An Examination of Different Viewpoints on Food System Change." Sustainability 11, no. 12: 3337.
Strategies and action plans for sustainable food provisioning and urban food security are in progress in many urban regions both in the global North and South. A number of urgent challenges need to be confronted such as increasing uncertainty and unpredictability related to stronger dependence on a global market for food import, ongoing political unrest and environmental conflicts, increasing resource scarcity and climate warming making food production hazardous. There is an increased vulnerability with respect to food security for human societies, both in developing and developed countries. The food security dimension of access to healthy food is related to equality and poverty and is relevant for cities in the North via the segregation challenges. The food system issue is well-suited for assessing sustainable development since food provisioning is both a multiscale and cross-sectorial issue and thus addresses more than the three dimensions of social, economic and environmental sustainability. How is the planning for sustainable food strategies in urban regions in Europe concordant with the United Nations Global Sustainable Development Goals and with the transition towards sustainable futures? This paper deliberates on using the food system issues for sustainability transition, drawing on the forthcoming 2018 IPBES (Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services) work on pathways for sustainable futures and a recent survey of existing urban food system strategies. Against this background, some reflections are given relevant for the ongoing work on a local urban food strategy for the city of Gothenburg, Sweden.
E. Gunilla Almered Olsson. Urban food systems as vehicles for sustainability transitions. Bulletin of Geography. Socio-economic Series 2018, 40, 133 -144.
AMA StyleE. Gunilla Almered Olsson. Urban food systems as vehicles for sustainability transitions. Bulletin of Geography. Socio-economic Series. 2018; 40 (40):133-144.
Chicago/Turabian StyleE. Gunilla Almered Olsson. 2018. "Urban food systems as vehicles for sustainability transitions." Bulletin of Geography. Socio-economic Series 40, no. 40: 133-144.
Food production on the urban–rural fringe is under pressure due to competing land uses. We discuss the potential to improve resilience for urban–rural regions by enhancing food production as part of multifunctional land use. Through studies of peri-urban land in the regions of Gothenburg (Sweden), Copenhagen (Denmark) and Gent (Belgium), recent developments are analysed. Arable farming has been declining since 2000 in all three areas due to urban expansion and recreational land use changes. In city plans, networks of protected areas and green spaces and their importance for human wellbeing have been acknowledged. Policies for farmland preservation in peri-urban settings exist, but strategies for local food production are not expressed in present planning documents. Among the diversity of peri-urban agricultural activities, peri-urban food production is a developing issue. However, the competing forms of land use and the continuing high dependence of urban food on global food systems and related resource flows reduces peri-urban food production and improvements in urban food security. The positive effects of local food production need to be supported by governance aiming to improve the urban–rural relationship. The paper discusses the resilience potential of connecting urban–rural regions and re-coupling agriculture to regional food production.
E. Gunilla A. Olsson; Eva Kerselaers; Lone Søderkvist Kristensen; Jørgen Primdahl; Elke Rogge; Anders Wästfelt. Peri-Urban Food Production and Its Relation to Urban Resilience. Sustainability 2016, 8, 1340 .
AMA StyleE. Gunilla A. Olsson, Eva Kerselaers, Lone Søderkvist Kristensen, Jørgen Primdahl, Elke Rogge, Anders Wästfelt. Peri-Urban Food Production and Its Relation to Urban Resilience. Sustainability. 2016; 8 (12):1340.
Chicago/Turabian StyleE. Gunilla A. Olsson; Eva Kerselaers; Lone Søderkvist Kristensen; Jørgen Primdahl; Elke Rogge; Anders Wästfelt. 2016. "Peri-Urban Food Production and Its Relation to Urban Resilience." Sustainability 8, no. 12: 1340.
The REDD+ scheme of the United Nations intends to offer developing countries financial incentives to reduce the rates of deforestation and forest degradation for reducing global CO2 emissions. This is combined with building carbon stocks in existing wooded ecosystems and fostering other soil, biodiversity and water conservation objectives. Successful application of REDD+ to the Xylophone Triangle of West Africa faces substantial challenges and risks to both meeting REDD+ objectives and to the local people’s rights and livelihoods. The transnationality of the culturally coherent area requires collaboration of three national governments. The opportunities, however, are great to capitalize on the region’s biodiversity, the well-developed traditional ecological knowledge and the use of local medicinal plants as an integral part of the agro-ecosystem. Possibilities open to, not only sequester carbon, but also to increase the resilience of the ecosystem and of independent rural livelihoods in the face of climate change and globalization.
E. Gunilla A. Olsson; Syna Ouattara. Opportunities and Challenges to Capturing the Multiple Potential Benefits of REDD+ in a Traditional Transnational Savanna-Woodland Region in West Africa. Ambio 2013, 42, 309 -319.
AMA StyleE. Gunilla A. Olsson, Syna Ouattara. Opportunities and Challenges to Capturing the Multiple Potential Benefits of REDD+ in a Traditional Transnational Savanna-Woodland Region in West Africa. Ambio. 2013; 42 (3):309-319.
Chicago/Turabian StyleE. Gunilla A. Olsson; Syna Ouattara. 2013. "Opportunities and Challenges to Capturing the Multiple Potential Benefits of REDD+ in a Traditional Transnational Savanna-Woodland Region in West Africa." Ambio 42, no. 3: 309-319.
Gunilla A. Olsson; Achim Bräuning. Analyses of the Tropical Dry Forests and Responses to Human Impact and Precipitation Events, Northern Peru. Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift - Norwegian Journal of Geography 2012, 66, 237 -238.
AMA StyleGunilla A. Olsson, Achim Bräuning. Analyses of the Tropical Dry Forests and Responses to Human Impact and Precipitation Events, Northern Peru. Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift - Norwegian Journal of Geography. 2012; 66 (4):237-238.
Chicago/Turabian StyleGunilla A. Olsson; Achim Bräuning. 2012. "Analyses of the Tropical Dry Forests and Responses to Human Impact and Precipitation Events, Northern Peru." Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift - Norwegian Journal of Geography 66, no. 4: 237-238.