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Local Food System (local + food_system)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	75%

Selected Abstracts

Local Food, Local Engagement: Community-Supported Agriculture in Eastern Iowa

CULTURE, AGRICULTURE, FOOD & ENVIRONMENT, Issue 1 2010
Brandi Janssen
Abstract This paper examines some of the daily realities of operating a Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm in eastern Iowa and addresses the concept of community among growers. Popular depictions of local foods systems often emphasize the close relationships that develop between producers and consumers. This picture, however, may gloss over the necessary complexities of a healthy local food system. CSA has been promoted as a direct marketing strategy for small-scale growers and touted as a way of developing positive relationships between producers and consumers. Nevertheless, it is also important to understand that successful CSA initiatives are often reliant on a broad network of support that includes more than just growers and eaters. Ethnographic descriptions of CSA farms presented here show how involvement by media and other organizations contribute to successful CSAs as well as an overall concept of "civic agriculture." These descriptions also show that access to affordable, reliable labor tends to be among the greatest challenges for CSA growers. [source]

TENDING CULTURAL LANDSCAPES AND FOOD CITIZENSHIP IN TORONTO'S COMMUNITY GARDENS,

GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW, Issue 3 2004
LAUREN E. BAKER
ABSTRACT. Scattered throughout the city of Toronto are more than no community gardens, sites of place-based politics connected to the community food-security movement. The gardens, spaces where passions for plants and food are shared, reflect the city's shifting cultural landscape and represent an everyday activity that is imbued with multiple meanings. Toronto's community food-security movement uses gardens as one strategy to regenerate the local food system and provide access to healthy, affordable food. Three garden case studies expand on the complexities of "food citizenship," illustrating the importance of that concept to notions of food security. The gardens reveal the role gardeners play in transforming urban spaces, the complex network of organizations working cooperatively and in partnership to implement these projects, and the way in which social and cultural pluralism are shaping the urban landscape. [source]

Defining and Marketing "Local" Foods: Geographical Indications for US Products

THE JOURNAL OF WORLD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, Issue 2 2010
Daniele Giovannucci
What are local foods? If you do not know your local producer, then how can you know whether the product you are purchasing is local? These questions are at the heart of an emerging debate in the United States about authenticity and the value of local eating. In the United States, from the menus of its elite restaurants, to urban farmer markets, to the procurement strategy of its largest corporation, "local" is fast becoming an important food category. Several distinct forces drive its popularity and yet, in the absence of certain credence attributes to assure what indeed is local, its future is uncertain. This article explores what defines "local" and how the term is protected in trade. It suggests that intellectual property protection is underdeveloped to foster local food product designations. Cases in the United States illustrate that some viable mechanisms do exist to ensure the specific provenance of a food but that in large interconnected markets these mechanisms present some notable challenges for both producers and consumers. In its review of different approaches to protecting and fostering local food systems, the article finds that geographical indications (GIs) may be more conducive to local food systems because they are not owned but rather attributed, and, in this way, even smaller producers have access to the marketing potential of a GI label. Improving approaches to GIs in the United States, perhaps learning from the sui generis systems in other countries, could further the development, protection, and success of local products. [source]