Sustainability assessment of short food supply chains (SFSC): developing and testing a rapid assessment tool in one African and three European city regions

Alexandra Doernberg, Annette Piorr, Ingo Zasada, Dirk Wascher, Ulrich Schmutz

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

8 Citations (Scopus)
42 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Recent literature demonstrates the contribution of short food supply chains (SFSC) to regional economies and sustainable food systems, and acknowledges their role as drivers for sustainable development. Moreover, different types of SFSC have been supported by urban food policies (UFP) over the few last years and actors from the food chain became part of new institutional settings for urban food policies. However, evidence from the sustainability impact assessment (SIA) of these SFSC in urban contexts is limited. Our paper presents an approach for the development of an SIA framework for different SFSC types. In addition, a practical application of the tool in four metropolitan regions (Berlin, London, Ljubljana and Nairobi) is tested. The conceptual development of the SIA framework is based on an in-depth analysis of existing SIA frameworks and methods for assessing the sustainability of agriculture, food chains and food systems and adapted to the specific needs of analysing SFSC in metropolitan regions. The operational value and utility of the framework and the tool were tested with social and natural scientists and local stakeholders. The assessment results demonstrate that SFSC seems to be more sustainable than the baseline (long global food chains) in the social dimension, but also feature specific strengths and weaknesses concerning their economic and environmental sustainability. This might give an indication for regional adjusted strategies and food chain innovations that improve the sustainability performance may be required. We found the tool useful for framing the dialogue between food chain actors, consumers and policy, because it makes benefits and trade-offs of the chain types operating in an urban–rural context more visible and communicable.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)885-904
Number of pages20
JournalAgriculture and Human Values
Volume39
Issue number3
Early online date24 Feb 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sept 2022

Bibliographical note

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

Keywords

  • Alternative food networks (AFN)
  • Indicators
  • Tool development
  • Urban food policy
  • Urban food system

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Agronomy and Crop Science

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Sustainability assessment of short food supply chains (SFSC): developing and testing a rapid assessment tool in one African and three European city regions'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this