Local food | TableDebates

Front cover of Sustain report Growing the local food sector

Growing the local food sector

This report is part of a collaboration of food system organisations in the UK led by Sustain. It lays out a snapshot of the local food sector from the perspective of those on the frontline such as farmers, wholesalers, retailers and buyers. It details the major barriers preventing the sector's growth as well as some initial potential solutions for local food to thrive. The report is part of the first phase of a larger project to provide recommendations to grow and strengthen local food systems across the four nations of the UK.

Imagen de un paisaje y la bandera de Colombia

Ensayo: Alimentando al pueblo, a la nación o al mundo

Durante las últimas décadas, la visión agrícola dominante de Colombia ha sido la de convertirse en una potencia alimentaria: una nación que podría "alimentar al mundo". Sin embargo, si bien las exportaciones de algunos productos tropicales de Colombia han aumentado, esta expansión internacional no necesariamente ha conducido a mejoras en las condiciones de vida de los millones de personas en áreas rurales que aún experimentan pobreza, inseguridad alimentaria y desnutrición.Los movimientos agrarios han buscado durante mucho tiempo promover visiones alternativas del sistema alimentario bajo las narrativas de i) alimentar al país y ii) alimentar al pueblo. Estas visiones alternativas se basan en un enfoque más localizado de la agricultura y el consumo de alimentos que valora aspectos como la proximidad de las personas a la producción de alimentos, la protección de los recursos ambientales locales, los vínculos urbanos-rurales y la importancia de promover el bienestar rural y urbano a través de dietas saludables.Este ensayo explora las tensiones entre estas visiones alternativas de provisión de alimentos. Está escrito por el Dr. Felipe Roa-Clavijo, Profesor Asistente en la Escuela de Gobierno de la Universidad de Los Andes en Colombia. Este ensayo fue publicado originalmente en inglés el 14 de febrero de 2023.

Cover of Slow Food: The Economy and Politics of a Global Movement by Valeria Siniscalchi showing a community sharing food

Slow Food: The Economy and Politics of a Global Movement

Using ethnographic research, Valeria Siniscalchi peels back the curtain on the daily goings on of the famous grassroots food movement, Slow Food. The Slow Food organisation was formed in Italy to promote the values of slow, local and traditional food practices based around community values and sustainable environmental practices. Through engaging with the contradictions, complexities and ambiguities of the movement, Valeria shines a light on one of the most high-profile and controversial food movements of the last thirty years.

Food System Transformations: Social Movements

Food System Transformations: Social Movements

This book looks at how a “second generation” of local food movements aims to make the global food system more socially just and healthy.

Feeding the nation, the village, or the world

Essay: Feeding the nation, the village, or the world

Over the past decades, Colombia’s dominant agricultural vision has been that of becoming a food powerhouse: a nation that could “feed the world”. However, while Colombia’s exports of some tropical produce have increased, this expansion overseas has not led to improvements in the living conditions of the millions of people in rural areas who still experience poverty and food insecurity and malnutrition. Agrarian movements have long sought to put forward alternative visions of the food system under the narratives of i) feeding the nation and ii) feeding the village. These alternative visions are based on a more localised approach to agriculture and food consumption that values aspects such as people’s proximity to food production, protection of local environmental resources, urban-rural links and the importance of promoting rural and urban well-being through healthy diets. This essay explores the tensions between these alternative visions of food provisioning. It is written by Dr Felipe Roa-Clavijo, Assistant Professor at the School of Government of Universidad de Los Andes.

Urban agriculture in and around Barcelona: why and how? by Haley Parzonko

Urban agriculture in and around Barcelona: why and how?

The Metropolitan Area of Barcelona is a microcosm of the current international movement towards increasing urban food self-sufficiency, with the aim of promoting both supply chain resilience and social justice. In this blog post, Haley Parzonko reflects on the challenges and opportunities facing the urban agriculture movement in and around Barcelona.

sustainability by numbers

News and resources

Newsletter: Sustainability by numbers by Hannah Ritchie

Hannah Ritchie, Head of Research at Our World in Data, has launched a new email newsletter called Sustainability by numbers, which discusses the numbers and data that are important for building a sustainable world. TABLE readers may be particularly interested in the issues Eating local is still not a good way to reduce the carbon footprint of your diet and Are meat substitutes really better for the environment than meat?

Grindadráp: What place does whaling have in a sustainable food future?

What place does whaling have in a sustainable food future?

Few food practices draw more intense debate than whaling. In the case of grindadráp, the traditional Faroese form of whaling, this debate plays out almost every summer in bloody images in tabloid newspapers around the world and calls for the tourist industry to boycott the islands. But beyond the headlines, this is a complex, challenging issue that raises questions about what a truly local, sustainable food future could look like. In this TABLE blog, Tamsin Blaxter, researcher and writer at TABLE, explores some of the issues around the grind, both from the perspective of animal rights and conservation, and food traditions and local identity.

Tools to assess the sustainability of Food Hubs

Tools to assess the sustainability of Food Hubs

The Food Research Collaboration sets out the tools available to measure the sustainability of “sustainable food hubs” - initiatives that source food from producers and sell it to customers while upholding certain sustainability principles. The tools include Better Food Traders membership and accreditation, an evaluation framework developed by the New Economics Foundation, a framework by Shared Assets for assessing local economic resilience, a social impact toolkit developed by several organisations, and the Sustainable Food Trust’s Global Farm Metric.