Short supply chains as a criterion for sustainable food production and consumption

L. Voget

Short supply chains as a criterion for sustainable food production and consumption

In: Ethical futures: bioscience and food horizons

Author:

L. Voget

L. Voget Institute for Botany and Landscape Ecology, University of Greifswald, Grimmer Str. 88, D-17487 Greifswald, Germany; umweltet@uni-greifswald.de

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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 428–433

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.3920/9789086866731_073

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This paper aims to analyse the notion of short supply chains as a fruitful concept for the description of sustainable ways of living with regard to food production and consumption. Most concepts of sustainability give a prominent place to three strategies for sustainable development: efficiency, consistency and sufficiency. Sufficiency asks for ways of living that promote sustainable development. Since the effect of efficiency strategies is limited because of the rebound effect and since consistency will take time to achieve, sufficiency can be regarded as a necessary complementary strategy. Advocates of sufficiency assume that the standard of living, i.e. the kind and amount of goods consumed can be lowered without negative impacts on quality of life. With recourse to the décroissance (degrowth) movement this paper aims to show that such efforts towards sustainable living do not only imply the consumption of greener products but also the substitution of mere consumption for processes which are characterized by a lesser degree of product character. Décroissance thinkers argue for the central importance of reciprocity and relational good. Along this line of thought the ideas of local food networks as a possibility of re-embedding the food market into social and environmental systems via a kind of ‘food citizenship’ or ‘civic agriculture’ are analysed. The shortness of supply chains is identified as a joint characteristic of certain types of food production and consumption such as local and fair trade food. With regard to organic food, this concept allows for a distinction between small scale organic production on mixed farms, marketed through farmers markets or specialized dealers and big scale, ‘conventionalized’ organic food. Furthermore the concept allows for a strong argument in favour of producing a certain amount of food either at home or collectively.

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Ethical futures: bioscience and food horizons

E-Book ISBN:: 9789086866731

Publisher:: Wageningen Academic

Print Publication Date:: 30 Oct 2009

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- Life Sciences

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Short supply chains as a criterion for sustainable food production and consumption

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Ethical futures: bioscience and food horizons

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