Search

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted a series of concatenating problems in the global production and distribution of food. Trade barriers, seasonal labor shortages, food loss and waste, and food safety concerns combine to engender vulnerabili­ties in food systems. A variety of actors—from academics to policy-makers, community organizers, farmers, and homesteaders—are considering the undertaking of creating more resilient food sys­tems. Conventional approaches include fine-tuning existing value chains, consolidating national food distribution systems and bolstering inventory and storage. This paper highlights three alternative strategies for securing a more resilient food system, namely: (i.) leveraging underutilized, often urban, spaces for food production; (ii.) rethinking food waste as a resource; and (iii.) constructing produc­tion-distribution-waste networks, as opposed to chains. Various food systems actors have pursued these strategies for decades. Yet, we argue that the COVID-19 pandemic forces us to urgently con­sider such novel assemblages of actors, institutions, and technologies as key levers in achieving longer term food system resilience. These strategies are often centered around princi­ples of redistribution and reciprocity, and focus on smaller scales, from individual households to com­munities. We high­light examples that have emerged in the spring-summer of 2020 of household and community efforts to reconstruct a more resilient food system. We also undertake a policy analysis to sketch how government supports can facilitate the emergence of these efforts and mobilization beyond the immediate confines of the pandemic.

Embeddedness has long been used to study collaborations and tensions between food initiatives, but less attention has been paid to this topic in both the vertical and formal contexts of governmenta...

Food system planning is important to achieve the goal of “zero hunger” in the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (UN, 2016). However, discussion about comprehensive planning for food security is scarce and little is known about the situation in Chinese cities. To narrow this gap, this study collected and analyzed four medium-term plans and two annual plans for the “vegetable basket project” in Nanjing, China. This study examines the strategies for urban food security in Nanjing to shed light on how the city developed a comprehensive approach to food system planning over the past three decades. The evolution of incremental food system planning in Nanjing provides valuable lessons for other cities facing food security challenges and shortages of financial resources. Reducing food insecurity is an ongoing challenge for the city governments in the Global South and comprehensive planning is a useful tool for addressing the challenge of urban food insecurity.

Chinese cities have been able to maintain much higher levels of household food security than many other cities in the Global South, according to recent surveys. Yet, little is known about the governance of the food provisioning system that underpins its urban food security. Based on a combination of household survey data, unstructured interviews and analyses of government documents, regulations and laws, we reveal that both Nanjing’s food provisioning system and its governance employ a public-private hybrid model. The hybridity is reflected in the mixed ownership structure of food wholesale and retail markets, the companies that manage them, and the involvement of both public and private capital in these markets. This hybridity prevents market failure in food system operation and thus is the underlying mechanism that ensures physical accessibility to and affordability of food in the city; it also balances food affordability and the profitability of food markets. This paper identifies various food security policies and regulations implemented by the Nanjing municipal government, such as the “vegetable basket” policy, the “crawling peg” policy in urban planning, the financial supports for upgrading wet market facilities and reducing rental fees, and the regulations on the retailing of fresh produce in supermarkets. These policies ensure that there is relatively equitable and easy access to healthy food for Nanjing residents and that the establishment of new wet markets keeps up with urban population growth. These food policies in Nanjing provide important lessons for other cities in the world to foster urban food security.

In the past few decades, dramatic changes in China’s food system have generated economic, social and environmental consequences that jeopardise its sustainability. Both the Chinese state an...

Motivation Detailed empirical work on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on food security is scant. Local management of food security has received little attention. Purpose This paper describes emergency food policies in Wuhan and Nanjing, China during lockdown in 2020 and their implications for household food security in the two cities. Methods and approach Policy documents and background data describe the emergency measures. Online surveys of residents of two Chinese cities were used to gauge household food security. Findings Despite the determined efforts of provincial and city governments to ensure that food reached people who were locked down in Wuhan, or subject to restrictions on movement in Nanjing, households experienced some decline in food security. Most households found they could not access their preferred foods. But a minority of households did not get enough to eat.Government had contingency plans for the pandemic that ensured that most people had sufficient, if not preferred, food. But not all households were fully covered. Policy implications A more resilient system of food distribution is needed, including a relatively closed and independent home delivery system. Grassroots organizations such as residential community committees, property management organizations, and spontaneous volunteer groups need to be brought into the management of emergency food provision.

Socioeconomic and structural changes in the global food system, driven by rapid urbanization in the Global South, shape the nature and scale of food safety problems as well as the strategies designed to cope with them. These changes create new challenges for ensuring food security, given that food safety is an essential dimension of food security. By reviewing existing studies, this paper summarizes three key types of contaminant (microbiological, chemical, and physical) that compromise food safety. With analyses of three cases (avian flu, genetic modification contamination, and melamine-tainted milk) in the Global South, the paper explores how food safety is being driven and shaped by socioeconomic restructuring, particularly market liberalization in the food sector. The paper then provides an overview of various initiatives being taken by consumers, grassroots organizations, governments, and the food industry to address food safety challenges. It calls for a more holistic understanding of food safety that connects food safety and urban public health and recognizes food safety as a social and cultural issue connected with the food safety impacts of structural changes in food systems.

Population-level COVID-19 containment strategies have been particularly hard on the urban poor and vulnerable population groups such as female-headed households, children, youth, the homeless, informal sector employers and employees, casual workers, the unemployed, and migrants and refugees. As a direct result of the COVID-19 outbreak, a secondary pandemic of hunger and food insecurity is now impacting many of these groups. An effective and sustainable global response to the COVID-19 (and any further) viral pandemics must ensure that food security is an essential piece of the containment and mitigation puzzle.

In this chapter, using a case study approach, we examine the potential benefits of employing agroecology to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As a response to food safety and environmental concerns, diverse agroecological practices have been proliferating in China in the past decade. These cases demonstrate agroecology’s interdisciplinary nature in that they embody not only ecological farming cases but also social innovations (e.g., ecological farmers’ cooperatives and community organizations) for ecological and healthy food provisioning. The development of agroecology in China shows how it facilitates most of the SDGs in various ways. Yet, the further development of agroecology also faces multiple challenges. This chapter reviews the contributions of agroecology to the SDGs and the barriers hindering its wider adoption. It offers lessons for other countries in terms of policy supports to enhance the capacity of producers, reduce the cost of production, and facilitate market access.

As cities in China continue to grow, concerns have emerged over the deterioration of social and environmental conditions in urban areas, alongside public anxiety over food safety. One potential strategy to address these issues is urban agriculture (UA). This chapter presents a typology of urban agriculture in China based on location and practices; examines the perspectives of producers, enterprises and state officials regarding their motivations for pursuing or supporting urban agriculture; and identifies how China’s unique political-economic context shapes urban agriculture developments. The findings suggest that various forms of urban agriculture exist in China, which vary by location, degree of capital investment and extent of state support or restrictions, and are motivated by common social, political and ecological concerns, to differing extents.

Based on a survey of 1,210 households in Nanjing, China, the article looks at the purchasing frequency of various food items in different food retail outlets, the accessibility of these out...

Like many emerging economies in the Global South, China is experiencing major transformations of its national and local food system characterized by the rise of supermarkets. There has been an ongoing debate on the relationship between supermarkets and wet markets in developing countries. Drawing on data from a city-wide supermarket mapping and surveys conducted in Nanjing in 2019, this paper revisits China’s “supermarket revolution” process and challenges the prediction of supermarket domination. It reveals that Nanjing’s food retailing system has been shaped by the complementarity and co-evolution of the wet market and the supermarket sectors with considerable policy support. The paper, therefore, contributes to the broader debates on the existing “supermarket revolution” theory by providing baseline evidence and new perspectives for understanding the food environment in urban China. Policymakers and researchers need to recognize the possibility of the co-evolution of supermarkets and wet markets in other cities of the Global South. Investing in urban food system planning could enhance the adaptability of the food system to improve food security.

Food safety has become an increasingly pressing sociopolitical issue in China due to the outbreak of food safety scandals since the 2000s. Existing studies have highlighted the socio-economic context of this issue, its drivers and implications. Yet, few studies have examined the perceptions of food safety conditions and strategies undertaken by consumers in their daily lives to cope with the challenge. Based on a city-wide survey of 1210 households and 36 interviews in Nanjing, China, this research adopts an ‘everyday’ perspective of analysis to investigate Nanjing residents’ perceptions of, and strategies to cope with, the food safety challenge. Perceptions include the severity of the food safety problem, the least safe foods, as well as causes and responsibilities. Coping strategies include various approaches to food access and food preparation. This article also compares the validity of potential sources of trust in food. On the one hand, the study demonstrates how the structural changes in China’s food system (i.e. chemical intensive food production and elongated food supply chains) constitute the major problems and causes of food safety issues. On the other hand, it reveals the considerable latitude within which Nanjing residents proactively exercise their agency when facing food safety challenges.

In an age when we are inundated with information, efforts that streamline that information—by sifting kernels of wheat from the chaff—are precious. Our reviews are intended to assist CFS readers faced with a growing body of material relevant to food studies. However, the standard book review process is ill-suited to the increasingly common edited volume, with large numbers of chapters written by multiple authors. A single review struggles to capture and reflect on the distinct themes and copious information that such volumes typically contain. We are experimenting with alternative formats. This installment was initially conceived as a “community book review”, where we sought reviewers with relevant experience to tackle the material in each of the chapters. Ten volunteers stepped forward, and even participated in a round of blind reviews of each other’s work. The result is a collaborative effort that provides depth of analysis for each of the 15 chapters in this book, and some lightly ground grains of wheat for your digestion.

State-led efforts of food localization have been conducted across mainland China under the umbrella of Vegetable Basket Project since the end of the 1980s, with the purpose of addressing urban food security. Food localization as a counter movement to globalization has been extensively studied for its debatable role in promoting the sustainability of food systems in developed economies. Previous studies failed to recognize food localization initiatives driven by the state and its significant impact on suburban farmland use. To fill this gap, this study discusses the key features of state-led food localization with the case of Nanjing, China through examining governmental policy documents, local food production plans and the remote sensing data of greenhouse expansion. Furthermore, the impacts of a state-led food localization strategy on the transition of suburban farmland use, particularly on the expansion of greenhouses, have been investigated by employing the binary logistic regression model. We argue that state-led food localization has substantially promoted the expansion of greenhouse farming for the purpose of stabilizing a sufficient local food supply, particularly vegetables. It has also provided support through means such as subsidy, agriculture extension service and technology training to smallholders, including local and migrant farmers.

In this chapter, we review the evolution of state support for Chinese ecological agriculture and the emergence of three food quality standards: green food, hazard-free food, and organic agriculture. We also identify three types of ownership structure of organic farms: the contract farming model, private company land leasing model, and farmers’ professional cooperatives (FPCs). Given the strong state intervention, these business ventures tend to reflect what we call “top-down initiatives” in ecological and organic agriculture development. In these initiatives, producers and consumers are distanced such that the formation of trust between them becomes is hampered.

Wet markets play an important role in urban food security in many Asian countries. Although the American Planning Association (APA) proposed in 2007 that food planning should focus on the business status and potential of food retailing, existing research pays more attention to the food accessibility of urban residents and limited research has been conducted on the profit of wet market vendors and factors determining its spatial variations. Therefore, a three-agent analytical framework for determinants of urban wet market vendor profit was developed. Based on the survey data of 1,119 small food enterprises in Nanjing, this study employs the spatial analytical method Geodetector to explore the spatial differentiation of the vendor's profits and its determinants. The study shows obvious spatial differentiation in the profits of wet market vendors across the city and draws several conclusions. Profitability is mainly related to the demographic features of vendors, their business expenses, and payment schemes. It is also related to broader socioeconomic factors at the district level, including local GDP, average income, urban infrastructure, and number of residential neighborhoods. The characteristics of vendors and their businesses have a more significant relationship with business profit than district socio-economic factors. There is also a strong mutual enhancement effect among these factors. Almost all identified determinants of profitability are stronger in peri-urban than urban areas. Therefore, there is greater potential for increasing peri-urban vendors' profits by changing these variables.

Rural sociologists and geographers have conceptualised different rural development trajectories including “the agri-industrial model”, “the post-productivist model” and “the rural development model”. Alternative food networks (AFNs) are increasingly recognised as a “forerunner” and a critical component of the emerging “rural development model” in the West. Meanwhile, Marsden and Franklin [2013. Replacing neoliberalism: theoretical implications of the rise of local food movements. Local Environment, 18 (5), 636–641] pointed out that there is a “local trap” in the current conceptualisation of AFNs that overemphasises their local embeddedness and heterogeneity. This “local trap” marginalises AFNs and, therefore, hinders their potential for transforming the industrialised conventional food system. The convergence and scaling-up of fragmented AFNs have been recognised as important ways to address this marginalisation issue and thus have attracted considerable attention. However, current studies of the converge...

Amid the many food safety scandals that have erupted in recent years, Chinese food activists and consumers are turning to the creation of alternative food networks (AFNs) to ensure better control over their food. These Chinese AFNs have not been documented in the growing literature on food studies. Based on in-depth interviews and case studies, this paper documents and develops a typology of AFNs in China, including community supported agriculture, farmers’ markets, buying clubs, and recreational garden plot rentals. We unpacked the four standard dimensions of alternativeness of AFNs into eight elements and used these to examine the alternativeness of AFNs in China. We argue first that the landscape of alternativeness varies among different networks but the healthfulness of food is the most prominent element. Second, there is an inconsistency in values between AFN initiators and customers, which contributes to the uneven alternativeness of Chinese AFNs. Third, Chinese AFNs are strongly consumer driven, a factor that constrains their alternativeness at present. The inclusion of “real” peasants in the construction of AFNs in China is minimal. This paper adds to the existing literature on AFNs with an analysis of recent initiatives in China that have not been well documented before. By unpacking the dimensions of alternativeness into specific elements, this paper also provides an analytical framework for examining the alternativeness of AFNs especially nascent ones that have not developed a full spectrum of alternativeness.

Considering certified organic production as ‘zero’ (including the absence of genetically modified seeds and feed, and synthetic pesticides and fertilizers as inputs), we outline how, since the 1990s, China has developed a unique system of progressively stringent food quality production standards—‘hazard-free’, ‘green food’, and organic—on its purported path to zero ecological impact and zero food safety risk. We describe the structures and institutions that perform these standards and their inclusion in, and impacts on, China’s agricultural sector, which is characterized by a polarization between widespread smallholder production and emerging consolidated entrepreneurial farm enterprises branded as ecological. Based on 95 key informant interviews conducted between 2010 and 2012, we discuss the contradictions within state- and civil society-led paths to zero. We argue that the government’s commitment to ecological agriculture is superficial. Due in part to the context of a state-driven yet market-oriented economy with limited civil society involvement, the system of extensive standards has not been clearly communicated to Chinese consumers. Nor has it garnered public trust in the food system, as evidenced by a rapidly expanding ‘alternative’ food sector, including community supported agriculture (CSA) ventures and home delivery schemes, many of which are based on producers and consumers negotiating trust rather than relying on the quality assurance of certification. But consumers are motivated by seeking zero food safety risk, and show limited concern about environmental protection or farmer livelihoods. Some exceptions are patrons of values-oriented CSAs, farmers’ markets, and buying clubs, which point to interesting trajectories for the future of China’s food system.

This study investigated the influence of the proximity to wet markets and supermarkets on urban household dietary diversity in Nanjing. Based on the data collected through a citywide survey in 2015 and the map data of wet markets and supermarkets, the Poisson regression model was deployed to examine the correlations between geographical proximity to supermarkets and wet markets and household dietary diversity. The result shows that the coefficients for the distance to the nearest wet market are not statistically significant. Although the coefficients for the distance to nearest supermarket are statistically significant, they were too minor to reach a practical importance. We argue, however, that the insignificant correlations reflect exactly the high physical accessibility to food outlets and the extensive spatially dense food supply network constituted by wet markets, supermarkets and small food stores in Nanjing, due in part to the food infrastructure development planning in Nanjing that has ensured relatively equal and convenient access to wet markets or supermarkets for all households. Our findings are verified by the survey data that more than 90% of households purchased fresh food items within their neighborhoods or in walking distance. In addition to the densely distributed food outlets, various other factors contributed to the non-significant influence of the distance to the nearest wet market and supermarket, in particular, the numerous small food stores within or close to residential communities, the prevalence of three-generation extended household structure and the high household income.

Food safety issues in China have received much scholarly attention, yet few studies systematically examined this matter through the lens of trust. More importantly, little is known about the transformation of different types of trust in the dynamic process of food production, provision, and consumption. We consider trust as an evolving interdependent relationship between different actors. We used the Beijing County Fair, a prominent ecological farmers' market in China, as an example to examine the transformation of trust in China's alternative food networks. We argue that although there has been a disruption of institutional trust among the general public since 2008 when the melamine-tainted milk scandal broke out, reconstruction of individual trust and development of organizational trust have been observed, along with the emergence and increasing popularity of alternative food networks. Based on more than six months of fieldwork on the emerging ecological agriculture sector in 13 provinces across China as well as monitoring of online discussions and posts, we analyze how various social factors—including but not limited to direct and indirect reciprocity, information, endogenous institutions, and altruism—have simultaneously contributed to the transformation of trust in China's alternative food networks. The findings not only complement current social theories of trust, but also highlight an important yet understudied phenomenon whereby informal social mechanisms have been partially substituting for formal institutions and gradually have been building trust against the backdrop of the food safety crisis in China.