Acceleration of Just Local Food Initiatives

Abstract

Modern agriculture has become highly industrialized and globalized, leading to unsustainable practices and a disconnect between farmers and consumers. Localization, ensuring that goods and services that can be produced and provided within a local area are produced and provided there, can bridge this disconnect and promote more sustainable practices. However, this alternative system remains limited in size compared to the conventional food system. Furthermore, the concern regarding the idealization of these initiatives highlights the need to prioritize justice to establish a more impactful alternative food system. This thesis explores how local food initiatives (LFIs) in the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area (AMA) pursue justice and analyzes their efforts for acceleration while preserving their fundamental characteristics of being small-scale and locally focused.

To identify just LFIs, the four most prevalent tenets of justice within environmental justice theory, namely distributive, procedural, recognitional, and restorative justice were utilized, in combination with ecology & non-human beings by Tribaldos & Kortetmäki (2022) and anticipation and reflexivity by Ludwig & Macnaghten (2020). This was combined with the five mechanisms of acceleration of Gorissen et al. (2018) in a novel conceptual framework. This framework highlights the way different types of LFIs pursue justice and acceleration to foster system change. The methodological approach began with extensive desk research on justice for 67 LFIs in the AMA and led to the interviewing of six LFIs on both justice and acceleration. The majority of LFIs in the AMA prioritize justice alongside local and sustainable food production. The findings emphasize the importance of replication and partnering for acceleration, showcasing their impact on communities and other LFIs. The findings also show a misalignment regarding the significance of upscaling for LFIs, as they do not want or prioritize it. Municipalities play a crucial role in supporting LFIs and can enhance this by leveraging the knowledge of embedded LFIs.

This research creates a new perspective on LFIs by incorporating the concept of justice, a social dimension, into existing acceleration literature. Moreover, the methodological approach helps to further define how acceleration works within a just and local scale. It is believed that this approach could be applied in similar regions where LFIs are emerging, to advance the development of the created conceptual framework.