Summary
summary all compulsory articles Food Health and Society
- Course
- Institution
summary, important notes and bacchi tutorials from Food, Health and Society
[Show more]
Seller
Follow
akonkol
Reviews received
Content preview
Wiskerke, J. S. C., & Verhoeven, S. (2018). The spatialityof food provisioning. In Flourishing Foodscapes (pp. 17-
38).
Von Thunen model: isolated state
Introduction
For many centuries the location, size and growth rate of cities was determined by the amount of
food and energy that their rural hinterland could produce.
,The isolated State = book, where von Thunen envisioned a single market town surrounded by
agricultural land and nature, von Thunen model
Von Thunen model is based on the assumption that the land is completely flat (no rivers or
mountains) and that soil quality is everywhere the same. Four concentric rings of agricultural
productivity in the von Thunen model:
1. Dairy farming and fruit and vegetable production (close to the market town, as these
products were perishable and had to be brought to the market quickly. Also, there are
products with higher added value and thereby a means to cover the higher rents for land
closer to the market town
2. Forest providing timber and firewood for fuel and building materials. As wood is heavy and
difficult to transport it has to be produced not too far from the market town.
3. Extensive fields crops (cereals), which are less perishable than dairy and vegetables and
much lighter than wood, so they could be grown further away from the market town
4. Grazing (located in the outermost ring, because it requires the most space and animals can
walk to the market town where they are slaughtered and the meat is sold.
This model only partially held true for cities near the river or the sea and the model has been
modified to incorporate rivers or the sea. The concentric circles then become stretched out oval with
agricultural production zones on either side of the river, as transporting food, fuel and building
materials is cheaper over sea than over land.
The spatial proximity relations between foods (vegetables, milk, cereals, meat) and city and growth
rate of a city changed with the introduction of the railway system. Railway systems enabled long
distance transport of food at low costs. Perishable products could be produced farther away from
towns.
The spatial proximity relations also became weaker due to new technologies (airplanes, frozen
transport, processing and packaging of food). Now, global sourcing of fresh food has become a
common practice. The advent of railways and subsequent tech ologies emancipated cities from
geography, making it possible for the first time to build the cities any size, shape and place, but as
cities sprawled, food systems industrialized, and the two (agriculture and cities) began to grow
apart.
Changing relations between cities and their food provisioning
systems
The growing apart of cities and their food systems, three spheres of changing relations:
1. Spatial
o In industrialized cities the distance between production and consumption increased
o Long distance transportation of food is economically viable because of cheap non-
renewable fossil fuel energy while externalizing all other costs, such as climate
change, to which today’s global industrial food system is a main contributor.
2. Social
o Nowadays many farmers don’t know by whom their products are eaten and
consumers don’t know where their food comes from
o The importance of the supermarket as main food outlet has increased enormously in
the 20th century.
o Transnational food processing industries and retailers have become powerful players
in contemporary food systems as the hey intermediaries between farmers and
consumers (so relationships between farmers and consumers is more anonymous)
o There is no personal trust anymore so the anonymity relations are accompanied by
formalisation through production regulations and quality control systems
,3. Values
o Global industrial food systems are organized around commercial and industrial conventions.
Commercial = importance or price, low prices in shaping food production and
consumption practices
Industrial = growing significance of standards and quality assurance schemes
in food systems
Recent change is the rise of civil conventions such as animal welfare, fair trade and
environmental protection. These civil values are however usually incorporated in quality
assurance schemes and thus inextricably linked to industrial conventions.
there are alternatives to this prevailing trend in food system dynamics, goals::
Reducing the spatial distance between production and consumption
Re-establishing social relations between producers and consumers
Emphasize on domestic conventions such as attachment to place and tradition (terroir)
Examples: farmer markets, community supported agriculture, origin, labelled food products,
solidarity purchasing groups
Contemporary food system challenges
Cities are disconnected from their food provisioning systems and at the same time become
industrialized. This has changed the spatial distance, social relations and values among producers,
consumers and other actors. Next to that this change brought some challenges:
1. Resource depletion and scarcity
Most important resource constraints for food provisioning are:
Fossil fuel = food production, processing, transportation and storage all
depend on it; animal proteins require more fossil energy than crops;
Water = again water use for animal protein is higher; industrial forms of
livestock husbandry have a higher water footprint than grazing systems
2. Environmental degradation
Environmental pollution, emission of nitrate, soil degradation might have negative
effect on food security and productivity
Loss of non-agricultural biodiversity
3. Climate change
Climate change will have a dramatic effect on productive capacity of agriculture
worldwide
On the one hand, agricultural production is negatively affected by climate change
and on the other hand, it also contributes to climate change be gas emission
4. Waste (food and packaging)
40% of the food produced is not consumed due to harvest losses on the farm and
port-harvest losses further up in the food chain
Reducing these losses can mitigate climate change and food insecurity
In industrialized economies food losses primarily occur in supermarkets, restaurants
and at home
For developing countries it mainly occurs in the first stages of the food chain
Waste due to packaging and a growing share of processed food in people’s diets
5. Social inequalities
For a long time urbanization has gone hand in hand with economic development;
however, now it has made cities socioeconomically more diverse. Ind developing
countries there are large difference between upper and middle income class when it
comes to access to clean water and adequate solid waste disposal.
The acceleration of urban inequalities is often attributed to poor urban governance
Neo-liberal reforms tend to exclude urban poor from access to services
6. Public health
, 2 out of 7 billion people living on the planet suffer from diet-relates ill health:
obesity, malnutrition and hunger
Also urban air pollution due to contemporary food systems becomes worse
Disappearance of urban greenery to create space for urban expansion
Lack of urban green contributes to urban heat islands
All these challenges are connected, and cannot be solved in isolation.
The spatiality of food-related challenges
There are inextricable spatial interdependencies between food provisioning practices. Pork example:
Pre-packaged pork for sale in supermarkets (at discount prices), is very often linked to a
large-scale industrial slaughterhouse, to large-scale intensive livestock farms within and
outside the country where the slaughterhouse is located, and to large-scale monocultures of
soy for the production of animal feed. This then implies links between practices in places that
are geographically far apart.
Unpackaged meat for sale in specialty shops (at premium prices) is very likely related to a
smaller-scale slaughterhouse, to small scale livestock production with more attention to
distinctive quality in texture, taste, animal welfare and environmental sustainability, and to
own feed production or sourcing form nearby farmers. This then implies links between
practices that are geographically proximate to one another.
Agricultural productivity is likely to increase in central and northern Europe and decrease in
Mediterranean countries as a result of climate change. It also indicates that the currently most food
insecure parts of the world (Africa and south asia) which are also the regions with the highest
population growth and urbanization are expected to suffer the highest negative impact of climate
change on agricultural productivity. In these most food insecure regions we also witness the highest
levels of children affected by wither stunted growth or overweight – diet-related ill health.
Furthermore, there is a strong correlation between the projected climate change impact on
agricultural productivity and the availability of water for food production, a clear sign of spatiality of
the food-climate change-public health-water-nexus. And we can add social inequality to his – urban
slums are mainly located in high risk areas prone to flooding (which is more likely due to climate
change).
Foodscapes
Foodscapes = relationship between food, its spatial context and the viewer – the person to which
this image appears; actual site where we find food; encompasses any opportunity to obtain food and
includes physical, sociocultural, economic and policy influences at both micro and macro levels; to
deal with the spatial aspects of food provisioning, tool to describe our food environments and to
assess the potential impact on food choice and food behaviour; scale and place
Macro-scale foodscape = global and regional marketspaces that shape food choices through
widely dispersed international food systems that include transportation networks,
agricultural and food industries, and food distribution outlets
Meso-scale foodscape = build environments at the community level providing ‘food
landscapes.. that represent eating outlets available for choosing foods that determine food
provisioning
Micro-scale foodscape = domestic foodscape, physical appearance of food, how food is
served, amount of food served, how, where and with whom meals are eaten and how and
where meals are prepared and food is stored
Foodscapes are:
1. Nested = domestic foodscape is embedded in a community or neighbourhood foodscape,
which in turn is embedded in a regional or global foodscape
2. Interconnected = the places shaped by different food provisioning activities – producing,
processing, distributing, trading, preparing and eating – are inextricably linked to one
another
Two types of foodscapes:
The benefits of buying summaries with Stuvia:
Guaranteed quality through customer reviews
Stuvia customers have reviewed more than 700,000 summaries. This how you know that you are buying the best documents.
Quick and easy check-out
You can quickly pay through credit card or Stuvia-credit for the summaries. There is no membership needed.
Focus on what matters
Your fellow students write the study notes themselves, which is why the documents are always reliable and up-to-date. This ensures you quickly get to the core!
Frequently asked questions
What do I get when I buy this document?
You get a PDF, available immediately after your purchase. The purchased document is accessible anytime, anywhere and indefinitely through your profile.
Satisfaction guarantee: how does it work?
Our satisfaction guarantee ensures that you always find a study document that suits you well. You fill out a form, and our customer service team takes care of the rest.
Who am I buying these notes from?
Stuvia is a marketplace, so you are not buying this document from us, but from seller akonkol. Stuvia facilitates payment to the seller.
Will I be stuck with a subscription?
No, you only buy these notes for $6.95. You're not tied to anything after your purchase.
Can Stuvia be trusted?
4.6 stars on Google & Trustpilot (+1000 reviews)
53022 documents were sold in the last 30 days
Founded in 2010, the go-to place to buy study notes for 14 years now