Food security is becoming an increasingly relevant topic in the Global North, especially in urban areas. Because such areas do not always have good access to nutritionally adequate food, the question ...of how to supply them is an urgent priority in order to maintain a healthy population. Urban and peri-urban agriculture, as sources of local fresh food, could play an important role. Whereas some scholars do not differentiate between peri-urban and urban agriculture, seeing them as a single entity, our hypothesis is that they are distinct, and that this has important consequences for food security and other issues. This has knock-on effects for food system planning and has not yet been appropriately analysed. The objectives of this study are to provide a systematic understanding of urban and peri-urban agriculture in the Global North, showing their similarities and differences, and to analyse their impact on urban food security. To this end, an extensive literature review was conducted, resulting in the identification and comparison of their spatial, ecological and socio-economic characteristics. The findings are discussed in terms of their impact on food security in relation to the four levels of the food system: food production, processing, distribution and consumption. The results show that urban and peri-urban agriculture in the Global North indeed differ in most of their characteristics and consequently also in their ability to meet the food needs of urban inhabitants. While urban agriculture still meets food needs mainly at the household level, peri-urban agriculture can provide larger quantities and has broader distribution pathways, giving it a separate status in terms of food security. Nevertheless, both possess (unused) potential, making them valuable for urban food planning, and both face similar threats regarding urbanisation pressures, necessitating adequate planning measures.
Urban agriculture has become a common form of urban land use in European cities linked to multiple environmental, social and economic benefits, as well as to diversified forms (from self-production ...allotments to high-tech companies). Social acceptance will determine the development of urban agriculture and specific knowledge on citizens' perception is required in order to set the basis for policy-making and planning. The ecosystem services provided by urban agriculture can be determinant in this process. The goal of this paper is to evaluate the social acceptance and the perceived ecosystem services of urban agriculture in the city of Bologna (Italy), as an example of a Southern European city. In particular, we evaluated the preferences for urban land uses, for different typologies of urban agriculture and for the resulting products, the perceived provision of ecosystem services and the willingness to engage in new initiatives. A survey that investigated these topics (including open questions, closed questions and Likert-scale evaluation) was performed on the citizens of Bologna (n = 380) between October and November 2016. Results showed that urban agriculture is widely accepted by the inhabitants of Bologna, particularly regarding vegetable production. Although intensive farming systems were the least preferred forms to be implemented in Bologna, citizens highly accepted a large variety of urban agriculture goods, with preference for those obtained from plants as compared to animal products. The willingness-to-pay for urban food products was mostly the same as for conventional ones, although the participants recognised the social values, proximity and quality of the former. Socio-cultural ecosystem services were perceived as more valuable than environmental ones. Policy-making recommendations can be extracted from the results to facilitate the development of urban agriculture plans and policies.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Background
Compared to other sectors, the building sector is seriously lagging in efforts to mitigate climate change. In particular, heat provision needs to move to low-carbon options at greater ...speed. Municipalities are essential players in the transition to low-carbon heating. However, little is known about their experiences in developing heat provision infrastructure and their expectations of low-carbon options, such as district heating based on renewable energy. To explore how the experiences and expectations of municipalities concerning low-carbon heating are related, we conducted a survey of officers responsible for heating technology in municipal authorities across Germany. The questionnaires were analysed using multiple quantitative data analysis techniques.
Results
Our findings suggest that officers in larger municipalities have more positive expectations of low-carbon heating technologies than those in smaller and medium-sized municipalities. They also have more experience with these technologies. We identified four different clusters of municipalities based on their attitudes towards heating systems. The findings suggest that attitudes and experiences have a significant influence on the desirability and expected feasibility of the expansion of district heating. Furthermore, there are differences between south, north, and east Germany.
Conclusions
Exchange of experiences and expectations between larger and smaller municipalities could facilitate the transition to low-carbon heating. Public policy could strategically provide spaces for the required exchange, but it also needs to engage with more complex questions of finance and regulation.
Meat-based diets are still the norm, and vegans and vegetarians represent only a small minority of the population. A transition, respectively, behavioural change towards a diet with less meat can ...only occur by adopting a positive attitude towards dietary changes based on reasons and motivations. The main aim of this study is to apply the meat attachment scale (MEAS) in Germany in order to analyse if this construct is a barrier towards a diet with less meat in this country. For this purpose, the impact of meat attachment on the trust in different protein alternatives (plant-based, insects, cultured meat) and related food processing technologies is analysed. The findings reveal that a high level of meat attachment goes along with lower trust in plant-based proteins. Similar holds for cultured meat and insect proteins. Thus it appears that, at least for the moment, cultured meat or proteins from insects are not a logical substitute for the heavily meat attached consumer. Furthermore, in the analysis, we considered if meat attachment as measured by the MEAS is correlated with other scales/preferences such as food neophobia, social trust, and attitude towards respective preference for organic products. Literature shows that all mentioned constructs impact the acceptance, preference or trust in more sustainable food product innovation, respectively, more sustainable food processing techniques. The outcome of the correlation analysis demonstrated that in particular food neophobia and meat attachment are not correlated with each other. That is, the MEAS represents a predictor for trust in food (processing) technologies as e.g. plant-based proteins or cultured meat that is independent of the neophobia construct.
Urban agriculture, a dynamic multifunctional phenomenon, affects the spatial diversification of urban land use, its valorization and its governance. Literature acknowledges its contribution to the ...development of sustainable cities. The dimension and extent of this contribution depends significantly on the particular form and function of urban agriculture. However, the complexity of interests and dimensions is insufficiently covered by theory. This paper proposes a typology for urban agriculture, supporting both theory building and practical decision processes. We reviewed and mapped the diversity of the types of agriculture found along three beneficial dimensions (self-supply, socio-cultural, commercial) for product distribution scale and actors. We distinguish between ideal types, subtypes and mixed types. Our intention is to include a dynamic perspective in the typology of urban agricultural land use because transition processes between types are observable due to the existence of complex motivations and influences. In a pilot study of 52 urban agriculture initiatives in Germany, we tested the validity of the typology and discussed it with stakeholders, proving novelty and relevance for profiling discussions.
Content or text analysis is one of the most common evaluation methods employed in qualitative research. Despite its wide application, however, a clear structure of how such evaluation should be ...conducted is often lacking due to the complexity of qualitative data. As a consequence, highly differentiated category systems with small-step subdivisions of categories and sub-categories are often used, leading to a loss of context both among categories and for the content as a whole. The aim of this paper is to describe the Phenomena-centered Text Analysis (PTA) as a novel form of qualitative text analysis, which takes these shortcomings into account by focusing on text-inherent phenomena. These phenomena are identified in two preceding quantitative analysis steps that identifying overlapping coding for subsequently qualitative analysis. We explain the structured code- and context-based approach of this new method and demonstrate its application with an empirical example. The PTA contributes to an increasing demand of qualitative methods especially for small-scale projects that need a structured kind of qualitative data analysis.
Socio-economic viability of urban agriculture (UA) is, especially regarding non-commercially oriented initiatives, at most a generically treated issue in scientific literature. Given a lack of data ...on yields, labor input, or saved expenditures, only a few studies have described it either from a cost-avoidance or a specific benefit generation perspective. Our hypothesis is that hybrid roles of consumers and producers in urban agriculture challenge the appraisal of socio-economic viability. This paper presents an empirical study from three prevalent urban agriculture models: self-harvesting gardens, intercultural gardens, and community gardens, combining qualitative and quantitative survey data. A multi-value qualitative comparative analysis was applied to grasp the perception of socio-economic viability and its success factors. This allowed us to identify necessary and sufficient conditions for economic and social success. Results give an indication of the existence of different value systems and cost–benefit considerations in different urban agriculture models. A service-focused business relationship between farmers and consumers ensuring self-reliance is important for success for self-harvesting gardens, while self-reliance and sharing components are relevant for intercultural gardens. Community gardening builds upon self-governance ambitions and a rather individually determined success and failure factor pattern beyond explicit production output orientation. It is shown here for the first time with a quantitative approach that participants of urban agriculture models seem to go beyond traditional trade-off considerations and rather adopt a post-productive perception, focusing more on benefits than costs.
•Double-tested Itemset for measuring consumer preference for organic food.•>100 Items from>20 studies viewed and 21 tested.•Tested item difficulty and dimensionality tests for 21 Items.•Short set of ...5 items that can be used for further research.
It is well known in consumer research on ethical and sustainable products that the attitudes of consumers recorded in studies and consumers' actual purchasing behaviour often differ. This gap between expressed attitude and actual behaviour is called the 'attitude-behaviour gap'. In this study, an item set for 'organic food' was developed, which less identify intentions and motivations but rather the actual attitudes and preferences of consumers. To this end, 21 items from 16 different literature sources and research projects have been collected and tested using an online access panel in Germany. Subsequently, an item analysis was carried out, and the reliability and validity of the items were checked. An approximately normally distributed scale comprising five items was thus created. This scale was applied in a subsequent survey. Even though the results of this study need to be verified in a further representative field survey, the newly developed item set allows a more precise recording of the actual attitudes and preferences of respondents for 'organic food'.
Recent discussion about future energy production promotes the recovery of industrial heat as a potential solution to reduce carbon emissions. Experts call for an expansion of central heating by ...renewable energy systems to ensure a decarbonization of energy systems. In this context, district heating could play a significant role in city and district planning. Nonetheless, for private households, environmental aspects are only one factor amongst others as, e.g., capital costs, comfort and security. In this study, we focus on private household preferences and willingness-to-pay for district heating and district heating from renewables compared to gas condensing boilers and heat pumps. For the study, we decided to apply a discrete-choice experiment and collected data on attitudes towards sustainability, economic aspects and demands for providers of heat supply as dimensions for a factor and cluster analysis in order to apply a market segmentation. The results show that district heating by renewables is the most preferred heating option for households followed by district heating from fossil fuels, heat pumps and gas boilers. Furthermore, the study offers more profound insight into the willingness-to-pay for each heating option and reports interaction effects for the different market segments that could be identified in the analysis.
A broad understanding of food systems includes a complex web of activities, outcomes and drivers, encompassing not only the food and agriculture sectors, but also the social norms and cultures in ...which those activities are embedded. The organic food and farming movement has lately been portrayed as a food system of its own right, since it contains all necessary sub-systems, consisting of food environments, distribution networks, processing, as well as production and supply, all of which are bounded by an organic guarantee system. The underlying hypothesis of this investigation is that drivers in the organic food system operate on a paradigm level that is associated with the codified principles of ecology, health, fairness and care. Personality science suggests that the choice to act in pro-environmental ways is driven by an internalized sense of obligation or personal norms, which justifies our pursuit of seeking key drivers of food systems in the mindset of the actor. Through integrated findings from actor-centered mixed methods grounded theory research involving eleven case territories, this study identified a pattern of global mindset attributes that intuitively drive organic food system actors toward holistic human and sustainable development.
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