Thrilled to see this important article in print - civil society organisations have a vital role to play in #foodsystems #governance in Australia, not least because the Australian food system - like systems everywhere - is entering a period of intensifying polycrisis. What we need are more transparent, participatory and inclusive processes that have as their goal food system transformation - not merely mild reforms to the destructive and inequitable status quo, where some eat well and growing numbers of others do not.
The abstract describes it well:
"As social, environmental, climate change, and public health challenges mount, there is growing recognition that many of the roots of these contemporary crises are to be found in the nature and trajectory of the dominant food and agricultural systems. Consequently, a growing number of Australian civil society organizations (CSOs) seek to engage in processes of food system governance to address concerns of health and wellbeing, sustainability, and resilience. This paper summarizes a case study that explored the characteristics, values, and activities of seven food-related CSOs and identified the factors that enable or hinder their work. The results revealed that while the ability of CSOs to influence food system governance has been modest to date, some progress is being made, particularly regarding food systems governance processes at the local government level, pointing to the possibility of more participatory forms of local food system governance developing."
Full article online: https://lnkd.in/g6Nvzni7
This article is the final one in the collaborative ARC Discovery Project led by Belinda Reeve at USyd, with fellow Partner Investigators Karen Charlton and Amy Carrad (see the full project outputs here - https://lnkd.in/gMphf3ye). My Sustain colleague Beth Ciesielski and Rebecca Smits also worked on this final publication. It has been a pleasure to collaborate with this wonderful team over many years and I'm proud of all this project achieved, advancing the cause of food system transformation in Australia.
We have been included in the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development, with a piece entitled Big ambitions, modest beginnings: Civil society participation in food system governance in Australia, written by our very own Beth Ciesielski and Nick Rose.
Citation:
Rose, N., Ciesielski, B., Carrad, A., Smits, R., Reeve, B., & Charlton, K. (2024).
Big ambitions, modest beginnings: Civil society participation in food system governance in Australia Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems,
and Community Development.
Advance online publication. https://lnkd.in/gMmhjSyb
Read all about it via: https://lnkd.in/guUc2zJK
