The resilience discourse in agricultural and food policy – a policy window for innovative food production systems?

Abstract

Accumulating shocks and stresses such as climate change and its impacts, geo-political conflicts, labour scarcity, supply chain disruptions and novel diseases have pushed concerns about the resilience of agri-food systems to the centre of agri-food policy. While the increasing salience of the resilience concept has been used to justify traditional income support policies, it might also open policy windows for innovative approaches to the production, distribution and consumption of food, e.g., urban, vertical and coupled agri-food production systems (hydroponics and aquaponics), circular and closed approaches to nutrient recycling (nutrient-food-loop), alternative sources of protein (plant-based meat alternatives, cultured meat) or new forms of livestock farming (virtual herding). This panel aims to explore the new conceptual and empirical questions that arise from the development of novel agri-food systems about the scope, goals and instruments of agricultural and food policies. Contributing papers will address for example the following questions: How do agricultural and food policies engage with novel agri-food systems in the policy, polity and politics dimension? Where is policy adaptation or even transformation required and how is this facilitated or inhibited by established policy frameworks? Which mechanisms explain how novel agri-food systems shape and interlink other policy domains (water, energy, land, climate)? Which policy approaches and instruments (formal and informal) are suited to capture the more complex, fluid, and cross-sectoral nature of new agri-food systems?

Title	Details
Do public policies enhance the resilience of farming systems and enable transformative innovations? A comparative analysis of three grassland farming regions in Germany	View Paper Details
Resilient agri-food systems through EU policy on nutrients? The case of nutrient recovery from wastewater for urban agri-food production	View Paper Details
An effective policy design for controlled-environment food production systems in urban settings	View Paper Details
Policy Design for Resilience? Bioeconomy policy design and the maize bio-based production system in Italy	View Paper Details
Designing resilient urban food systems: what are the optimal policy instruments?	View Paper Details