Sustainable Food Practices gave a lecture in the course programme of ‘Science and Citizens meet Challenges of Sustainability (SCCS)’ run Dr. Ariane König at the University of Luxembourg. Dr. Rachel Reckinger, Dr. Diane Kapgen and Dr. Korjonen presented their research into depicting the food system of Luxembourg; how an infographic will provide an overview of the current state of the food system in order to understand the challenges, barriers, opportunities and leverage points in making the system more sustainable and resilient.

Abstract

Contemporary food systems in developed countries have proven to be largely unsustainable: apart from providing food security and food safety to their national populations, they entail considerable negative environmental and health externalities, fail to address rural poverty throughout the world and create and foster power imbalances in food chains, and social injustice on different levels (De Schutter, 2017). Given these facts, researching the transition processes towards a more sustainable food system and culture from a systemic approach by focusing on the involved actors from the four interdependent spheres of governance, production, diffusion and consumption as well as their potential optimisation is primordial.

This lecture discusses how such an approach allows for understanding the opportunities and challenges of processes of a sustainable food transition by sharing preliminary findings from a systemic analysis of Luxembourg’s transnational food system. We show how the food system can be envisioned as a dynamic multi-scalar and multi-sited foodscape by drawing from visual tools like infographics, and how these tools can contribute to increase the capacity to grasp and work with food system complexity. We present the methodology and the theory allowing us to analyse the current state of the system (including interrelationships, pressure points, gaps,blockades and opportunities), and to elaborate potential pathways for optimization of different leverage points within the system.

Rachel Reckinger, Diane Kapgen, Helena Korjonen

Readings:

Reckinger, R. (2018). Social Change for Sustainable Localized Food Sovereignty. Convergence between Prosumers and Ethical Entrepreneurs. Sociologia del Lavoro, 152(4).

Reckinger, R. (2019). ‘Pas de fraises pour Noël’. Le rôle de la régionalité locavore dans la (re)prise de conscience de la saisonnalité des aliments . In C., Adamiec, M.-P., Julien, & F., Régnier, L’alimentation au fil des saisons. La saisonnalité des pratiques alimentaires. Rennes, France: Presses Universitaires de Rennes.