| Fluctuating food and fuel prices and the increase in urban food- related health and environmental problems are raising an urgent need to devise more effective and sustainable agri-food policies and development strategies. By focusing on food industrialization, standardization and globalization, many contemporary socio-economic food studies tend to neglect the emergence of an alternative (as opposed to globalisation) food geography. Characteristic for this alternative geography is the creation of alterity (or otherness) in the food system and the modification of the modes of connectivity between the production and consumption of food, generally through reconnecting food to the social, cultural and environmental context of its production. This project will study and analyze the dynamics underlying this alternative food geography by focussing on the socio-cultural, economic, political and spatial dynamics and impacts of food (re)localization as well as its multidimensionality and territoriality. That is, food is multidimensional as it is related to many policy domains such as public health, education, quality of life and environmental quality and it is territorial as the food sector has a significant impact on the regional economy and food- related problems and solutions are characterized by regional specificity. With this project we aim to reduce the enormous knowledge and skills deficit that is negatively affecting the capacity to design and deliver appropriate political and developmental solutions in the crucial fields of food security, food democracy, public food procurement, public health and sustainable urban and regional development. |
