IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/lauspo/v114y2022ics0264837721006773.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

"You keep using that word...": Disjointed definitions of resilience in food systems adaptation

Author

Listed:
  • Soubry, Bernard
  • Sherren, Kate

Abstract

What does resilience mean when it's applied to adapting the food system to climate change? The term is a "boundary object": it has multiple definitions which do not necessarily correspond. While this slippery state can serve to unite different actors, it can also be co-opted by government to twist transformative adaptation into maintaining the status quo. We compared the definitions of resilience between two datasets: the conclusions and responses to the Canadian government's recent inquiries into climate change and agriculture, and semi-structured interviews with small-scale farmers in the Canadian Maritimes (n = 37). The differences between the two suggest that government institutions may be creating policy which perpetuates status quo industrial agriculture without acknowledging farmers’ differing conceptions of climate resilience for the food system. The findings highlight the need for the definition of resilience in climate and agriculture policy to be problematized and diversified. It corroborates the calls in adaptation theory for resilience to be understood as a normative term rather than a politically neutral one; and for broader inclusion of concerned stakeholders in consultations.

Suggested Citation

  • Soubry, Bernard & Sherren, Kate, 2022. ""You keep using that word...": Disjointed definitions of resilience in food systems adaptation," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:114:y:2022:i:c:s0264837721006773
    DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2021.105954
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837721006773
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.landusepol.2021.105954?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Julia M. L. Laforge & Colin R. Anderson & Stéphane M. McLachlan, 2017. "Governments, grassroots, and the struggle for local food systems: containing, coopting, contesting and collaborating," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 34(3), pages 663-681, September.
    2. Jennifer Clapp & S. Ryan Isakson, 2018. "Risky Returns: The Implications of Financialization in the Food System," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 49(2), pages 437-460, March.
    3. Jennifer Clapp & Caitlin Scott, 2018. "The Global Environmental Politics of Food," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 18(2), pages 1-11, May.
    4. Marney E. Isaac & S. Ryan Isakson & Bryan Dale & Charles Z. Levkoe & Sarah K. Hargreaves & V. Ernesto Méndez & Hannah Wittman & Colleen Hammelman & Jennifer C. Langill & Adam R. Martin & Erin Nelson &, 2018. "Agroecology in Canada: Towards an Integration of Agroecological Practice, Movement, and Science," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-17, September.
    5. Susanne Moser & Sara Meerow & James Arnott & Emily Jack-Scott, 2019. "The turbulent world of resilience: interpretations and themes for transdisciplinary dialogue," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 153(1), pages 21-40, March.
    6. Ika Darnhofer, 2014. "Resilience and why it matters for farm management," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 41(3), pages 461-484.
    7. John R. Porter & Mark Howden & Pete Smith, 2017. "Considering agriculture in IPCC assessments," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 7(10), pages 680-683, October.
    8. Winthrop, Robert H., 2014. "The strange case of cultural services: Limits of the ecosystem services paradigm," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 208-214.
    9. Carr, Edward R., 2019. "Properties and projects: Reconciling resilience and transformation for adaptation and development," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 70-84.
    10. Wieland, Raoul & Ravensbergen, Sarah & Gregr, Edward J. & Satterfield, Terre & Chan, Kai M.A., 2016. "Debunking trickle-down ecosystem services: The fallacy of omnipotent, homogeneous beneficiaries," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 175-180.
    11. Radel, Claudia & Schmook, Birgit & Carte, Lindsey & Mardero, Sofia, 2018. "Toward a Political Ecology of Migration: Land, Labor Migration, and Climate Change in Northwestern Nicaragua," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 263-273.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Menconi, M.E. & Giordano, S. & Grohmann, D., 2022. "Revisiting global food production and consumption patterns by developing resilient food systems for local communities," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    2. Ewa Kołoszycz & Artur Wilczyński & Alberto Menghi & Chiara Serena Soffiantini & Marija Klopčič, 2024. "Searching for Dairy Farm Resilience with the R4D Project: Innovation Needs to Be Sustainable," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(9), pages 1-20, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Malherbe, Willem & Biggs, Reinette & Sitas, Nadia, 2024. "Comparing apples and pears: Linking capitals and capacities to assess the resilience of commercial farming operations," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 217(C).
    2. Elwell, Tammy L. & López-Carr, David & Gelcich, Stefan & Gaines, Steven D., 2020. "The importance of cultural ecosystem services in natural resource-dependent communities: Implications for management," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 44(C).
    3. Shingo Yoshida & Hironori Yagi, 2021. "Long-Term Development of Urban Agriculture: Resilience and Sustainability of Farmers Facing the Covid-19 Pandemic in Japan," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-23, April.
    4. Miranda P.M. Meuwissen & Peter H. Feindt & Peter Midmore & Erwin Wauters & Robert Finger & Franziska Appel & Alisa Spiegel & Erik Mathijs & Katrien J.A.M. Termeer & Alfons Balmann & Yann de Mey & Pytr, 2020. "The Struggle of Farming Systems in Europe: Looking for Explanations through the Lens of Resilience," EuroChoices, The Agricultural Economics Society, vol. 19(2), pages 4-11, August.
    5. Stephen Woroniecki, 2019. "Enabling Environments? Examining Social Co-Benefits of Ecosystem-Based Adaptation to Climate Change in Sri Lanka," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-20, February.
    6. Ronja Teschner & Jessica Ruppen & Basil Bornemann & Rony Emmenegger & Lucía Aguirre Sánchez, 2021. "Mapping Sustainable Diets: A Comparison of Sustainability References in Dietary Guidelines of Swiss Food Governance Actors," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-21, November.
    7. Daniele, Bertolozzi-Caredio & Barbara, Soriano & Isabel, Bardaji & Alberto, Garrido, 2022. "Analysis of perceived robustness, adaptability and transformability of Spanish extensive livestock farms under alternative challenging scenarios," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 202(C).
    8. Schipper, E.L.F. & Tanner, T. & Dube, O.P. & Adams, K.M. & Huq, S., 2020. "The debate: Is global development adapting to climate change?," World Development Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 18(C).
    9. Stefan Seifert & Christoph Kahle & Silke Hüttel, 2021. "Price Dispersion in Farmland Markets: What Is the Role of Asymmetric Information?," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 103(4), pages 1545-1568, August.
    10. Lau, Jacqueline D. & Hicks, Christina C. & Gurney, Georgina G. & Cinner, Joshua E., 2018. "Disaggregating ecosystem service values and priorities by wealth, age, and education," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 29(PA), pages 91-98.
    11. Katarzyna Zawalińska & Alexandra Smyrniotopoulou & Katalin Balazs & Michael Böhm & Mihai Chitea & Violeta Florian & Mihaela Fratila & Piotr Gradziuk & Stuart Henderson & Katherine Irvine & Vasilia Kon, 2022. "Advancing the Contributions of European Stakeholders in Farming Systems to Transitions to Agroecology," EuroChoices, The Agricultural Economics Society, vol. 21(3), pages 50-63, December.
    12. Basharat Ali & Peter Dahlhaus, 2022. "Roles of Selective Agriculture Practices in Sustainable Agricultural Performance: A Systematic Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-15, March.
    13. Khalilullah Mayar & David G. Carmichael & Xuesong Shen, 2022. "Resilience and Systems—A Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-22, July.
    14. Lecegui, Antonio & Olaizola, Ana María & López-i-Gelats, Feliu & Varela, Elsa, 2022. "Implementing the livelihood resilience framework: An indicator-based model for assessing mountain pastoral farming systems," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    15. Nelson, Nanette & Pete, Shandin & Neher, Chris & Duffield, John & Devlin, Shawn, 2022. "Tribal Perspectives on Preventing the Introduction of Zebra Mussels into Flathead Lake, Montana," SocArXiv fk4xj_v1, Center for Open Science.
    16. Cindy Córdoba & Catalina Triviño & Javier Toro Calderón, 2020. "Agroecosystem resilience. A conceptual and methodological framework for evaluation," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(4), pages 1-20, April.
    17. Thorsøe, Martin Hvarregaard & Noe, Egon Bjørnshave & Lamandé, Mathieu & Frelih-Larsen, Ana & Kjeldsen, Chris & Zandersen, Marianne & Schjønning, Per, 2019. "Sustainable soil management - Farmers’ perspectives on subsoil compaction and the opportunities and barriers for intervention," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 427-437.
    18. Alison Blay-Palmer & Guido Santini & Jess Halliday & Roman Malec & Joy Carey & Léo Keller & Jia Ni & Makiko Taguchi & René van Veenhuizen, 2021. "City Region Food Systems: Building Resilience to COVID-19 and Other Shocks," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-19, January.
    19. Cooper, Nigel & Brady, Emily & Steen, Helen & Bryce, Rosalind, 2016. "Aesthetic and spiritual values of ecosystems: Recognising the ontological and axiological plurality of cultural ecosystem ‘services’," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 21(PB), pages 218-229.
    20. George Van Voorn & Geerten Hengeveld & Jan Verhagen, 2020. "An agent based model representation to assess resilience and efficiency of food supply chains," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(11), pages 1-27, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:114:y:2022:i:c:s0264837721006773. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joice Jiang (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/land-use-policy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.