IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/jenvss/v5y2015i4p685-698.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do global food systems have an Achilles heel? The potential for regional food systems to support resilience in regional disasters

Author

Listed:
  • Rebekah Paci-Green
  • Gigi Berardi

Abstract

Today’s domestic US food production is the result of an industry optimized for competitive, high yielding, and high-growth production for a globalized market. Yet, industry growth may weaken food system resilience to abrupt disruptions by reducing the diversity of food supply sources. In this paper, we first explore shifts in food consumption toward reliance upon complex and long-distance food distribution, food imports, and out-of-home eating. Second, we discuss how large-scale, rapid-onset hazards may affect food access for both food secure and insecure households. We then consider whether and how regional food production might support regional food resilience. To illustrate these issues, we examine the case of western Washington, a region not only rich in agricultural production but also threatened by a Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake and tsunami. Such an event is expected to disrupt transportation and energy systems on which the dominant food distribution system relies. Whether a regional food supply—for the purposes of this paper, defined as food production in one or adjacent watersheds—can support a broader goal of community food resilience during large-scale disruption is a key theme of our paper. The discussion that ensues is not meant to offer simplistic, localist solutions as the one answer to disaster food provision, but neither should regional food sources be dismissed in food planning processes. Our exploration of regional farm production, small in scale and flexible, suggests regional production can help support food security prior to the arrival of emergency relief and retail restocking. Yet in order to do so, we need to have in place a robust and regionally appropriate food resilience strategy. This strategy should address caloric need, storage, and distribution, and, in so doing, rebalance our dependence on food supplied through imports and complex, domestic supply chains. Clearly, diversity of food sourcing can add redundancy and flexibility, allowing more nimble food system adaptation in the face of disruption. Copyright AESS 2015

Suggested Citation

  • Rebekah Paci-Green & Gigi Berardi, 2015. "Do global food systems have an Achilles heel? The potential for regional food systems to support resilience in regional disasters," Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Springer;Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences, vol. 5(4), pages 685-698, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jenvss:v:5:y:2015:i:4:p:685-698
    DOI: 10.1007/s13412-015-0342-9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s13412-015-0342-9
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s13412-015-0342-9?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. Masahiro Hori & Koichiro Iwamoto, 2014. "The Run on Daily Foods and Goods After the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake," Japanese Economy, M.E. Sharpe, Inc., vol. 40(1), pages 69-113, April.
    2. Hori, Masahiro & Iwamoto, Koichiro, 2013. "The Run on Daily Foods and Goods after the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake: A Fact Finding Analysis Based on Homescan Data," CIS Discussion paper series 594, Center for Intergenerational Studies, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    3. Theresa Selfa & Joan Qazi, 2005. "Place, Taste, or Face-to-Face? Understanding Producer–Consumer Networks in “Local” Food Systems in Washington State," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 22(4), pages 451-464, December.
    4. Karen Hills & Jessica Goldberger & Stephen Jones, 2013. "Commercial bakers and the relocalization of wheat in western Washington State," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 30(3), pages 365-378, September.
    5. Nathan Wood & Mathew Schmidtlein, 2013. "Community variations in population exposure to near-field tsunami hazards as a function of pedestrian travel time to safety," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 65(3), pages 1603-1628, February.
    6. Evan Fraser & Alexander Legwegoh & Krishna KC, 2015. "Food stocks and grain reserves: evaluating whether storing food creates resilient food systems," Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Springer;Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences, vol. 5(3), pages 445-458, September.
    7. Ryan W. Higginbotham & Stephen S. Jones & Arron H. Carter, 2011. "Adaptability of Wheat Cultivars to a Late-Planted No-Till Fallow Production System," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 3(8), pages 1-10, August.
    8. Masahiro Hori & Koichiro Iwamoto, 2014. "The Run on Daily Foods and Goods After the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake," Japanese Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(1), pages 69-113.
    9. Low, Sarah A. & Vogel, Stephen J., 2011. "Direct and Intermediated Marketing of Local Foods in the United States," Economic Research Report 118025, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    10. J. Thomas & K. Mora, 2014. "Community resilience, latent resources and resource scarcity after an earthquake: Is society really three meals away from anarchy?," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 74(2), pages 477-490, November.
    11. Jan Poppendieck, 1994. "Dilemmas of emergency food: A guide for the perplexed," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 11(4), pages 69-76, September.
    12. Unknown, 2014. "Department Publications 2013," Publications Lists 206935, University of Minnesota, Department of Applied Economics.
    13. Guthrie, Joanne F. & Lin, Biing-Hwan & Okrent, Abigail M. & Volpe, Richard J., III, 2013. "Americans’ Food Choices at Home and Away: How Do They Compare With Recommendations?," Amber Waves:The Economics of Food, Farming, Natural Resources, and Rural America, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, pages 1-14, February.
    14. Alexander Belyakov, 2015. "From Chernobyl to Fukushima: an interdisciplinary framework for managing and communicating food security risks after nuclear plant accidents," Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Springer;Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences, vol. 5(3), pages 404-417, September.
    15. Kathryn Ruhf, 2015. "Regionalism: a New England recipe for a resilient food system," Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Springer;Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences, vol. 5(4), pages 650-660, December.
    16. Clancy, Kate & Ruhf, Kathryn, 2010. "Is Local Enough? Some Arguments for Regional Food Systems," Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resource Issues, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 25(1), pages 1-5.
    17. Jack Kloppenburg & John Hendrickson & G. Stevenson, 1996. "Coming in to the foodshed," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 13(3), pages 33-42, June.
    18. Coleman-Jensen, Alisha & Gregory, Christian & Singh, Anita, 2014. "Household Food Security in the United States in 2013," Economic Research Report 183589, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    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. Xiaojia Bao & Puyang Sun & Jianan Li, 2023. "The impacts of tropical storms on food prices: Evidence from China," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 105(2), pages 576-596, March.
    2. Gerald Marten & Nurcan Atalan-Helicke, 2015. "Introduction to the Symposium on American Food Resilience (Part 2)," Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Springer;Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences, vol. 5(4), pages 537-542, December.
    3. Ebrahim P. Karan & Sadegh Asgari & Somayeh Asadi, 2023. "Resilience assessment of centralized and distributed food systems," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 15(1), pages 59-75, February.
    4. Andreia Saavedra Cardoso & Tiago Domingos & Manuela Raposo De Magalhães & José De Melo-Abreu & Jorge Palma, 2017. "Mapping the Lisbon Potential Foodshed in Ribatejo e Oeste: A Suitability and Yield Model for Assessing the Potential for Localized Food Production," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(11), pages 1-31, November.
    5. Philip H. Howard, 2016. "AFHVS 2016 presidential address: Decoding diversity in the food system: wheat and bread in North America," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 33(4), pages 953-960, December.
    6. Kristin B. Raub & Kristine F. Stepenuck & Bindu Panikkar & Jennie C. Stephens, 2021. "An Analysis of Resilience Planning at the Nexus of Food, Energy, Water, and Transportation in Coastal US Cities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-22, June.
    7. Victor Ye. Kovalev & Aleksandr N. Semin, 2021. "Resilience of Russia’s agri-food market under customs imbalances of the Eurasian integration," Journal of New Economy, Ural State University of Economics, vol. 22(3), pages 28-43, October.

    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. Gerald Marten & Nurcan Atalan-Helicke, 2015. "Introduction to the Symposium on American Food Resilience (Part 2)," Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Springer;Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences, vol. 5(4), pages 537-542, December.
    2. Alessandro Passaro & Filippo Randelli, 2022. "Spaces of Governance for Sustainable Transformation of Local Food Systems: the Case of 8 biodistricts in Tuscany," Working Papers - Economics wp2022_12.rdf, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa.
    3. Kuan-Ming Huang & Ana Claudia Sant’Anna & Xiaoli Etienne, 2021. "How did Covid-19 impact US household foods? an analysis six months in," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(9), pages 1-17, September.
    4. Sini Forssell & Leena Lankoski, 2015. "The sustainability promise of alternative food networks: an examination through “alternative” characteristics," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 32(1), pages 63-75, March.
    5. Joshua Sbicca & India Luxton & James Hale & Kassandra Roeser, 2019. "Collaborative Concession in Food Movement Networks: The Uneven Relations of Resource Mobilization," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(10), pages 1-21, May.
    6. Sarah Bowen & Tad Mutersbaugh, 2014. "Local or localized? Exploring the contributions of Franco-Mediterranean agrifood theory to alternative food research," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 31(2), pages 201-213, June.
    7. Martin O'Connell & Áureo de Paula & Kate Smith, 2021. "Preparing for a pandemic: spending dynamics and panic buying during the COVID‐19 first wave," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 42(2), pages 249-264, June.
    8. Keane, Michael & Neal, Timothy, 2021. "Consumer panic in the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 220(1), pages 86-105.
    9. Elisa Giampietri & Dieter B. A. Koemle & Xiaohua Yu & Adele Finco, 2016. "Consumers’ Sense of Farmers’ Markets: Tasting Sustainability or Just Purchasing Food?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(11), pages 1-14, November.
    10. Paola De Bernardi & Alberto Bertello & Francesco Venuti, 2019. "Online and On-Site Interactions within Alternative Food Networks: Sustainability Impact of Knowledge-Sharing Practices," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-14, March.
    11. Shawn Trivette, 2015. "How local is local? Determining the boundaries of local food in practice," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 32(3), pages 475-490, September.
    12. Y. Zhao & C. Huang & J. Luo, 2022. "How to Prepare for the Next Pandemic -- Investigation of Correlation Between Food Prices and COVID-19 From Global and Local Perspectives," Papers 2211.15515, arXiv.org.
    13. Katy Giombolini & Kimberlee Chambers & Sheridan Schlegel & Jonnie Dunne, 2011. "Testing the local reality: does the Willamette Valley growing region produce enough to meet the needs of the local population? A comparison of agriculture production and recommended dietary requiremen," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 28(2), pages 247-262, June.
    14. Claire Lamine & Danièle Magda & Marie-Josèphe Amiot, 2019. "Crossing Sociological, Ecological, and Nutritional Perspectives on Agrifood Systems Transitions: Towards a Transdisciplinary Territorial Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-18, March.
    15. Fiona Louden & Rod MacRae, 2010. "Federal regulation of local and sustainable food claims in Canada: a case study of Local Food Plus," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 27(2), pages 177-188, June.
    16. Rod MacRae & Michelle Szabo & Kalli Anderson & Fiona Louden & Sandi Trillo, 2012. "Empowering the Citizen-Consumer: Re-Regulating Consumer Information to Support the Transition to Sustainable and Health Promoting Food Systems in Canada," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 4(9), pages 1-30, September.
    17. Nelson Borges Amaral & Bin Chang & Rachel Burns, 2022. "Understanding consumer stockpiling: Insights provided during the COVID‐19 pandemic," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(1), pages 211-236, March.
    18. Shamsheer Ul Haq & Pomi Shahbaz & Azhar Abbas & Zahira Batool & Bader Alhafi Alotaibi & Abou Traore, 2022. "Tackling Food and Nutrition Insecurity among Rural Inhabitants: Role of Household-Level Strategies with a Focus on Value Addition, Diversification and Female Participation," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-19, February.
    19. Alexandra Doernberg & Ingo Zasada & Katarzyna Bruszewska & Björn Skoczowski & Annette Piorr, 2016. "Potentials and Limitations of Regional Organic Food Supply: A Qualitative Analysis of Two Food Chain Types in the Berlin Metropolitan Region," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(11), pages 1-20, November.
    20. Kimisato Oda & Christoph D. D. Rupprecht & Kazuaki Tsuchiya & Steven R. McGreevy, 2018. "Urban Agriculture as a Sustainability Transition Strategy for Shrinking Cities? Land Use Change Trajectory as an Obstacle in Kyoto City, Japan," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-15, April.

    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:spr:jenvss:v:5:y:2015:i:4:p:685-698. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.