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Luke Owen
Resilient ‘Short Food Chains’
Senior Research AssistantCentre for Agroecology and Food SecurityCoventry University
Email: [email protected]
Research profile & background
• Social Scientist• Food and Communities
o Local and ‘alternative’ food systemso Community based food initiativeso Routes to market
• Background: • PhD: The role of Short Food Chains in sustaining
livelihoods of small-scale food producers in The Gambia and UK
• More recently: Role of online and social media in ‘Short Food Chains and Civic Food Networks’
Short Food Chains• ‘Closer’ relationships between producers and
consumers
• Reduced intermediaries• More transparent, traceable food chains
• Characterise ‘Local Food Systems’
• Importance of social capital (Glowacki-Dudka 2012)
• Networks, trust (Fisher 2012), ‘geography of regard’ (Sage 2003)
Types of Short Food Chains1. Consumer-Producer Partnerships e.g. CSA - Community Supported
Agriculture
2. On-farm, direct sales e.g. farm shops, farm based hospitality, roadside sales, pick-your-own
3. Off-farm, direct or with minimum intermediaries e.g. farmers markets, box schemes, catering
(Renting et al 2003)
Resilient Short Food Chains: harnessing mobile communication
technology
• Online, mobile interactive communication technology facilitates social capital
• Develop relationships, social networks
• Rapidly growing technological ‘toolkit’ to create and sustain Short Food Chains
• “Short Food Supply Chains may rely less on some technologies than conventional supply chains (i.e., refrigerated trucks) yet more on others (i.e. social media for recruiting CSA subscribers).” (Freidberg and Goldstein 2011: 26)
• A need to understand how to harness mobile communication technology to create resilient Short Food Chains (Stanley 2013)
The role of mobile communication technology in Short Food Chains
Producers & processors
Retailers & consumers
Institutional stakeholders (e.g. NGO)
‘Basic’ communication technologye.g. mobile phones
Improved connection to e.g. markets
Consolidate networks
Source products for retail and consumption in real-time (reduce waste)
Improve communications e.g. extension work, crisis management
‘Smart’ mobile communication technologye.g. social media, smartphones
Web Applications e.g. real-time changes in markets, precision agriculture
Marketing space
Help identify local food through online space
Blogging e.g. sharing recipes, experiences of ‘local’ food
Maintain real-time information & analytics about the geography of local food systems
Crowdsourcing/ funding platform
Research questions & future
agendas
• The extent of online access, social media use and mobile phone ownership amongst producers and consumers engaged in Short Food Chains
• How is mobile communication technology being used to create and sustain Short Food Chains?
• The role of this technology in developing and consolidating producer networks
• The potential for consumers to source locally produced food using ‘smart’ mobile communication technology
• E.g. to identify retailers of locally produced food
Thank You
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @LukeOwen86
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/lukeowen1 Skype: Luke.Owen86
