The complexity of food systems : defining relevant attributes and indicators for the evaluation of food supply chains in Spain
Gamboa, Gonzalo (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament d'Economia i d'Història Econòmica)
Kovacic, Zora (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)
Di Masso, Marina (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya)
Mingorría, Sara (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)
Gomiero, Tiziano (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)
Rivera-Ferre, Marta G.. (Universitat de Vic. Facultat de Ciències i Tecnologia)
Giampietro, Mario (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament d'Enginyeria Química, Biològica i Ambiental)

Date:	2016
Description:	23 pàgs.
Abstract:	The wide-ranging literature on food systems provides multiple perspectives and world views. Various stakeholders define food and food systems in non-equivalent ways. The perception of the performance of food systems is determined by these specific perspectives, and a wide variety of policies responding to different aims are proposed and implemented accordingly. This paper sets out to demonstrate that the pre-analytical adoption of different narratives about the food System leads to non-equivalent assessments of the performance of food supply chains. In order to do so, we (i) identify a set of relevant narratives on food supply chains in Spanish and Catalan contexts; (ii) identify the pertinent attributes needed to describe and represent food supply chains within the different perspectives or narratives; and (iii) carry out an integrated assessment of three orgànic tomato supply chains from the different perspectives. In doing so, the paper proposes an analysis of narratives to enable the analyst to characterize the performance of food supply chains from diferent perspectives and to identify the expected trade-offs of integrated assessment, associating them with the legitimate-but-contrasting views found among the social actors involved.
Grants:	European Commission 311778 Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad HAR2013-47182-C02-01 Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2014/SGR-591
Note:	Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu MdM-2015-0552
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Food Systems ; Food supply chains ; Narratives ; Integrated assessment
Published in:	Sustainability, Vol. 8 (May 2016) , art. 515, ISSN 2071-1050

DOI: 10.3390/su8060515

23 p, 1015.8 KB

The record appears in these collections:
Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Experimental sciences > Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA) > Integrated Assessment: Sociology, Technology and the Environment (IASTE)
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles