chapter 3 inventory of local food systems

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Project CP/59 - “Instruments and institutions to develop local food systems” A price comparison is an easy indicator to involve in a general comparison of different systems. Special attention should be addressed to the products compared, since different systems might work with different breeds or strains at one hand, and with different production methods, causing different production scales, a.o. When all those aspects are carefully dealt with during measurements at one hand, and explained when the results are published at the other hand, this indicator is a fairly simple and useful tool in both measurement and communication. 2.4. Social indicators A social sustainable community is said to have the ability to maintain and build on its own resources and have the resilience to prevent and/or address problems in the future (Gates and Lee, 2005). Within this scope, social capital is defined as the possibility of an individual to mobilise resources from social networks in which he takes part (Komter et al., 2000), and it is seen as a production mean, fed by social relationships within a community or a group, to be used by individual members (Dessein et al., 2004). There is the need to assess how local ecologies and social relationships are or become implicated in existing or emerging production systems and whether stakeholders in different food systems have access to social capital in a different way. Research questions are: • Are farmers differently embedded in (parts of) society depending on the food system they choose? (= networking), and what does this imply? • Do farmers have different access to resources to be found in networks? (= social capital) • Do farmers experience satisfaction in their work and do they feel appreciation for their knowledge and skills? (= job satisfaction) Social sustainability was addressed in its aspects where producers are involved. Within the MFS, data gathering on consumer level would have implied a totally different research design which was impossible within the scope of our research. Since for the economical and ecological indicators, we decided upon a case study approach on producer level, also the information for the social indicators was collected in this way. As primary producers, farmers remain key persons in the importance of food markets described to rural society (e.g., Moehler, 1996; Marsden et al., 2000), this is another motivation to focus on the aspects where farmers are involved is also motivated in this scope. 2.4.1. Social indicator I: networking Since social capital results from the social networks in which an individual takes part, it is interesting as a start to describe the networks an individual takes part in. The social networks farmers are involved in can be called upon threefold. At one side farmers function in relation to their colleague-farmers. Furthermore, farmers sell their produce, resulting in more or less networking to middlemen, consumers and others. A third SPSD II - Part I - Sustainable production and consumption patterns - Agro-Food 33
Project CP/59 - “Instruments and institutions to develop local food systems” aspect in networking then is the contacts with other external bodies as there are knowledge institutions, service providers and input suppliers. By means of network drawings and a common analysis of those networks with a limited number of farmers in both LFS and MFS, we identified crucial aspects in the individual networks and we found differences as well as similarities in networks and in the effects on individual farmers. Within both types of food systems, links in different fields were identified as being crucial, each of them given their own condition(s) for a successful relationship, with a connected meaning for the individual. Those links and their meanings are listed in order of priority for the farmers in table 1. Table 1: Network links, their preconditions and their meanings link to precondition for success meaning when successful family members - support colleague farmers - trust - efficiency - motivation - embeddedness - shared values - knowledge - inspiration consumers - information sharing - support - stalwart clientele - motivation external parties - shared values - job satisfaction - advisors/knowledge - trust - shared values - advising rather then teaching - knowledge - service institutions The table can be read and interpreted as follows. - support - crucial services Farmers operate within society, which implies a number of contacts to different actors within this society. Those links are clearly personally determined and differ when a different group of farmers is taken into account. However, one can identify a number of actors a farmer generally is in contact with. We define them, according to our findings from the network drawings, in four major groups. It must however be clear that this classification is not exclusive towards other parties, the more given the unique character of every single relation: • Family members. As farming originates first as a society based and then as a family based activity (depending on local cultures), links to different family members most often are the central pillars within a farm unit. However, the importance addressed to them is not alike on different farms: both strong family bonds (either within the proper family or also including other relatives) and more weak ones are at the outer ends of the spectrum. Family bonds do influence the way a farmer feels supported in what he does, in a different intensity depending SPSD II - Part I - Sustainable production and consumption patterns - Agro-Food 34
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