IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v12y2020i11p4457-d365293.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Organizing Joint Practices in Urban Food Initiatives—A Comparative Analysis of Gardening, Cooking and Eating Together

Author

Listed:
  • Benjamin Hennchen

    (Chair of Sustainability Governance, Institute of Environmental Social Sciences and Geography, University of Freiburg, Tennenbacher Straße 4, D-79106 Freiburg, Germany)

  • Michael Pregernig

    (Chair of Sustainability Governance, Institute of Environmental Social Sciences and Geography, University of Freiburg, Tennenbacher Straße 4, D-79106 Freiburg, Germany)

Abstract

The topic of food is highly relevant to the UN sustainable development agenda. The agenda particularly challenges cities to take on more responsibilities and to initiate processes that change unsustainable food practices. The recent emergence of urban food initiatives, such as community-supported agriculture, urban gardening, food sharing or community kitchens, promises great potential in leveraging sustainability. Although a great deal of research is already available on the societal impacts of food initiatives, little is known about organizational aspects surrounding them. The following study aims to address this gap by systematically analyzing how joint practices of gardening as well as cooking and eating are organized in different urban food initiatives, taking five initiatives in two smaller cities in southern Germany as case studies. Data were acquired through qualitative research methods including interviewing, participatory observations and document analysis. The analysis covers five key dimensions: institutional integration, recruiting mechanisms, goal-setting, time management and types of knowledge. Based on these dimensions, the results portray two distinctive organizational profiles of urban food initiatives. The article concludes with a reflection on how local governments can support food initiatives and thus contribute to sustainable urban food systems.

Suggested Citation

  • Benjamin Hennchen & Michael Pregernig, 2020. "Organizing Joint Practices in Urban Food Initiatives—A Comparative Analysis of Gardening, Cooking and Eating Together," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-18, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:11:p:4457-:d:365293
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/11/4457/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/11/4457/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nadine Scharf & Thomas Wachtel & Suhana E. Reddy & Ina Säumel, 2019. "Urban Commons for the Edible City—First Insights for Future Sustainable Urban Food Systems from Berlin, Germany," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-17, February.
    2. Michael Classens, 2015. "The nature of urban gardens: toward a political ecology of urban agriculture," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 32(2), pages 229-239, June.
    3. Adrien Labaeye, 2019. "Sharing Cities and Commoning: An Alternative Narrative for Just and Sustainable Cities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(16), pages 1-23, August.
    4. 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.
    5. Margot Dyen & Lucie Sirieix, 2016. "How does a local initiative contribute to social inclusion and promote sustainable food practices? Focus on the example of social cooking workshops," Post-Print hal-01506466, HAL.
    6. Jessica Bagdonis & C. Hinrichs & Kai Schafft, 2009. "The emergence and framing of farm-to-school initiatives: civic engagement, health and local agriculture," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 26(1), pages 107-119, March.
    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. Valentina Cattivelli, 2023. "Review and Analysis of the Motivations Associated with Urban Gardening in the Pandemic Period," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-18, January.
    2. Fernianda Rahayu Hermiatin & Yuanita Handayati & Tomy Perdana & Dadan Wardhana, 2022. "Creating Food Value Chain Transformations through Regional Food Hubs: A Review Article," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(13), pages 1-24, July.
    3. Sonja Kaufmann & Nikolaus Hruschka & Christian R. Vogl, 2020. "Bridging the Literature Gap: A Framework for Assessing Actor Participation in Participatory Guarantee Systems (PGS)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(19), pages 1-26, 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. Shawn A. Trivette, 2017. "Invoices on scraps of paper: trust and reciprocity in local food systems," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 34(3), pages 529-542, September.
    2. von Germeten, Jan-Paul & Hartmann, Monika, 2015. "What determines suppliers' intensity of participation in the EU School Fruit Scheme," 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy 211915, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    3. Daniel C. Kelly, 2023. "Committing to change? A case study on volunteer engagement at a New Zealand urban farm," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 40(3), pages 1317-1331, September.
    4. Maria Karagianni, 2024. "The urban political ecology of the commons or commoning as a socio-natural process: The case of the Peri-Urban Gardening group in Thessaloniki," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 61(6), pages 1147-1167, May.
    5. Patricia Boling & Chiara Cervini, 2024. "Food justice: turning private choices into public issues," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 41(2), pages 427-436, June.
    6. Conner, David S. & Izumi, Betty T. & Liquori, Toni & Hamm, Michael W., 2012. "Sustainable School Food Procurement in Large K–12 Districts: Prospects for Value Chain Partnerships," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, vol. 41(01), pages 1-14, April.
    7. Smith, Bobby J. II & Kaiser, Harry M. & Gómez, Miguel I., 2013. "Identifying Factors Influencing a Hospital’s Decision to Adopt a Farm-to-Hospital Program," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, vol. 42(3), pages 1-10.
    8. Jana Baldy, 2019. "Framing a Sustainable Local Food System—How Smaller Cities in Southern Germany Are Facing a New Policy Issue," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(6), pages 1-25, March.
    9. Andreas Exner & Carla Weinzierl & Livia Cepoiu & Stephanie Arzberger & Clive L. Spash, 2021. "Smart and Edible: How Edible Cities Create Smart Public Spaces," SRE-Disc sre-disc-2021_09, Institute for Multilevel Governance and Development, Department of Socioeconomics, Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    10. Reynolds, Christian & Goucher, Liam & Quested, Tom & Bromley, Sarah & Gillick, Sam & Wells, Victoria K. & Evans, David & Koh, Lenny & Carlsson Kanyama, Annika & Katzeff, Cecilia & Svenfelt, Åsa & Jack, 2019. "Review: Consumption-stage food waste reduction interventions – What works and how to design better interventions," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 7-27.
    11. Claire E Bach & Nathan McClintock, 2021. "Reclaiming the city one plot at a time? DIY garden projects, radical democracy, and the politics of spatial appropriation," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 39(5), pages 859-878, August.
    12. Nessica Nässén & Maja Lilja & Stefan Sjöberg & Johan Colding, 2025. "Community climate commons for collective climate action," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(2), pages 2078-2095, April.
    13. Colleen Hammelman & Elizabeth Shoffner & Maria Cruzat & Samantha Lee, 2022. "Assembling agroecological socio-natures: a political ecology analysis of urban and peri-urban agriculture in Rosario, Argentina," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 39(1), pages 371-383, March.
    14. Eliana Catia Gentilucci, 2015. "L?agricoltura civile e l?economia civile. Un modello italo-mediterraneo," AGRICOLTURA ISTITUZIONI MERCATI, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2015(1), pages 87-106.
    15. Manganelli, Alessandra & Moulaert, Frank, 2019. "Scaling out access to land for urban agriculture. Governance hybridities in the Brussels-Capital Region," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 391-400.
    16. Tanya Zerbian & Mags Adams & Mark Dooris & Ursula Pool, 2022. "The Role of Local Authorities in Shaping Local Food Systems," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-16, September.
    17. Mercado, Geovana & Nico Hjortsø, Carsten, 2023. "Explaining the development policy implementation gap: A case of a failed food sovereignty policy in Bolivia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    18. Matthew M. Mars & Hope Jensen Schau, 2017. "Institutional entrepreneurship and the negotiation and blending of multiple logics in the Southern Arizona local food system," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 34(2), pages 407-422, June.
    19. Becot, Florence & Conner, David & Nelson, Abbie & Buckwalter, Erin & Erickson, Daniel, 2014. "Institutional Demand for Locally-Grown Food in Vermont: Marketing Implications for Producers and Distributors," Journal of Food Distribution Research, Food Distribution Research Society, vol. 45(2), pages 1-19, July.
    20. Douglas H. Constance, 2023. "The doctors of agrifood studies," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 40(1), pages 31-43, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:11:p:4457-:d:365293. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.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.