Dancing in the dark: how food governance can support resilience in Portland, Oregon

According to various scholars, resilience (i.e., the capacity to adapt and evolve in unpredictable situations) implementation becomes most effective when it involves several civic institutions, agencies, and individual citizens working together toward common goals within a common strategy. Such networks can work together and weather unexpected crises as the current COVID-19 pandemic. Key aspects of this process are the development of a more integrated and holistic approach, meanwhile, the metropolitan resilience requires more collaboration across urban and rural boundaries. Food governance can help to promote resilience: since food system governance manifests the need to implement an integrated approach. Moreover, food system governance stimulates redefinition of the territorial scale and of the criteria for assessing resilience on such a scale. This paper provides a critical analysis of the above issues. Having experimented with food policies, integrated approaches, and redefinition of urban-rural relationships for several years, Portland proves to be a good vantage point for observing mechanisms relating to these issues. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Food, Culture & Society is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Urban–Rural Linkages and Their Implication to Human Security in Pandemic Time

Evident through the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic situation, the wider impacts of pandemics stretch far beyond the immediate and devastating loss of human lives. Beyond the health crisis, the pandemics often turn out to be a crisis for human security, as the unprecedented movement restrictions disrupt the lives of all people and their freedom to live with dignity. The core issues pertaining to limited healthcare capacities, job losses, economic slowdown, etc., also bring forth a range of inequity issues for urban and rural populations within a regional space, which are closely interlinked through spatial and sectoral linkages. While the geographically dispersed rural populations often depend on their urban counterparts for access to emergency services, they are often disproportionately impacted by a crisis situation due to the persisting connectivity gaps and socioeconomic barriers. Several such experiences have also been made during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which call for revisiting the contemporary developmental planning from human security perspective, so as to safeguard the survival, livelihood, and dignity of the diverse urban and rural populations. This chapter highlights the key lessons from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic situation and offers a forward-looking perspective on strengthening urban–rural linkages for consideration by the policymakers. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer 2022.

Challenges of agri-food supply in city region food systems: an emerging economy perspective

Purpose>This paper explores the challenges of food security from source to consumption of agri-food value chain by considering urban–rural linkages in city region food systems (CRFSs) and proposes a strategic framework for CRFS identifying strategies to promote urban–rural linkages among multiple stakeholders.Design/methodology/approach>A qualitative case study approach to a fruit and vegetable value chain from rural source to consumption in the Colombo City region identifies the challenges of food security. A snowballing sampling method was used to gather information from retailers, wholesalers, commission agent, farmers and consumers. The data were collected through face-to-face interviews, observations and secondary data sources. The data were analysed using thematic analysis.Findings>Challenges in food security in the value chain related to five areas: input and production, infrastructure, public institutional support and policy, finance, and food market. Colombo city is heavily dependent on food sourced from other cities due to limited land and lack of locally situated commercially oriented farmers.Research limitations/implications>This research is limited to a selected number of fruits and vegetables in the Colombo city region and leaves out other food items.Originality/value>This study contributes to informing policy and decision-making processes to promote a more balanced rural to city food value chain in Colombo City that could benefit all stakeholders from rural small-scale producers to urban consumers.

City region thinking, a zombie idea in regional and rural development? Scotland and Finland compared

Both regional and rural development have enduring “received wisdoms” to which wise practitioners and policy makers pay lip-service. In the case of the latter the role of land-based industries as drivers of the rural economy is ignored at peril, whilst regional policy makers must pay their respects to cities and towns as the engines of growth. We suggest that city region thinking is a “zombie idea”, which refuses to die, though unsupported by evidence. In this paper we trace the influence of city region thinking in the context of rural Scotland and Finland and explore the way in which it coexists with rural development policy. These two case studies provide examples of different approaches to reconciling the received wisdom and traditions of regional/urban and rural development policy. City region thinking is influential in both countries, but policy legacies and governance structures lead to different outcomes. We suggest that city region thinking may become increasingly anachronistic in the post-Covid world and needs to be superseded by rural/regional development paradigms fully refreshed by evidence of twenty-first century rural-urban relationships. © 2021 The Authors