Combining sustainability and resilience assessment of a Regional Food System: evaluating an innovative Swiss alpine valley

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Authors

Paul Donadieu de Lavit , Tonia Willi, Johan Six, Dominique Barjolle 

Abstract

The Swiss food system faces complex economic, social, and environmental challenges concurrent with a consensus among citizens, scientists, and institutions advocating for a transition toward sustainable food production. We argue that resilient and sustainable Regional Food Systems have a spillover effect on global food system sustainability and resilience. This study focuses on the regional level, assessing the resilience and sustainability of Valposchiavo's food system, an innovative Swiss alpine valley, utilizing a novel assessment framework developed through an extensive literature review and the integration of some of the numerous existing assessment tools. Semi-structured interviews with 51 stakeholders representative of the Regional Food System reveal that Valposchiavo has a resilient and sustainable food system. The agricultural sector’s resilience and sustainability outperform the ones of the processing, retail, and restaurant sectors. Valley institutions show commitment to sustainable development but perform poorly in stakeholder support and organizational structure. Our holistic approach, encompassing resilience and sustainability for the regional food system as a whole, provides context-specific recommendations and is replicable in other regions.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.31223/X52H53

Subjects

Food Science

Keywords

regional food system, resilience, sustainabilty, policy, assessment tool, switzerland

Dates

Published: 2024-02-12 22:28

Last Updated: 2024-02-13 06:28

License

CC BY Attribution 4.0 International

Additional Metadata

Data Availability (Reason not available):
All non confidential data are available in the supplementary materials.

Conflict of interest statement:
The authors have declared that no competing interests exist