Mobilising the food system concept Unpacking debates and applications
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Published
29-06-2025
Damian Maye
Richard Helliwell
Carol Morris
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4459-6630
Abstract
The food system concept has become the ‘go-to’ framework to galvanise discussion and bring together academics, policymakers and industry stakeholders to debate changes needed in how our food is grown, made, sold, eaten and governed. The concept is not new, but the paper shows a resurgence in application across science and social science in recent years. What is lacking, however, is more critical analysis as to why this concept is increasingly mobilised and what it offers agri-food scholarship going forward. Inspired by Jackson et al’s (2006) analysis of the food commodity chain as ‘chaotic concept’, this paper undertakes a critical review of the peer-reviewed, English language literature on food system(s) nationally in the UK and internationally. The analysis begins with a review of food system scholarship to explain concept origins and key features of systems thinking. The second part examines uptake in the wider literature. This spans 1987-2024 and reviews trends from Scopus and Web of Knowledge, followed by a structured review of social science articles for two case studies concerning respectively ‘food system transformation and crisis’ (process-based) and ‘food system and the urban’ (place-based). The analysis reveals a pattern of bi-polarisation: the first mobilises the food system as a heurist framing in contrast to the second more systemic framing. The former dominates the material reviewed. The paper argues that recognising not only different mobilisations but also the dominance of heuristic food system uses is important, given its prominence to support changes in the governance and politics of food.
How to Cite
“Mobilising the food system concept: Unpacking debates and applications” (2025) The International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food, 31(1), pp. 147–166. doi:10.48416/zq0q8s54.
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Keywords
Food system, Analysing concepts, Heuristic and Systemic framings, Bipolarisation
References
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Allen T and Prosperi P (2016) Modeling Sustainable Food Systems. Environmental Management 57(5): 956-975.
Anderson CR, Maughan C and Pimbert MP (2019) Transformative agroecology learning in Europe: building consciousness, skills and collective capacity for food sovereignty. Agriculture and Human Values 36(3): 531-547.
Appendini K and Liverman D (1994) Agricultural policy, climate change and food security in Mexico. Food Policy 19(2): 149-164.
Béné C, Oosterveer P, Lamotte L, et al. (2019) When food systems meet sustainability – Current narratives and implications for actions. World Development 113: 116-130.
Benis K and Ferrão P (2017) Potential mitigation of the environmental impacts of food systems through urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) – a life cycle assessment approach. Journal of Cleaner Production 140: 784-795.
Berger M and van Helvoirt B (2018) Ensuring food secure cities – Retail modernization and policy implications in Nairobi, Kenya. Food Policy 79: 12-22.
Blay-Palmer A (2009) The Canadian pioneer: the genesis of urban food policy in Toronto. International Planning Studies 14(4): 401-416.
Blecha J and Davis A (2014) Distance, proximity, and freedom: Identifying conflicting priorities regarding urban backyard livestock slaughter. Geoforum 57: 67-77.
Bless A, Davila F and Plant R (2023) A genealogy of sustainable agriculture narratives: implications for the transformative potential of regenerative agriculture. Agriculture and Human Values 40(4): 1379-1397.
Bohstedt J (2016) Food riots and the politics of provisions from early modern Europe and China to the food crisis of 2008. The Journal of Peasant Studies 43(5): 1035-1067.
Brock S (2023) What is a food system? Exploring enactments of the food system multiple. Agriculture and Human Values 40(3): 799-813.
Brunori G, Avermaete T, Bartolini F, et al. (2020) Unpacking Food Systems. In: Brunori G and Grando S (eds) Innovation for Sustainability. Emerald Publishing Limited, pp.39-67.
Burch D and Lawrence G (2009) Towards a third food regime: behind the transformation. Agriculture and Human Values 26(4): 267-279.
Burch D and Lawrence G (2013) Financialization in agri-food supply chains: private equity and the transformation of the retail sector. Agriculture and Human Values 30(2): 247-258.
Clapp J (2023) Concentration and crises: exploring the deep roots of vulnerability in the global industrial food system. The Journal of Peasant Studies 50(1): 1-25.
Collier D, Daniel Hidalgo F and Olivia Maciuceanu A (2006) Essentially contested concepts: Debates and applications. Journal of Political Ideologies 11(3): 211-246.
Coq-Huelva D, Sanz-Cañada J and Sánchez-Escobar F (2017) Values, conventions, innovation and sociopolitical struggles in a local food system: Conflict between organic and conventional farmers in Sierra de Segura. Journal of Rural Studies 55: 112-121.
Coulson H and Milbourne P (2022) Agriculture, food and land: Struggles for UK post-Brexit agri-food justice. Geoforum 131: 126-135.
Coulson H and Sonnino R (2019) Re-scaling the politics of food: Place-based urban food governance in the UK. Geoforum 98: 170-179.
Desmarais AA and Wittman H (2014) Farmers, foodies and First Nations: getting to food sovereignty in Canada. The Journal of Peasant Studies 41(6): 1153-1173.
Duminy J and Parnell S (2020) City Science: A Chaotic Concept – And an Enduring Imperative. Planning Theory & Practice 21(4): 648-655.
Eakin H, Connors JP, Wharton C, et al. (2017) Identifying attributes of food system sustainability: emerging themes and consensus. Agriculture and Human Values 34(3): 757-773.
Ericksen PJ (2008) Conceptualizing food systems for global environmental change research. Global Environmental Change 18(1): 234-245.
Fanzo J, Haddad L, Schneider KR, et al. (2021) Viewpoint: Rigorous monitoring is necessary to guide food system transformation in the countdown to the 2030 global goals. Food Policy 104: 102163.
Flynn A and Marsden T (1992) Food Regulation in a Period of Agricultural Retreat - the British-Experience. Geoforum 23(1): 85-93.
Gallie WB (1955) Essentially Contested Concepts. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 56: 167-198.
Gillon S (2016) Flexible for whom? Flex crops, crises, fixes and the politics of exchanging use values in US corn production. The Journal of Peasant Studies 43(1): 117-139.
Godek W (2021) Food sovereignty policies and the quest to democratize food system governance in Nicaragua. Agriculture and Human Values 38(1): 91-105.
Greenberg S (2015) Agrarian reform and South Africa’s agro-food system. The Journal of Peasant Studies 42(5): 957-979.
Hendrickson MK and Heffernan WD (2002) Opening Spaces through Relocalization: Locating Potential Resistance in the Weaknesses of the Global Food System. Sociologia Ruralis 42(4): 347-369.
HLPE (2014) Food losses and waste in the context of sustainable food systems Reportno. Report Number|, Date. Place Published|: Institution|.
HLPE (2017) Nutrition and food systems. Reportno. Report Number|, Date. Place Published|: Institution|.
HLPE (2020) Food security and nutrition: building a global narrative towards 2030. Reportno. Report Number|, Date. Place Published|: Institution|.
Holt Giménez E and Shattuck A (2011) Food crises, food regimes and food movements: rumblings of reform or tides of transformation? The Journal of Peasant Studies 38(1): 109-144.
Hospes O and Brons A (2016) Food System Governance: a systematic literature review
In: Kennedy A and Liljeblad J (eds) Food System Governance. Challenges for Justice, Equality and Human Rights. New York: Routledge, pp.26-42.
Ingram J (2011) A food systems approach to researching food security and its interactions with global environmental change. Food Security 3(4): 417-431.
Isakson SR (2014) Food and finance: the financial transformation of agro-food supply chains. The Journal of Peasant Studies 41(5): 749-775.
Jackson P, Ward N and Russell P (2006) Mobilising the commodity chain concept in the politics of food and farming. Journal of Rural Studies 22(2): 129-141.
Johnston J and Baker L (2005) Eating Outside the Box: FoodShare’s Good Food Box and the Challenge of Scale. Agriculture and Human Values 22(3): 313-325.
Keenan L, Monteath T and Wójcik D (2023) Hungry for power: financialization and the concentration of corporate control in the global food system. Geoforum 147: 103909.
Konefal J, Mascarenhas M and Hatanaka M (2005) Governance in the Global Agro-food System: Backlighting the Role of Transnational Supermarket Chains. Agriculture and Human Values 22(3): 291-302.
Lang T and Wiggins P (1985) The industrialisation of the UK food system: from production to consumption. . In: Healey M and Ilbery B (eds) The Industrialisation of the Countryside. Norwich: Geo Books pp.45–56.
Leach M, Nisbett N, Cabral L, et al. (2020) Food politics and development. World Development 134: 105024.
Leeuwis C, Boogaard BK and Atta-Krah K (2021) How food systems change (or not): governance implications for system transformation processes. Food Security 13(4): 761-780.
Levkoe CZ (2014) The food movement in Canada: a social movement network perspective. The Journal of Peasant Studies 41(3): 385-403.
Loh P and Agyeman J (2019) Urban food sharing and the emerging Boston food solidarity economy. Geoforum 99: 213-222.
López Cifuentes M, Freyer B, Sonnino R, et al. (2021) Embedding sustainable diets into urban food strategies: A multi-actor approach. Geoforum 122: 11-21.
López Cifuentes M and Gugerell C (2021) Food democracy: possibilities under the frame of the current food system. Agriculture and Human Values 38(4): 1061-1078.
Loring PA (2022) Regenerative food systems and the conservation of change. Agriculture and Human Values 39(2): 701-713.
Matacena R and Corvo P (2020) Practices of Food Sovereignty in Italy and England: Short Food Supply Chains and the Promise of De-Commodification. Sociologia Ruralis 60(2): 414-437.
Meek D, Bradley K, Ferguson B, et al. (2019) Food sovereignty education across the Americas: multiple origins, converging movements. Agriculture and Human Values 36(3): 611-626.
Mergenthaler M, Weinberger K and Qaim M (2009) The food system transformation in developing countries: A disaggregate demand analysis for fruits and vegetables in Vietnam. Food Policy 34(5): 426-436.
Milbourne P and Coulson H (2021) Migrant labour in the UK’s post-Brexit agri-food system: Ambiguities, contradictions and precarities. Journal of Rural Studies 86: 430-439.
Moragues Faus A and Marsden T (2017) The political ecology of food: carving ‘spaces of possibility’ in a new research agenda. Journal of Rural Studies 55: 275-288.
Morgan K (2015) Nourishing the city: the rise of the urban food question in the Global North. Urban Studies 52(8): 1379-1394.
Nyman M (2019) Food, meaning-making and ontological uncertainty: Exploring ‘urban foraging’ and productive landscapes in London. Geoforum 99: 170-180.
Omar A and Thorsøe MH (2024) Rebalance power and strengthen farmers’ position in the EU food system? A CDA of the Farm to Fork Strategy. Agriculture and Human Values 41(2): 631-646.
Ribeiro BE, Smith RDJ and Millar K (2017) A Mobilising Concept? Unpacking Academic Representations of Responsible Research and Innovation. Science and Engineering Ethics 23(1): 81-103.
Rosin C (2013) Food security and the justification of productivism in New Zealand. Journal of Rural Studies 29(0): 50-58.
Sage C (2022) Introduction: A Research Agenda for Food Systems. In: Sage C (ed) A Research Agenda for Food Systems. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, pp.3-37.
Sargani GR, Jiang Y, Joyo MA, et al. (2023) No farmer no food, assessing farmers climate change mitigation, and adaptation behaviors in farm production. Journal of Rural Studies 100: 103035.
Sayer A (1984) Method in social science. London: Hutchinson.
Seymour M and Connelly S (2023) Regenerative agriculture and a more-than-human ethic of care: a relational approach to understanding transformation. Agriculture and Human Values 40(1): 231-244.
Sippel SR, Larder N and Lawrence G (2017) Grounding the financialization of farmland: perspectives on financial actors as new land owners in rural Australia. Agriculture and Human Values 34(2): 251-265.
Smaal SAL, Dessein J, Wind BJ, et al. (2021) Social justice-oriented narratives in European urban food strategies: Bringing forward redistribution, recognition and representation. Agriculture and Human Values 38(3): 709-727.
Sobal J (1978) Food system globalization, eating transformations and nutrition transitions. In: Grew R (ed) Food in global history. Boulder, USA: Westview Press.
Sonnino R (2023) Food system transformation: Urban perspectives. Cities 134: 104164.
Sonnino R and Coulson H (2021) Unpacking the new urban food agenda: The changing dynamics of global governance in the urban age. Urban Studies 58(5): 1032-1049.
Sonnino R and Milbourne P (2022) Food system transformation: a progressive place-based approach. Local Environment 27(7): 915-926.
Sonnino R, Tegoni CLS and De Cunto A (2019) The challenge of systemic food change: Insights from cities. Cities 85: 110-116.
Stempfle S, Carlucci D, Borrello M, et al. (2024) Agri-food systems in transition: Potentialities and challenges of moving towards circular models. Journal of Cleaner Production 479: 144005.
Stephens P (2021) Social finance for sustainable food systems: opportunities, tensions and ambiguities. Agriculture and Human Values 38(4): 1123-1137.
Tanaka K (2008) Seven samurai to protect “our” food: the reform of the food safety regulatory system in Japan after the BSE crisis of 2001. Agriculture and Human Values 25(4): 567-580.
Tansey G and Worsley T (1995) The Food System: a Guide. London: Earthscan.
van der Ploeg JD (2020) From biomedical to politico-economic crisis: the food system in times of Covid-19. The Journal of Peasant Studies 47(5): 944-972.
Voigt C, Hundscheid L, Plank C, et al. (2024) Meat politics. Analysing actors, strategies and power relations governing the meat regime in Austria. Geoforum 154: 104048.
von Braun J, Afsana K, Fresco LO, et al. (2021) Food system concepts and definitions for science and political action. Nature Food 2(10): 748-750.
Weiler AM (2022) Seeing the workers for the trees: exalted and devalued manual labour in the Pacific Northwest craft cider industry. Agriculture and Human Values 39(1): 65-78.
Whatmore S (1995) From farming to agribusiness: the global agro-food system. In: R. Johnston, P. Taylor and Watts M (eds) Geographies of Global Change. Remapping The World In The Late Twentieth Century. Oxford: Blackwell, pp.36-49.
Yap C (2023) New geographical directions for food systems governance research. Progress in Human Geography 47(1): 66-84.
Zhong S, Crang M and Zeng G (2020) Constructing freshness: the vitality of wet markets in urban China. Agriculture and Human Values 37(1): 175-185.
Zoll F, Specht K and Siebert R (2021) Alternative = transformative? Investigating drivers of transformation in alternative food networks in Germany. Sociologia Ruralis 61(3): 638-659.
Allen T and Prosperi P (2016) Modeling Sustainable Food Systems. Environmental Management 57(5): 956-975.
Anderson CR, Maughan C and Pimbert MP (2019) Transformative agroecology learning in Europe: building consciousness, skills and collective capacity for food sovereignty. Agriculture and Human Values 36(3): 531-547.
Appendini K and Liverman D (1994) Agricultural policy, climate change and food security in Mexico. Food Policy 19(2): 149-164.
Béné C, Oosterveer P, Lamotte L, et al. (2019) When food systems meet sustainability – Current narratives and implications for actions. World Development 113: 116-130.
Benis K and Ferrão P (2017) Potential mitigation of the environmental impacts of food systems through urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) – a life cycle assessment approach. Journal of Cleaner Production 140: 784-795.
Berger M and van Helvoirt B (2018) Ensuring food secure cities – Retail modernization and policy implications in Nairobi, Kenya. Food Policy 79: 12-22.
Blay-Palmer A (2009) The Canadian pioneer: the genesis of urban food policy in Toronto. International Planning Studies 14(4): 401-416.
Blecha J and Davis A (2014) Distance, proximity, and freedom: Identifying conflicting priorities regarding urban backyard livestock slaughter. Geoforum 57: 67-77.
Bless A, Davila F and Plant R (2023) A genealogy of sustainable agriculture narratives: implications for the transformative potential of regenerative agriculture. Agriculture and Human Values 40(4): 1379-1397.
Bohstedt J (2016) Food riots and the politics of provisions from early modern Europe and China to the food crisis of 2008. The Journal of Peasant Studies 43(5): 1035-1067.
Brock S (2023) What is a food system? Exploring enactments of the food system multiple. Agriculture and Human Values 40(3): 799-813.
Brunori G, Avermaete T, Bartolini F, et al. (2020) Unpacking Food Systems. In: Brunori G and Grando S (eds) Innovation for Sustainability. Emerald Publishing Limited, pp.39-67.
Burch D and Lawrence G (2009) Towards a third food regime: behind the transformation. Agriculture and Human Values 26(4): 267-279.
Burch D and Lawrence G (2013) Financialization in agri-food supply chains: private equity and the transformation of the retail sector. Agriculture and Human Values 30(2): 247-258.
Clapp J (2023) Concentration and crises: exploring the deep roots of vulnerability in the global industrial food system. The Journal of Peasant Studies 50(1): 1-25.
Collier D, Daniel Hidalgo F and Olivia Maciuceanu A (2006) Essentially contested concepts: Debates and applications. Journal of Political Ideologies 11(3): 211-246.
Coq-Huelva D, Sanz-Cañada J and Sánchez-Escobar F (2017) Values, conventions, innovation and sociopolitical struggles in a local food system: Conflict between organic and conventional farmers in Sierra de Segura. Journal of Rural Studies 55: 112-121.
Coulson H and Milbourne P (2022) Agriculture, food and land: Struggles for UK post-Brexit agri-food justice. Geoforum 131: 126-135.
Coulson H and Sonnino R (2019) Re-scaling the politics of food: Place-based urban food governance in the UK. Geoforum 98: 170-179.
Desmarais AA and Wittman H (2014) Farmers, foodies and First Nations: getting to food sovereignty in Canada. The Journal of Peasant Studies 41(6): 1153-1173.
Duminy J and Parnell S (2020) City Science: A Chaotic Concept – And an Enduring Imperative. Planning Theory & Practice 21(4): 648-655.
Eakin H, Connors JP, Wharton C, et al. (2017) Identifying attributes of food system sustainability: emerging themes and consensus. Agriculture and Human Values 34(3): 757-773.
Ericksen PJ (2008) Conceptualizing food systems for global environmental change research. Global Environmental Change 18(1): 234-245.
Fanzo J, Haddad L, Schneider KR, et al. (2021) Viewpoint: Rigorous monitoring is necessary to guide food system transformation in the countdown to the 2030 global goals. Food Policy 104: 102163.
Flynn A and Marsden T (1992) Food Regulation in a Period of Agricultural Retreat - the British-Experience. Geoforum 23(1): 85-93.
Gallie WB (1955) Essentially Contested Concepts. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 56: 167-198.
Gillon S (2016) Flexible for whom? Flex crops, crises, fixes and the politics of exchanging use values in US corn production. The Journal of Peasant Studies 43(1): 117-139.
Godek W (2021) Food sovereignty policies and the quest to democratize food system governance in Nicaragua. Agriculture and Human Values 38(1): 91-105.
Greenberg S (2015) Agrarian reform and South Africa’s agro-food system. The Journal of Peasant Studies 42(5): 957-979.
Hendrickson MK and Heffernan WD (2002) Opening Spaces through Relocalization: Locating Potential Resistance in the Weaknesses of the Global Food System. Sociologia Ruralis 42(4): 347-369.
HLPE (2014) Food losses and waste in the context of sustainable food systems Reportno. Report Number|, Date. Place Published|: Institution|.
HLPE (2017) Nutrition and food systems. Reportno. Report Number|, Date. Place Published|: Institution|.
HLPE (2020) Food security and nutrition: building a global narrative towards 2030. Reportno. Report Number|, Date. Place Published|: Institution|.
Holt Giménez E and Shattuck A (2011) Food crises, food regimes and food movements: rumblings of reform or tides of transformation? The Journal of Peasant Studies 38(1): 109-144.
Hospes O and Brons A (2016) Food System Governance: a systematic literature review
In: Kennedy A and Liljeblad J (eds) Food System Governance. Challenges for Justice, Equality and Human Rights. New York: Routledge, pp.26-42.
Ingram J (2011) A food systems approach to researching food security and its interactions with global environmental change. Food Security 3(4): 417-431.
Isakson SR (2014) Food and finance: the financial transformation of agro-food supply chains. The Journal of Peasant Studies 41(5): 749-775.
Jackson P, Ward N and Russell P (2006) Mobilising the commodity chain concept in the politics of food and farming. Journal of Rural Studies 22(2): 129-141.
Johnston J and Baker L (2005) Eating Outside the Box: FoodShare’s Good Food Box and the Challenge of Scale. Agriculture and Human Values 22(3): 313-325.
Keenan L, Monteath T and Wójcik D (2023) Hungry for power: financialization and the concentration of corporate control in the global food system. Geoforum 147: 103909.
Konefal J, Mascarenhas M and Hatanaka M (2005) Governance in the Global Agro-food System: Backlighting the Role of Transnational Supermarket Chains. Agriculture and Human Values 22(3): 291-302.
Lang T and Wiggins P (1985) The industrialisation of the UK food system: from production to consumption. . In: Healey M and Ilbery B (eds) The Industrialisation of the Countryside. Norwich: Geo Books pp.45–56.
Leach M, Nisbett N, Cabral L, et al. (2020) Food politics and development. World Development 134: 105024.
Leeuwis C, Boogaard BK and Atta-Krah K (2021) How food systems change (or not): governance implications for system transformation processes. Food Security 13(4): 761-780.
Levkoe CZ (2014) The food movement in Canada: a social movement network perspective. The Journal of Peasant Studies 41(3): 385-403.
Loh P and Agyeman J (2019) Urban food sharing and the emerging Boston food solidarity economy. Geoforum 99: 213-222.
López Cifuentes M, Freyer B, Sonnino R, et al. (2021) Embedding sustainable diets into urban food strategies: A multi-actor approach. Geoforum 122: 11-21.
López Cifuentes M and Gugerell C (2021) Food democracy: possibilities under the frame of the current food system. Agriculture and Human Values 38(4): 1061-1078.
Loring PA (2022) Regenerative food systems and the conservation of change. Agriculture and Human Values 39(2): 701-713.
Matacena R and Corvo P (2020) Practices of Food Sovereignty in Italy and England: Short Food Supply Chains and the Promise of De-Commodification. Sociologia Ruralis 60(2): 414-437.
Meek D, Bradley K, Ferguson B, et al. (2019) Food sovereignty education across the Americas: multiple origins, converging movements. Agriculture and Human Values 36(3): 611-626.
Mergenthaler M, Weinberger K and Qaim M (2009) The food system transformation in developing countries: A disaggregate demand analysis for fruits and vegetables in Vietnam. Food Policy 34(5): 426-436.
Milbourne P and Coulson H (2021) Migrant labour in the UK’s post-Brexit agri-food system: Ambiguities, contradictions and precarities. Journal of Rural Studies 86: 430-439.
Moragues Faus A and Marsden T (2017) The political ecology of food: carving ‘spaces of possibility’ in a new research agenda. Journal of Rural Studies 55: 275-288.
Morgan K (2015) Nourishing the city: the rise of the urban food question in the Global North. Urban Studies 52(8): 1379-1394.
Nyman M (2019) Food, meaning-making and ontological uncertainty: Exploring ‘urban foraging’ and productive landscapes in London. Geoforum 99: 170-180.
Omar A and Thorsøe MH (2024) Rebalance power and strengthen farmers’ position in the EU food system? A CDA of the Farm to Fork Strategy. Agriculture and Human Values 41(2): 631-646.
Ribeiro BE, Smith RDJ and Millar K (2017) A Mobilising Concept? Unpacking Academic Representations of Responsible Research and Innovation. Science and Engineering Ethics 23(1): 81-103.
Rosin C (2013) Food security and the justification of productivism in New Zealand. Journal of Rural Studies 29(0): 50-58.
Sage C (2022) Introduction: A Research Agenda for Food Systems. In: Sage C (ed) A Research Agenda for Food Systems. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, pp.3-37.
Sargani GR, Jiang Y, Joyo MA, et al. (2023) No farmer no food, assessing farmers climate change mitigation, and adaptation behaviors in farm production. Journal of Rural Studies 100: 103035.
Sayer A (1984) Method in social science. London: Hutchinson.
Seymour M and Connelly S (2023) Regenerative agriculture and a more-than-human ethic of care: a relational approach to understanding transformation. Agriculture and Human Values 40(1): 231-244.
Sippel SR, Larder N and Lawrence G (2017) Grounding the financialization of farmland: perspectives on financial actors as new land owners in rural Australia. Agriculture and Human Values 34(2): 251-265.
Smaal SAL, Dessein J, Wind BJ, et al. (2021) Social justice-oriented narratives in European urban food strategies: Bringing forward redistribution, recognition and representation. Agriculture and Human Values 38(3): 709-727.
Sobal J (1978) Food system globalization, eating transformations and nutrition transitions. In: Grew R (ed) Food in global history. Boulder, USA: Westview Press.
Sonnino R (2023) Food system transformation: Urban perspectives. Cities 134: 104164.
Sonnino R and Coulson H (2021) Unpacking the new urban food agenda: The changing dynamics of global governance in the urban age. Urban Studies 58(5): 1032-1049.
Sonnino R and Milbourne P (2022) Food system transformation: a progressive place-based approach. Local Environment 27(7): 915-926.
Sonnino R, Tegoni CLS and De Cunto A (2019) The challenge of systemic food change: Insights from cities. Cities 85: 110-116.
Stempfle S, Carlucci D, Borrello M, et al. (2024) Agri-food systems in transition: Potentialities and challenges of moving towards circular models. Journal of Cleaner Production 479: 144005.
Stephens P (2021) Social finance for sustainable food systems: opportunities, tensions and ambiguities. Agriculture and Human Values 38(4): 1123-1137.
Tanaka K (2008) Seven samurai to protect “our” food: the reform of the food safety regulatory system in Japan after the BSE crisis of 2001. Agriculture and Human Values 25(4): 567-580.
Tansey G and Worsley T (1995) The Food System: a Guide. London: Earthscan.
van der Ploeg JD (2020) From biomedical to politico-economic crisis: the food system in times of Covid-19. The Journal of Peasant Studies 47(5): 944-972.
Voigt C, Hundscheid L, Plank C, et al. (2024) Meat politics. Analysing actors, strategies and power relations governing the meat regime in Austria. Geoforum 154: 104048.
von Braun J, Afsana K, Fresco LO, et al. (2021) Food system concepts and definitions for science and political action. Nature Food 2(10): 748-750.
Weiler AM (2022) Seeing the workers for the trees: exalted and devalued manual labour in the Pacific Northwest craft cider industry. Agriculture and Human Values 39(1): 65-78.
Whatmore S (1995) From farming to agribusiness: the global agro-food system. In: R. Johnston, P. Taylor and Watts M (eds) Geographies of Global Change. Remapping The World In The Late Twentieth Century. Oxford: Blackwell, pp.36-49.
Yap C (2023) New geographical directions for food systems governance research. Progress in Human Geography 47(1): 66-84.
Zhong S, Crang M and Zeng G (2020) Constructing freshness: the vitality of wet markets in urban China. Agriculture and Human Values 37(1): 175-185.
Zoll F, Specht K and Siebert R (2021) Alternative = transformative? Investigating drivers of transformation in alternative food networks in Germany. Sociologia Ruralis 61(3): 638-659.
Issue
Section
Food System Transformation, Politicisation and Depoliticisation
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How to Cite
“Mobilising the food system concept: Unpacking debates and applications” (2025) The International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food, 31(1), pp. 147–166. doi:10.48416/zq0q8s54.