This commentary argues for strengthening the dialogue between the social and natural sciences as part of a more comprehensive sustainable approach to ecological farming practices that go beyond a focus on specific labels and certifications. It nuances the approach provided by Home et al. in their study of Swiss farms converting to organic agriculture, in emphasizing the need to deepen the study of such farming practices by including a broad vision of global value chains and a pragmatic approach to innovation and the different stakeholders involved. Ultimately, it calls for a more complex approach to eco-agriculture in its widest sense, that goes beyond dichotomies about conversion, certification and labeling. This would provide alternatives for researchers and other actors to move forward in theory and practice.

The Onondaga County Agriculture Council was created in 2012 to promote and support the county's farms, improve the connections between the county's urban core of Syracuse and the surrounding agricultural areas, and to develop policy to support agricultural production and food system development. In short, the purpose of the Council is to strengthen the Onondaga County food system. This goal, however, is ambiguous and Council members recognized a limited understanding of the current structure and function of the Central New York (CNY) food system. As such, the Council provided support for FoodPlanCNY, a project designed to identify food system assets and opportunities to strengthen the economic opportunities, public health outcomes and environmental sustainability of the CNY food system. This paper reports preliminary findings from this initial effort to engage participatory food system planning in CNY.

The present international scenario recognizes organic agriculture as an innovative solution to reduce agrochemicals and practices that degrade the agroecosystem. Yet, the shift from an already well-established agricultural model to a relatively new one is a challenging task and requires further scientific support. This work investigated the influence of transitional management – TM (from conventional to organic agriculture) on the soil fungal community under citrus, in dry and rainy periods. From 2012 to 2015 on, an area in Mogi Guaçú, SP, Brazil was selected, and two treatments were installed: a conventional management (CM) system based on farming practices with agrochemicals and fertilizers use, and another, transition management (TM) based on a 25% reduction per year of the chemical substances used in CM, with soil conditioner bokashi introduced. The performance of the transition system was evaluated in the context of soil fertility and diversity index of fungal taxa, by plate culture isolation, through the richness of Margalef (Dmg), diversity of Shannon (H′) and reverse Simpson (D). Differences in the occurrence and frequency of Paecilomyces, greater under CM and Penicillium, greater under TM, highlighted the influence of the management system employed. Richness and diversity indices were higher under TM. Principal component analysis revealed that 49.9% of the differences in fungal diversity was due to the management system. Only 16.5% was a result of the season of sampling. Four years of reduction/replacement of chemical practices in TM was sufficient to modify and favor some soil fungal taxa and consequently their activity. This research brings promising results to organic agriculture initiatives with relevant results for a tropical climate area.

This study, based on vegetable production fields, combined soil quality assessed by three approaches (qualitatively by farmers, semi-quantitatively by a researcher and quantitatively by laboratory analyses) with the aim of improving the integration of the different approaches. We interviewed 79 peri-urban vegetable growers in two communities within the Sunyani Municipality, Ghana. Eight of the farmers were selected to participate in the farmer-based assessment of soil quality. Further, visual evaluation of soil quality was conducted by the researcher, followed by laboratory analyses of soil properties to corroborate the farmers’ assessment of good and poor soils in their fields. Results showed that the farmers used locally-defined characteristics to describe the physical, biological and crop performance indicators of soil quality. There was, in general, limited use and understanding of soil chemical properties as indicators of soil quality. The farmers’ perception on soil quality of their fields largely influenced their decision on the type of crops they cultivate, and application regimes of mineral fertilizers. Results from the visual evaluation by the researcher agreed in some respects with the farmers’ assessment of soil quality of the good and poor soils in their respective farms. Laboratory analyses did not show specific trends for the content of chemical properties for neither good nor poor soils. The study highlighted that none of the approaches of soil quality assessment is necessarily superior in and of itself. We emphasized the need for integration to capitalize on the strengths of each approach, enhance mutual learning between farmers and soil scientists, build the capacity of farmers, and improve their decision on soil use for agricultural production.

There is a need to improve geographical and financial access to healthy foods for limited resource populations in rural areas. Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs can improve access to healthy foods in rural and limited-resource populations. However, research is needed to discern the most appealing conditions for a CSA (e.g. price, frequency, food quantity) among rural, low-income customers. The goal of this study was to understand low-income consumers' preferences related to participation in a CSA program, considering price, frequency, food quantity and accessibility (e.g. distance) conditions. A modified exploratory choice experiment exercise was embedded within in-depth interviews to examine willingness to participate in CSA under a variety of conditions among 42 low-income adults with at least one child in the household in North Carolina, New York, Vermont and Washington. Willingness to participate in a CSA under each condition was summed and compared across conditions. Results were stratified by race, number of children and household members and McNemar's test and Student's t-test were used to examine differences in willingness between conditions. Salient quotes were extracted to support themes related to each condition. Our analysis suggests that the ideal CSA would be a full-sized share of eight to nine items of mixed variety, distributed every other week, priced at less than US$15, no more than 10 min further than the supermarket (SM) from their home and preferably less expensive but no more than 20% more expensive than SM prices. CSAs interested in reaching rural low-income populations may benefit from considering these consumer-level preferences.

The complexities of the global agri-food system and the singular importance of food as a primary good elevate the need to explore what corporate social responsibility (CSR) might mean for agri-food firms. Although CSR refers to voluntary actions on the part of capitalist firms to exceed legal and regulatory requirements, those requirements are important because they set the institutional foundation for what a firm must do to earn the CSR label. In the case of CSR for agri-food firms, the institutional context includes the regulatory state as well as the publicly supported agricultural and food research and development that tends to be done at universities. The purpose of this paper is to provide greater conceptual clarity to the blur between the state, agri-food firms, and universities and their respective responsibilities to the public. Since the globalization of the agri-food system and the emergence of private forms of governance signal the decline of the state's legal and regulatory influence on corporate firms, we pay particularly close attention to the ethical challenges that have surrounded university–agribusiness collaborations—initiatives, which conjoin the moral concerns associated with each respective institution while also raising new questions in their own right. Although the university would ideally play a critical participatory role in this process by virtue of its public commitments, as we explain, the historical relationship between the university and agri-food firms has complicated the university's potential standing as an independent arbiter. Upon examining each of these issues in greater detail, we conclude the paper with a blueprint for how universities can enhance their ethical leadership when engaging with agri-food firms.

With food security increasingly seen as an urban concern, urban agriculture (UA) has emerged as one strategy for improving access to healthy, affordable food within cities in the Global North. This research evaluates the contributions of three types of urban gardens in Santa Clara County, California, to food security. Survey, interview and harvest data were collected from home gardeners, community gardeners and gardeners participating in community food security (CFS) programs, which provide low-income families with the materials and training to grow their own vegetables. To assess food security we use a multi-dimensional framework that encompasses food availability, accessibility, nutritional adequacy and cultural acceptability as well as agency within the food system. Over the summer of 2015, median garden production ranged from 26 kg for participants in CFS programs to 56 kg for home gardeners. All garden types produced enough produce for at least one adult to consume the number of cups of vegetables recommended by federal nutritional guidelines. Gardening also increased some low-income gardeners’ access to healthy food, allowing them to have the diet they wanted—one high in organically grown vegetables—but could not otherwise afford to purchase. Interviews showed that gardeners do not think of cultural acceptability strictly in terms of the presence of certain types of cultural crops; they also articulated a broader set of values concerning the environmental and social conditions of food production. At all income levels, gardeners frequently described a set of food values related to knowledge, control, trust, freshness, flavor, organic production methods and sharing, which they were able to enact through gardening. Taken together, these findings demonstrate the nutritional contributions that urban gardens make but also highlight the importance that low-income gardeners place on having food that aligns with their cultural and ethical values and being able to exercise greater autonomy in making food choices. In conclusion, we suggest that more robust, holistic assessments of UA's contributions to food security will include the subjective aspects of food as well as quantitative measures related to food production.

Agri-food globalization is having a serious adverse impact on small- and medium-sized family farms in the province of Málaga (southern Spain), 43% of which have disappeared over the last 10 years. Short food supply chains (SFSCs) are emerging as a potential option for this type of farm, but as a strategy it is apparently not being implemented strongly enough over the region as a whole. The current case study sought to explore the initiatives carried out by local producers to date in implementing SFSCs throughout the province and to examine, from the standpoint of the production sector, the constraints hindering its development and the strategies currently being adopted with a view to addressing them. The analyses carried out under local producers perspective shows us that although SFSCs are interesting for family farms, in terms of prices, economic profit and social recognition, the abilities and capacities these channels require to producers, jointly with technical, flexibility and time demands, make these channels to be not that successful and attractive. Small producers interested in SFSCs must be aware of the special importance of social linkages and the need to take care of them; as well as of the need of establishing synergies and cooperation with other producers and stakeholders, in order to facilitate the tasks associated and that not every food product suit SFSCs.

The Western diet is characterized by high meat consumption, which negatively affects the environment and human health. Transitioning toward eating more plant-based products in Western societies has been identified as a key instrument to tackle these problems. However, one potential concern is that radically reducing meat in the current diet might lead to deficiencies in nutritional intake. In this paper, we explore a scenario in which meat consumption in Sweden is reduced by 50% and replaced by domestically grown grain legumes. We quantify and discuss the implications for nutritional intake on population level, consequences for agricultural production systems and environmental performance. The reduction in meat consumption is assumed to come primarily from a decrease in imported meat. We use data representing current Swedish conditions including the Swedish dietary survey, the Swedish food composition database, Statistics Sweden and existing life cycle assessments for different food items. At population level, average daily intake of energy and most macro- and micro-nutrients would be maintained within the Nordic Nutrition Recommendations after the proposed transition (e.g., for protein, fat, zinc, vitamin B12 and total iron). The transition would also provide a considerable increase in dietary fiber and some increase in folate intake, which are currently below the recommended levels. The transition scenario would increase total area of grain legume cultivation from 2.2% (current level) to 3.2% of Swedish arable land and is considered technically feasible. The climate impact of the average Swedish diet would be reduced by 20% and the land use requirement by 23%. There would be a net surplus of approximately 21,500 ha that could be used for bioenergy production, crop production for export, nature conservation, etc. Implementation of this scenario faces challenges, such as lack of suitable varieties for varying conditions, lack of processing facilities to supply functional legume-based ingredients to food industries and low consumer awareness about the benefits of eating grain legumes. In sum, joint efforts from multiple actors are needed to stimulate a decrease in meat consumption and to increase cultivation and use of domestically grown grain legumes.

Compost production is a critical component of organic waste management. One of the most important properties of compost is its ability to suppress soil-borne pathogens such as Phytophthora nicotianae in pepper plants. Both the physico-chemical and biological properties of composts can be responsible for the suppression of pathogens, although biological properties are the main driver. In this study, we analyzed composts with various levels of suppressiveness against P. nicotianae. We analyzed both physico-chemical properties like pH and electrical conductivity and biological properties like microbial activity, amplicon sequencing and metaproteomics. We believed that the link between community structures and proteins could provide deep insights into the mechanism of compost suppressiveness. Our results indicate that there are differences between suppressive and non-suppressive composts at the phylogenetic level (sequencing) and at the functional level (based on analysis of the cluster of orthologous groups, COGs). The proteins identified were assigned to the carbohydrate process, cell wall structure and inorganic ion transport and metabolism. Proteobacteria could also be new indicators of P. nicotianae suppression.

Weed competition, especially within the crop row, limits the productivity and profitability of organic crop production. Abrasive weeding, a mechanical alternative to hand weeding, uses air-propelled grits to control small weed seedlings growing within the crop row. Recent research has demonstrated the successful use of abrasive weeding to reduce weed competition and increase yields in organic maize (Zea mays), tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) and green and red pepper crops (Capsicum annuum), but the profitability of this weed control tactic has not been assessed. Our objective was to determine the profitability of abrasive weeding using empirical yield data from three previously published studies, a range of crop prices and revenues, and a range of costs for wages, grit applicator ownership, tractor use, abrasive grits, and fuel. Results suggest that abrasive weeding was not profitable in organic maize production, and may reduce net income by US$223–3537 ha−1 compared with inter-row cultivation alone for weed control. The cost of abrasive weeding in maize was largely dependent on the cost of abrasive grits and the cost to own a four-row grit applicator (US$736–2105 yr−1). However, abrasive weeding was less expensive than hand weeding, especially as the scale of production increased. Abrasive weeding was profitable in tomato and pepper crops and increased net mean income by US$12,251–33,265 ha−1. However, abrasive weeding was not 100% effective and hand weeding for weed-free conditions was always the most profitable approach to in-row weed management in vegetable crops. The profit potential of the hand-weeded, weed-free treatments demonstrates the importance of weed control in high-value specialty crops–even those grown in plastic mulch film. Despite the profit potential for hand weeding observed here, labor is increasingly difficult to source, retain and afford, and abrasive weeding offers a mechanical alternative with 66% less labor required. Further research is needed to improve the efficacy of abrasive weeding and to reduce the cost of abrasive grits and application.