Community Development and Local Food

Dear Collegues, 

Local food is very much of interest for many reasons, not only for providing sources of healthy food for an area’s residents, but also to consider impacts on justice, equity, sustainability, and other domains of consideration for supporting well-being at the individual and community level. Goals such as improving food supply, addressing social issues, and strengthening local economies can help position local food systems in production, processing, and distribution. This in turn can contribute to healthy food access and sustainable livelihoods, and improve community well-being. The Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program at the University of California, Davis, defined a local food system nearly 20 years ago as “a collaborative effort to build more locally based, self-reliant food economies – one in which sustainable food production, processing, distribution and consumption is integrated to enhance the economic, environmental and social health of a particular place” (Feenstra 2002, 100). This holds true through the last few decades, although now there is more emphasis on social dimensions such as justice and equity regarding local food systems—for example, who has access, affordability, and related considerations, as well as issues around food deserts, for example, which tend to occur more frequently in low-income rural and urban neighborhoods (Thomas 2020, 292). There is also increasing awareness of the role values play in system change and conflicts arising around societal values—strong resistance can emerge if things are changed, including for things like local food systems that offer potential benefits to communities (Musikanski et al., 2021). While definitions may vary, there does seem to be some consensus that local food systems should be health-promoting, sustainable, resilient, diverse, fair, economically balanced, and transparent (Phillips and Wharton 2016). The United Nations has called for a paradigm shift in the way agricultural inputs are used, encouraging support of a broad array of approaches to “overhaul global food systems…” and that “solutions of the past have shown their limits”  (FAO 2014). They propose more sustainable and healthier food systems including at the community level to address local needs.

Community development can be considered both as a scholarly discipline and a professional practice, with the overriding intent of improving places in a participatory, inclusive way. It includes both processes and outcomes, and is the process of “developing and enhancing the ability to act collectively, and an outcome to take collective action, and the results of that action for improvement in a community in any or all realms: physical, environmental, cultural, social, political, economic, etc.” (Phillips and Pittman, 2015, 7). One can see the immediate role local food systems have in community development, although there is much more work to be done to foster better understanding and awareness.

What role do local food systems play in helping to transform pathways to sustainability? Are there considerations that need further exploration? What works and why? What are the connection points between community development and local food systems for fostering sustainability? We seek manuscripts for this Special Issue addressing these and other questions about the interface and connection between sustainability and local food systems. These include research papers, communications, and review articles. Sustainability is an interdisciplinary journal, and we encourage manuscripts that offer perspectives across domains of community development and local food systems. We invite you to send an abstract for a manuscript to us at the email addresses below, or to submit a manuscript for review. The abstracts will be reviewed by the editorial team, and invitations will be sent afterwards for full manuscript development.

Dr. Rhonda G Phillips
Dr. Patsy Kraeger
Dr. Talya D. Thomas
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.