Project Profile: JUST GROW
JUST GROW: Co-designing justice-centric indicators and governance principles to intensify urban agriculture sustainably and equitably
Who?
| Principal Investigators: | Baur Patrick, University of Rhode Island, United States of America (the) |
| Partners: | Kanki Kiyoko, Kyoto University, Japan Martin Michael, IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute, Sweden Specht Kathrin, ILS - Research, Germany Vinge Heidi, Nord University, Norway Calo Adam, Radboud University, Netherlands (the) |
| Sponsors: |
What?
| Full Project Title: | JUST GROW: Co-designing justice-centric indicators and governance principles to intensify urban agriculture sustainably and equitably |
| Full Call Title: | SSCP2022 |
| Website: |
Why?
| Project Objective: | City regions are a major proposed site for sustainably intensifying agricultural production to meet global food needs in the 21st century. Localizing city region food systems ? combining food production in cities and their peri-urban landscapes ? promises to shorten supply chains and reconnect producers with consumers, improving socio-ecological sustainability and resilience. Sustainable urban agricultural intensification (UAI) likely requires investment in technologies that decouple food production from environmental constraints including seasonal climates and available land base. Proposed technological systems range from capital-intensive approaches such as vertical farms to more knowledge-intensive approaches such as urban agroecology. Researchers have begun to question the relative resource requirements, environmental footprints, and productivity of these technological production systems, yet a major gap remains largely unacknowledged: comparatively evaluating the equity and justice implications of different pathways toward sustainable city-region food systems. For the first time, JUST GROW will center equity and justice of UAI within transnational, transdisciplinary research across 6 city regions: the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area (Germany), the Greater Providence Metropolitan Area (USA), the Randstad, Rotterdam?Amsterdam?The Hague Metropolitan Area (Netherlands), Keihanshin (Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe) Metropolitan Area (Japan), Trondheim-Trondelag Region (Norway), and Greater Stockholm Region (Sweden). To help diverse city regions holistically design justice and equity into food system policy and governance structures, we will produce (1) Concise sets of credible and legitimate indicators that city regions can use to evaluate the equity impacts of specific UAI plans as a transition toward SSCP of food; and (2) Recommendations for transformative, justice-centric policy innovations and principles that city region governance networks should adopt to steer UAI towards equitable SSCP of food. |
| Call Objective: | Current patterns of global development based on people’s continuous extraction and exploitation of natural resources are not sustainable, and a societal transition to systems of sustainable consumption and production (SSCP) is urgently needed. Call themes: Theme 1 – Transdisciplinary research to help transition to green economies with sustainable systems of consumption and production Theme 2 – Sustainable and Resilient industries and their governance systems Theme 3 – Social Inequality and Environmental Justice Theme 4 – Integrating new technologies, policies, and practices into everyday life |
Where?
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When?
| Duration: | 36 Months |
| Call Date: | |
| Project Award Date: |
