This essay offers an analysis of the global situation of food systems, providing a few pointers c... more This essay offers an analysis of the global situation of food systems, providing a few pointers concerning two interconnected issues: the democratisation of the access to food, and the need to heal the ecological damage caused by centralized and mass systems for production and consumption of merchandise. We approach such phenomena through a multi-scalar prism, interpreting the geographical articulation of social behaviour through a continuous shift from local to global. We focus on the processes of modernization and development of commodity-food that, since last century, took hold in many regions, along with their social and ecological failures. Subsequently, various alternative paths of production, distribution and consumption of food are studied, trying to match the nutritional daily needs of local citizens but also the ecological features of their territories and of the life-supporting systems of our planet. You write food and you read democracy as our most urgent challenge is to...
The negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have further exposed and exacerbated the structural... more The negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have further exposed and exacerbated the structural weaknesses and inequalities embedded in the global industrial agri-food system. While the mainstream narrative continues to emphasise the importance of ensuring the uninterrupted functioning of global supply chains to counter COVID-related disruptions, the pandemic has also highlighted the resilience of small-scale, sustainable family farming and of spatially and socially embedded food systems. Based on a quantitative and qualitative analysis of three surveys, this study examines organic and agroecological farmers’ responses to the first COVID-related lockdown (March–May 2020) in Italy, as well as the responses of grassroots alternative food networks (AFN) in the city region of Rome. The results show how local grassroots action played a significant role in ensuring food access, provisioning, and distribution, often in the face of delayed or insufficient action of mainstream food system ...
This essay offers an analysis of the global situation of food systems, providing a few pointers c... more This essay offers an analysis of the global situation of food systems, providing a few pointers concerning two interconnected issues: the democratisation of the access to food, and the need to heal the ecological damage caused by centralized and mass systems for production and consumption of merchandise. We approach such phenomena through a multi-scalar prism, interpreting the geographical articulation of social behaviour through a continuous shift from local to global. We focus on the processes of modernization and development of commodity-food that, since last century, took hold in many regions, along with their social and ecological failures. Subsequently, various alternative paths of production, distribution and consumption of food are studied, trying to match the nutritional daily needs of local citizens but also the ecological features of their territories and of the life-supporting systems of our planet. You write food and you read democracy as our most urgent challenge is to...
The negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have further exposed and exacerbated the structural... more The negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have further exposed and exacerbated the structural weaknesses and inequalities embedded in the global industrial agri-food system. While the mainstream narrative continues to emphasise the importance of ensuring the uninterrupted functioning of global supply chains to counter COVID-related disruptions, the pandemic has also highlighted the resilience of small-scale, sustainable family farming and of spatially and socially embedded food systems. Based on a quantitative and qualitative analysis of three surveys, this study examines organic and agroecological farmers’ responses to the first COVID-related lockdown (March–May 2020) in Italy, as well as the responses of grassroots alternative food networks (AFN) in the city region of Rome. The results show how local grassroots action played a significant role in ensuring food access, provisioning, and distribution, often in the face of delayed or insufficient action of mainstream food system ...
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Papers by Paola De Meo