Building Sustainable Communities Through Food Hubs: Practitioner and Academic Perspectives
Open accessAbstract
In this paper, we explore the current state of the food hub by discussing innovative practices supporting efforts to build healthy, equitable, and sustainable food systems. We present key insights from a roundtable discussion among scholars and practitioners from Australia, Canada, and the United States held during the 2017 Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers. Our discussion presents a food hub continuum that describes different pathways to effect change, from enhancing food supply chains to challenging the negative outcomes of the dominant food system through a social and ecological justice approach. This perspective problematizes typical descriptions of food hubs by recognizing the different goals and objectives as well as the resulting opportunities, challenges, and innovations. While we do not suggest one end of the continuum is more important than the other, we identify a series of productive tensions that emerge. Our discussion is structured around four central themes from the collaborative conversation: (1) Descriptions of food hubs; (2) Differing objectives; (3) Navigating success; and, (4) Encountering barriers. We conclude with suggestions on ways to bolster the work of foods hubs through research, policy change, and greater collaboration. This contribution is significant for bridging the overlapping yet diverging conversation between scholarship and practice to better inform food hub development. See the press release for this article.
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Food hubs aiming to address food security issues in HFP areas are emerging, but like other social enterprises, they face competing priorities of simultaneously being market based and fulfilling their social mission.
“For example, food hubs aiming to address food security issues in HFP areas are emerging [48].Like other social enterprises, they face competing priorities of simultaneously being market based and fulfilling their social mission [49].”
From Agroecological Transition: A Territorial Examination of the Simultaneity of Limited Farmer Livelihoods and Food Insecurity (2022) · cites this paper as [49]
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Berti, G., & Mulligan, C. (2016) · Sustainability · doi:10.3390/su8070616 · Cited by 403 · see citing works
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- Authors
- Levkoe, C., Hammelman, C., Craven, L., Dandy, G., Farbman, J., Harrison, J., & Mount, P.
- Affiliations
- Lakehead University (CA)
- University of North Carolina at Charlotte (US)
- UNSW Sydney (AU)
- Fleming College (CA)
- Winrock International (United States) (US)
- Wilfrid Laurier University (CA)
- Venue
- Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development
- Published
- 2018-06-01
- Pages
- 1-16
- ISSN
- 2152-0798 (ISSN-L)
- 2152-0801
- OpenAlex
- W2805317711
- Cited by
- 26
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 1
- FWCI
- 2.65
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- UNSWorks (University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- AgEcon Search (University of Minnesota, USA) (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- American Association of Geographers
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Plant Science › Urban Agriculture and Sustainability
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Plant Science › Organic Food and Agriculture
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › General Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development
- Keywords
- food hubs, sustainable food systems, food system equity, social justice, ecological justice, food supply chain, food system policy
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