Land for Food: A Focus on

Farmland Protection and Land Grabbing

Deadline for manuscripts: May 15, 2013, for publication in the fall 2013 issue

Sustainable and equitable food systems require adequate volumes of high quality and affordable farmland. Many farmers invest heavily in their farmland; typically it is one of their greatest assets. Meanwhile, the loss  of  farmland may affect food security. In the United States, for example, the USDA reports that  the country is short by 13 million acres for fruit and vegetable production to meet daily requirements.¹ While the international recession has slowed farmland loss in some places, sprawl that affects some of the best farmland continues unabated. The loss in some countries has been so great  that they are pursuing the control of agricultural land in other countries — particularly in the global south. While the root causes of farmland loss are complex, they are generally acknowledged to include urbanization, population growth, aging of farmers, and unpredictable weather. Competition for land drives up its price, making it less affordable for new or younger farmers. On the other hand, these challenges are fomenting a growing interest in landscape-level conservation initiatives. A number  of new  approaches to protecting farmland and securing it for the future are being developed, although they show mixed results.

JAFSCD welcomes submissions on a wide range of topics that explore the relationship between land use and food systems. Submissions may include qualitative and quantitative studies, case studies, review articles, reflective essays, and commentaries. We encourage submissions that draw on diverse interdisciplinary and community/practitioner perspectives and are written in using accessible scholarship.² Papers could include topics related to:

• Farm transfer and succession planning
• Permanent Farmland Protection programs: best practices and performance to date
• International land grabbing
• Race and land loss
• The changing face and nature of agriculture (e.g., the switch from dairy to intensive vegetable production)
• Planning and zoning for farmland protection
• Breaking down the rural/urban divide
• The roles of planners, smart-growth advocates, and rural development and Sustainable Communities Partnership agencies
• The relationship between farmland protection and public health
• Bringing new land into production for local food
• Implications of rising farmland values
• The rise of nonfarming farmland owners
• Bundling protection, conservation programs and funding to ensure that conservation investments are not undone
• The importance of viable farms to keeping farmland active
• Working with new partners

For more details about this call, contact editor in chief Duncan Hilchey at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . In addition, JAFSCD welcomes articles at any time on any subject related to the development aspects of agriculture and food systems.

About the Food Systems Journal

The Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development is the only international, peer-reviewed journal focused on the emerging field of food and agriculture–based community development. JAFSCD is online only. It is published by the Food Systems Journal, a project of the Center for Transformative Action, an affiliate of Cornell University.

(1) Buzby, J. C., Wells, H. F, & Vocke, G. (2006). Possible implications for U.S. agriculture from adoption of select dietary guidelines (Report No. ERR-31). Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service.

(2) Accessible scholarship is a writing style that is engaging, has a minimum of jargon, and uses the active voice. It is the preferred writing style for the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development.

Important Notes for Authors

Flexibility in Submission Time Frames

Please do not be discouraged if your research time frame on a call topic does not permit submission by the published deadline. Special call topics are of core interest to JAFSCD’s readers, and we accept papers on these topics at any time. Furthermore, JAFSCD welcomes articles at any time on any subject related to the development aspects of agriculture and food systems.

See more background on JAFSCD subject areas at http://www.agdevjournal.com/jafscd-background.html. Authors are encouraged to submit applied research papers, commentary, and thought-provoking articles that inform the emerging field of agriculture and food systems development.

Faculty and students, Extension and other educators, planners, consultants, staff with farm agencies and farm and community organizations, and farmers are invited to submit material.

Please download the call for papers flyer below to share with colleagues!

Cooperatives and Alternative

Food Systems Initiatives

Manuscript Deadline: August 1, 2013, for consideration for peer review.

Papers will be published in the winter 2014 issue (Jan.–Mar. 2014).

Guest editors: Colin Anderson (Canada), Henk Renting (Europe),

Jim Barham (USA), Lynda Brushett (USA), and Tom Gray (USA)

Cooperatives have historically been, and still are, important institutions in the global economic landscape, and have strong roots in food and agriculture. Conventional agriculture cooperatives work to increase the marketing power of farmers by pooling their products to achieve economies of scale. Traditional consumer cooperatives focus on increasing buying power to meet member needs. Recently there has been a surge in cooperative alternative food systems initiatives in the form of cooperative food hubs, cooperative local food networks, cooperative farmers' markets and box schemes, worker-owned food cooperatives, cooperative value chains, and cooperative food buying clubs. These initiatives represent new forms of collective engagement of consumers, producers and other actors as "food citizens" within "civic food networks," the social/solidarity economy, and a "civic agriculture." Cooperative food systems initiatives are differentiated from conventional cooperatives in that they:

1. reconnect farmers and consumers in more direct and meaningful ways;
2. sell to local and regional markets and through alternative networks such as CSAs, farm-to-school programs, farmers' markets; or
3. promote food production, distribution, and consumption processes that are environmentally sound or socially just.

They are organized by farmers (such as producer co-ops or farmer groups), by consumers (such as buying clubs or consumer cooperatives), by both (multistakeholder co-ops), or by workers and through cooperation to pursue social, economic, and political ends that are challenging to realize as individuals.

JAFSCD welcomes submissions on a wide range of topics (and geographic areas) that explore the intersection of cooperatives with alternative food systems initiatives. We promote research and accessible scholarship that inform thinking and practice and that draw on diverse interdisciplinary and community-practitioner perspectives. We seek reports of qualitative and quantitative studies, case studies, review articles, reflective essays, and commentaries. We also encourage explorations of collaborative initiatives that may not be formally incorporated using a cooperative structure, but that embody the cooperative values and principles.

Papers could include topics related to:

• Consumer cooperatives, farmer co-ops, worker co-ops, cooperative food hubs, fair-trade co-ops, multistakeholder co-ops, cooperative farms
• Challenges, barriers, best practices, key tools, strategies
• How these initiatives embody new forms of "food citizenship" and alternative governance structures that bridge the production-consumption divide
• The role of technology (e.g. websites, new media, video, RFID tags, matchmaking/logistics software platforms)
• Innovative organizational structures and governance
• Policy, advocacy, or regulatory issues
• Economic, social, and/or environmental impact assessments
• Economic viability or new institutional economics
• How these initiatives are incubators of social innovation and inform changes in wider society
• Cooperation among cooperatives and cooperatives' support organizations
• Transformative learning in cooperatives
• Organizational design to protect social justice goals
• Concerns about gender, race, culture, class, and justice
• The relationships between farmers, consumers and workers in and across cooperatives
• The relationship between cooperatives and food democracy, food justice, and food sovereignty
• Social capital or social embeddedness

Authors interested in responding to this call will need to send a query form and draft manuscript to editor in chief This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. prior to submission for peer review. Read the submission guidelines and get the query form.

Download the flyer and post or forward to colleagues!

Attachments:

JAFSCD_Query_Form_Fill-in.pdf	221 Kb
Land for Food Call for Papers.pdf	160 Kb