Increasing attention has been given to the engagement of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in corporate social responsibility (CSR), yet little is known about collective SME actions to implement CSR. We conducted 29 semi-structured interviews to investigate a network of 18 French winemaking cooperatives. These SMEs are particularly interesting because they have traditionally operated on values similar to CSR principles. The case study explores how collective action was able to drive CSR implementation in the cooperatives over time. Our results highlight the mechanisms of collective action related to social capital and their impacts on cooperative relationships with key stakeholders. We also provide managerial recommendations for this type of CSR network.
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When collective action drives corporate social responsibility implementation in small and medium-sized enterprises : the case of a network of French winemaking cooperatives
23 novembre 2021, par Mathilde COUDRAY -
Limited food availability
3 novembre 2021, par Mathilde COUDRAYWhile food security is a major worldwide issue, it is a much more serious problem in Low-Income
(LI) and Lower Middle-Income (LMI) countries. Currently, sub-Saharan Africa is the sub-continent with the highest proportion of undernourished people, the largest gap between current and potential yields, and between cereal consumption and production. Looking to the future, population growth and climate change may worsen the situation, particularly in Africa. African countries are still facing rapid population growth with uncertain prospects about the ability of their agriculture to meet growing food demand. In addition, without sufficient adaptation measures, climate change will negatively impact food production in most African regions. -
Small farm production and the standardization of tropical products
26 octobre 2021, par Mathilde COUDRAYThis paper explores the historical relations between labour organization and product qualification in the production of tropical agricultural exports. In supplying international markets for tropical products, peasant farming emerged as the norm for labour organization after the First World War, competing with the large plantations and different systems of forced labour. During the same period, national standards became the dominant tool for product qualification of commodities traded on the global agricultural markets. These standards allow the creation of futures markets and the emergence of traders, instead of auction markets and commission merchants : two changes that were the basis of the subsequent international marketing of peasant-produced commodities. The last part of the paper considers the potential consequences of the current erosion of standards for the position of peasants in tropical export crop cultivation.
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Resource over-exploitation and running out
3 novembre 2021, par Mathilde COUDRAYFood systems around the world are highly dependent on both renewable and nonrenewable resources. Drivers such as population growth, urbanisation and climate change put a lot of pressure on resources that have become core issues for the future of food systems. Cropland availability is limited in most parts of the world, adding pressure for cropping intensification. Fossil energy and phosphorus shortages are expected to occur within a few decades, with particular impact in Low-Income (LI) countries where farmers are more vulnerable to volatile prices. The availability of very unevenly distributed freshwater resources shows a similar picture, with an increasing number of regions reaching alarming levels of water scarcity. Some world fish stocks have been overexploited and are now depleted. But the situation is not without hope. While we need to intensify food systems to meet the challenge of a growing population, new ways to produce with less impact on the environment and more resilience to climate change need to be widely adopted.
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Foodscape : A scoping review and a research agenda for food security-related studies
10 novembre 2021, par Mathilde COUDRAYSince 1995, the term ‘foodscape’, a contraction of food and landscape, has been used in various research addressing social and spatial disparities in public health and food systems. This article presents a scoping review of the literature examining how this term is employed and framed. We searched publications using the term foodscape in the Web of Science Core Collection, MEDLINE, and Scopus databases.
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The place of food : mapping out the ‘local’ in local food systems
3 novembre 2021, par Mathilde COUDRAY‘Local food systems’ movements, practices, and writings pose increasingly visible structures of resistance and counter-pressure to conventional globalizing food systems. The place of food seems to be the quiet centre of the discourses emerging with these movements. The purpose of this paper is to identify issues of ‘place’, which are variously described as the ‘local’and ‘community’ in the local food systems literature, and to do so in conjunction with the geographic discussion focused on questions and meanings around these spatial concepts. I see raising the profile of questions, complexity and potential of these concepts as an important role and challenge for the scholar-advocate in the realm of local food systems, and for geographers sorting through them. Both literatures benefit from such a foray. The paper concludes, following a ‘cautiously normative’ tone, that there is strong argument for emplacing our food systems, while simultaneously calling for careful circumspection and greater clarity regarding how we delineate and understand the ‘local’. Being conscious of the constructed nature of the ‘local’, ‘community’ and ‘place’ means seeing the importance of local social, cultural and ecological particularity in our everyday worlds, while also recognizing that we are reflexively and dialectially tied to many and diverse locals around the world.
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18/ The social stratification of sustainable food practices
4 July 2022, by Mathilde COUDRAY– Carla Altenburger, L’Institut Agro Montpellier, UMR Innovation and UMR IRISSO, Paris, France
Key points Looking at sustainable food practices, understood here as the purchase of products labelled as “organic” or “fair trade” or that refer to a geographical origin, the French population can be split into consumers and non-consumers of such products. All the consumers surveyed fit one of four typical profiles, the comparison of which shows that sustainable food practices are strongly shaped by (...) -
Corporate concentration and technological change in the global seed industry
26 octobre 2021, par Mathilde COUDRAYIn the past three decades, the seed sector has experienced, and is now again experiencing, corporate concentration trends. The fallout of this consolidation is the subject of numerous concerns. However, the seed sector is rather poorly understood. Thus, it is useful to understand it better and to investigate the potential impact on the agri-food chain of the trend toward increased corporate concentration. The first part of this paper presents the main characteristics of the global seed sector, its stakeholders, and its size in the agri-food chain. Next, the corporate consolidation trends of the seed industry over the past two years are examined. The technological evolution of the seed sector is also briefly presented. In the last part of this paper, the fallout of recent mergers and acquisitions in the seed industry are analyzed. Opposing views are expressed on the impact of these mergers and acquisitions in the agri-food chain : while certain stakeholders worry about the risk of food power by the biggest companies, some others expect useful innovations.
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Urban governance for food security : the alternative food system in Belo Horizonte
23 novembre 2021, par Mathilde COUDRAYWith a population of 2.5 million people, the city of Belo Horizonte, Brazil, is a world pioneer in tackling food consumption, distribution and production as components of an integrated urban policy for food security. The paper gives a description of the main programmes and features of this policy arguing that over 15 years the city and its Municipal Secretariat for Food Policy and Supply have built a particular alternative food system. Marked by the comprehensive scope of its programmes ; its urban/rural focus ; the flexibility of the initiatives and, above all, by its commitment to social justice and equitable access to food, Belo Horizonte has developed a distinct mode of governance for food security. The unique ‘alterity’ of this food system is set further apart from those being attempted in Europe and in North America because it is government-driven. The paper discusses its strengths and current challenges.
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Avoiding the local trap : scale and food systems in planning research
3 novembre 2021, par Mathilde COUDRAYA strong current of food-systems research holds that local food systems are preferable to systems at larger scales. Many assume that eating local food is more ecologically sustainable and socially just. We term this the local trap and argue strongly against it. We draw on current scale theory in political and economic geography to argue that local food systems are no more likely to be sustainable or just than systems at other scales. The theory argues that scale is socially produced : scales (and their interrelations) are not independent entities with inherent qualities but strategies pursued by social actors with a particular agenda. It is the content of that agenda, not the scales themselves, that produces outcomes such as sustainability or justice. As planners move increasingly into food-systems research, we argue it is critical to avoid the local trap. The article’s theoretical approach to scale offers one way to do so.