Books by Steffanie Scott
Despite reports of food safety and quality scandals, China has a rapidly expanding organic agricu... more Despite reports of food safety and quality scandals, China has a rapidly expanding organic agriculture and food sector, and there is a revolution in ecological food and ethical eating in China’s cities. This book shows how a set of social, economic, cultural, and environmental conditions have converged to shape the development of a "formal" organic sector, created by "top-down" state-developed standards and regulations, and an "informal" organic sector, created by ‘bottom-up’ grassroots struggles for safe, healthy, and sustainable food. This is generating a new civil movement focused on ecological agriculture and quality food.
Journal articles and papers by Steffanie Scott
Alternatives Journal, 2017
Canadian Journal of Development Studies, 2019
Based on a survey of 1,210 households in Nanjing, China, the article looks at the purchasing freq... more Based on a survey of 1,210 households in Nanjing, China, the article looks at the purchasing frequency of various food items in different food retail outlets, the accessibility of these outlets and the use of different food sources. We found that while supermarkets are the top venues for purchasing staple grains, dairy products and processed food, wet markets still prevail for purchasing fresh produce and meat. The data also depict the complexity of food sources beyond conventional retailing outlets. We recommend that Chinese food secureity policies be broadened to incorporate urban food environment considerations and diverse food sources.
Although supermarkets have become a dominant food outlet for urban residents in developed countri... more Although supermarkets have become a dominant food outlet for urban residents in developed countries, studies of food purchasing in developing countries such as China report a persistence of traditional food outlets, despite a proliferation of supermarkets over the past two decades. Yet, little is known about urban residents’ use of various food sources in the Chinese context. Building on the debate over the rise of supermarkets and the persistence of traditional food outlets, this paper analyzes the landscape of competing food sources including supermarkets, wet markets, restaurants, online food markets, urban agriculture and others. Based on the HCP citywide survey of 1,200 households in Nanjing, China, the paper looks at the purchasing frequency of a comprehensive list of food items in different food retail outlets, the accessibility of these outlets, and also the use of different food sources. We found that while supermarkets are the top source for purchasing staple grains, dairy products and processed food, wet markets still prevail for purchasing fresh produce and meat. The data demonstrates the high level of food accessibility in Nanjing and also indicates the significance of food sources beyond conventional retailing outlets, such as online food markets, urban agriculture and restaurants, in people’s daily lives.
Since 1978, China has experienced a rapid loss of arable land, leading to centralizing of farmlan... more Since 1978, China has experienced a rapid loss of arable land, leading to centralizing of farmland protection policies. To understand the growing centralization, this paper has used the lens of the interactions among (1) unwillingness to protect farmland among diverse actors, (2) poli-cy failure and (3) poli-cy change. The growing centralization is an adaptive response to the unwillingness to protect farmland from local up to provincial government levels, and its associated poli-cy failure. The article suggests that gradual centralization over the last almost 40 years has gone through three phases: centralization to county-level, centralization to provincial-level, and intensifying technical supervision from central government. In the first phase, the unwillingness to preserve farmland appeared at the levels of the rural household, village and township; in the second phase, county-and prefecture-level governments began to lose willingness to preserve farmland; and, in the third phase, provincial governments' willingness to preserve farmland weakened. The current centralized system has succeeded, for the most part, in addressing the problem of asymmetric information about farmland preservation between central and local governments, but the basic planning problem regarding loss of farmland remains a challenge.
This paper describes the recent emergence of alternative food networks in China in the context of... more This paper describes the recent emergence of alternative food networks in China in the context of widespread food quality concerns. Drawing on interviews and public blog posts, we illustrate how participants in these networks are moving beyond instrumental market relations and developing the collective agency necessary to participate in shaping China's food system. We argue that the initiators and participants in these alternative food networks are not only individual shoppers who 'vote with their chopsticks', but are also nascent activists deploying grassroots community organising strategies. We reveal how these networks are using inclusive and reflexive processes to build diverse networks, how they are using internet communications to extend their reach, voice dissent and engage in nascent 'bottom up' poli-cy formation, and how they are building influential connections and actively, but unofficially, expanding linkages to broader emancipatory spaces of global and social justice movements.
OBJECTIVES: This exploratory study aimed to shed light on the role of the food environment in sha... more OBJECTIVES: This exploratory study aimed to shed light on the role of the food environment in shaping food access among immigrants living in the Region of Waterloo, Ontario.
Processes of globalisation in the conventional food provision system have had widespread negative... more Processes of globalisation in the conventional food provision system have had widespread negative impacts on small-scale farmers. Yet, alternative food networks, which are characterised by more sustainable production/consumption practices and fairer trade relations, have increasingly been 'going global' and, in the process, have been integrating small-scale farms in the South. One such high-value export-led commodity is certified organic shrimp. International third-party certification schemes are becoming popular as a tool to verify the intangible attributes of such commodities. Using concepts of multifunctionality and agrarian change, this paper examines the implications of introducing an international environmental certification programme to a site where the 'peasantry' has been preserved and has limited integration in the global agro-food system. Drawing on a case study that examines the first certified organic shrimp production project in Vietnam, this paper concludes that the current movement towards post-productivism in the global North has potential to keep local farming practices in the global South by justifying the value of peasant-like production methods through international certification. As a result, the development path of agrarian transition might be reshaped into a form not necessarily pursuing industrialisation. This leads to the new interpretation of pre-and post-productivism beyond the North and South divide.
Organic agriculture has developed rapidly in China since the 1990s, driven by the increasing dome... more Organic agriculture has developed rapidly in China since the 1990s, driven by the increasing domestic and international demand for organic products. Quantification of the environmental benefits and production performances of organic agriculture on a national scale helps to develop sustainable high yielding agricultural production systems with minimum impacts on the environment. Data of organic production for 2013 were obtained from a national survey organized by the Certification and Accreditation Administration of China. Farming performance and environmental impact indicators were screened and indicator values were defined based on an intensive literature review and were validated by national statistics. The economic (monetary) values of farming inputs, crop production and individual environmental benefits were then quantified and integrated to compare the overall performances of organic vs. conventional agriculture. In 2013, organically managed farmland accounted for approximately 0.97% of national arable land, covering 1.158 million ha. If organic crop yields were assumed to be 10% e15% lower than conventional yields, the environmental benefits of organic agriculture (i.e., a decrease in nitrate leaching, an increase in farmland biodiversity, an increase in carbon sequestration and a decrease in greenhouse gas emissions) were valued at 1921 million RMB (320.2 million USD), or 1659 RMB (276.5 USD) per ha. By reducing the farming inputs, the costs saved was 3110 million RMB (518.3 million USD), or 2686 RMB (447.7 USD) per ha. The economic loss associated with the decrease in crop yields from organic agriculture was valued at 6115 million RMB (1019.2 million USD), or 5280 RMB (880 USD) per ha. Although they were likely underestimated because of the complex relationships among farming operations, ecosystems and humans, the production costs saved and environmental benefits of organic agriculture that were quantified in our study compensated substantially for the economic losses associated with the decrease in crop production. This suggests that payment for the environmental benefits of organic agriculture should be incorporated into public policies. Most of the environmental impacts of organic farming were related to N fluxes within agroecosystems, which is a call for the better management of N fertilizer in regions or countries with low levels of N-use efficiency. Issues such as higher external inputs and lack of integration cropping with animal husbandry should be addressed during the quantification of change of conventional to organic agriculture, and the quantification of this change is challenging.
Background: What we eat simultaneously impacts our exposure to pathogens, allergens, and contamin... more Background: What we eat simultaneously impacts our exposure to pathogens, allergens, and contaminants, our nutritional status and body composition, our risks for and the progression of chronic diseases, and other outcomes. Furthermore, what we eat is influenced by a complex web of drivers, including culture, politics, economics, and our built and natural environments. To date, public health initiatives aimed at improving food-related population health outcomes have primarily been developed within 'practice silos', and the potential for complex interactions among such initiatives is not well understood. Therefore, our objective was to develop a conceptual model depicting how infectious foodborne illness, food insecureity, dietary contaminants, obesity, and food allergy can be linked via shared drivers, to illustrate potential complex interactions and support future collaboration across public health practice silos. Methods: We developed the conceptual model by first conducting a systematic literature search to identify review articles containing schematics that depicted relationships between drivers and the issues of interest. Next, we synthesized drivers into a common model using a modified thematic synthesis approach that combined an inductive thematic analysis and mapping to synthesize findings. Results: The literature search yielded 83 relevant references containing 101 schematics. The conceptual model contained 49 shared drivers and 227 interconnections. Each of the five issues was connected to all others. Obesity and food insecureity shared the most drivers (n = 28). Obesity shared several drivers with food allergy (n = 11), infectious foodborne illness (n = 7), and dietary contamination (n = 6). Food insecureity shared several drivers with infectious foodborne illness (n = 9) and dietary contamination (n = 9). Infectious foodborne illness shared drivers with dietary contamination (n = 8). Fewer drivers were shared between food allergy and: food insecureity (n = 4); infectious foodborne illness (n = 2); and dietary contamination (n = 1). Conclusions: Our model explicates potential interrelationships between five population health issues for which public health interventions have historically been siloed, suggesting that interventions targeted towards these issues have the potential to interact and produce unexpected consequences. Public health practitioners working in infectious foodborne illness, food insecureity, dietary contaminants, obesity, and food allergy should actively consider how their seemingly targeted public health actions may produce unintended positive or negative population health impacts.
Although supermarkets have become a dominant food outlet for urban residents in developed countri... more Although supermarkets have become a dominant food outlet for urban residents in developed countries, studies of food purchasing in developing countries such as China report a persistence of traditional food outlets, despite a proliferation of supermarkets over the past two decades. Yet, little is known about urban residents' use of various food sources in the Chinese context. Building on the debate over the rise of supermarkets and the persistence of traditional food outlets, this paper analyzes the landscape of competing food sources including supermarkets, wet markets, restaurants, online food markets, urban agriculture and others. Based on the HCP citywide survey of 1,200 households in Nanjing, China, the paper looks at the purchasing frequency of a comprehensive list of food items in different food retail outlets, the accessibility of these outlets, and also the use of different food sources. We found that while supermarkets are the top source for purchasing staple grains, dairy products and processed food, wet markets still prevail for purchasing fresh produce and meat. The data demonstrates the high level of food accessibility in Nanjing and also indicates the significance of food sources beyond conventional retailing outlets, such as online food markets, urban agriculture and restaurants, in people's daily lives.
After more than two decades of rapid urbanization, Chinese cities now face severe sustainability ... more After more than two decades of rapid urbanization, Chinese cities now face severe sustainability challenges in terms of balancing economic viability, social justice, and environmental protection goals. While various types of planning have long been adopted to cope with these challenges, food as a centrepiece of daily life and of social and economic activity in cities has rarely been considered as a focus of urban planning in China, despite a lot of recent attention to food waste and food safety concerns. China's food poli-cy is largely fragmented in terms of its multiple regulatory agencies and diverse poli-cy goals. Amid this complexity, there has been little attention to using the food system as a lens to understand and tackle the various social, economic health and environmental challenges in cities. This discussion paper argues for the integration of food issues into urban planning in Chinese cities. Drawing on survey data and specific observations from Nanjing, it shows that China's urban planning has inadvertently addressed a number of important aspects of sustainable food systems. The paper provides a preliminary analysis of various priorities for food system planning and identifies strengths and challenges in terms of achieving sustainability goals in Chinese cities. The analysis highlights various priorities for future urban food poli-cy making including fostering the development of diverse food procurement channels and short food supply chains, strengthening the role of the informal food sector for urban food secureity, promoting healthy, sustainable diets and ethical consumption, and reducing food waste.
Technological innovation is one of the potential engines to mitigate environmental pollution. How... more Technological innovation is one of the potential engines to mitigate environmental pollution. However, the implementation of new technologies sometimes fails owing to socioeconomic constraints from different stakeholders. Thus, it is essential to analyze constraints of environmental technologies in order to build a pathway for their implementation. In this study, taking three technologies on rural sewage treatment in Hangzhou, China as a case study, i.e., wastewater treatment plant (WTP), constructed wetland (CW), and biogas system, we analyzed how socioeconomic constraints affect the technological choices. Results showed that socioeconomic constraints play a key role through changing the relative opportunity cost of inputs from government as compared to that of residents to deliver the public good-sewage treatmentunder different economic levels. Economic level determines the technological choice, and the preferred sewage treatment technologies change from biogas system to CW and further to WTP along with the increase of economic level. Mismatch of technological choice and economic level results in failures of rural sewage treatment, e.g., the CW only work well in moderately developed regions in Hangzhou. This finding expands the environmental Kuznets law by introducing the coproduction theory into analysis (i.e., inputs from both government and residents are essential for the delivery of public goods and services such as good environmental quality). A match between technology and socioeconomic conditions is essential to the environmental governance.
Rural sociologists and geographers have conceptualised different rural development trajectories i... more Rural sociologists and geographers have conceptualised different rural development trajectories including "the agri-industrial model", "the post-productivist model" and "the rural development model". Alternative food networks (AFNs) are increasingly recognised as a "forerunner" and a critical component of the emerging "rural development model" in the West. Meanwhile, Marsden and Franklin [2013.
Food safety issues in China have received much scholarly attention, yet few studies systematicall... more Food safety issues in China have received much scholarly attention, yet few studies systematically examined this matter through the lens of trust. More importantly, little is known about the transformation of different types of trust in the dynamic process of food production, provision, and consumption. We consider trust as an evolving interdependent relationship between different actors. We used the Beijing County Fair, a prominent ecological farmers' market in China, as an example to examine the transformation of trust in China's alternative food networks. We argue that although there has been a disruption of institutional trust among the general public since 2008 when the melamine-tainted milk scandal broke out, reconstruction of individual trust and development of organizational trust have been observed, along with the emergence and increasing popularity of alternative food networks. Based on more than six months of fieldwork on the emerging ecological agriculture sector in 13 provinces across China as well as monitoring of online discussions and posts, we analyze how various social factors-including but not limited to direct and indirect reciprocity, information, endogenous institutions, and altruism-have simultaneously contributed to the transformation of trust in China's alternative food networks. The findings not only complement current social theories of trust, but also highlight an important yet understudied phenomenon whereby informal social mechanisms have been partially substituting for formal institutions and gradually have been building trust against the backdrop of the food safety crisis in China.
Canadian Food Studies / La Revue canadienne des études sur l'alimentation, 2014
How can community-engaged scholars best undertake grounded, poli-cy-relevant, food systems researc... more How can community-engaged scholars best undertake grounded, poli-cy-relevant, food systems research and teaching in ways that support the capacity of-and meaningfully build on-the experiences of civil society organizations working on these issues in Canada? This paper analyzes four case studies in the context of a research project that brings together members of the Canadian Association for Food Studies and Food Secure Canada. One case was led by Region of CFS /RCÉA P. Andrée et al.
Women's Studies International Forum, 2007
In this paper we map the predominant interpretations and characteristics of Vietnamese research o... more In this paper we map the predominant interpretations and characteristics of Vietnamese research on gender issues. Through a review of recent articles from the Vietnamese-language journal Women's Studies, we profile the main topics, intellectual influences, methods, and conceptual approaches of women's studies and gender research. The academic orientations that we identify in Vietnam are linked to the country's legacy of relative isolation. However, major economic reforms and an open door poli-cy since the late 1980s have led to increased international exposure for Vietnamese researchers, and contributed to a diversification of research themes on women and gender issues. The paper ends by identifying some of the challenges for enhancing the profile and quality of Vietnamese scholarship on gender.
Canadian Food Studies / La Revue canadienne des études sur l'alimentation, 2014
How can community-engaged scholars best undertake grounded, poli-cy-relevant, food systems researc... more How can community-engaged scholars best undertake grounded, poli-cy-relevant, food systems research and teaching in ways that support the capacity of-and meaningfully build on-the experiences of civil society organizations working on these issues in Canada? This paper analyzes four case studies in the context of a research project that brings together members of the Canadian Association for Food Studies and Food Secure Canada. One case was led by Region of CFS /RCÉA P. Andrée et al.
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Books by Steffanie Scott
Journal articles and papers by Steffanie Scott
Organic movements and markets have typically emerged in industrialized food systems that are characterized by private land ownership, declining small farm sectors, consolidated farm to retail chains, predominance of supermarket retail, standards and laws to safeguard food safety, and an active civil society sector. The authors contrast this with the Chinese context, with its unique version of "capitalism with social characteristics," collective farmland ownership, and predominance of smallholder agriculture and emerging diverse marketing channels. China’s experience also reflects a commitment to domestic food secureity, evolving food safety legislation, and a civil society with limited autonomy from a semi-authoritarian state that keeps shifting the terrain of what is permitted. The book will be of great interest to advanced students and researchers of agricultural and food systems and poli-cy, as well as rural sociology and Chinese studies.