Local food security to increase societal preparedness

In recent years, we have seen how crises in our world, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and environmental disasters, can have a direct impact on food supply. In recent decades, Sweden has invested in a market-oriented food production system, which has reduced food preparedness (Eriksson 2018), but there is now a political ambition to increase self-sufficiency in food at both the national and local levels (Eriksson et al. 2020). Rising inflation manifested in increasing food prices has been an additional incentive for increased national self-sufficiency through local food production.

The aim of this project is to study initiatives for local food security in three Swedish regions with different geographical conditions and challenges—Skåne, Södermanland, and Västernorrland—with a focus on collaboration within initiatives and between local actors. The initiatives are both non-profit and commercial, but share a collective dimension where collaboration and relationships are emphasized. All initiatives focus primarily on vegetable cultivation in their efforts to increase food supply.

An (n)ethnographic approach is used in the project (Kozinets 2019), meaning that field studies are conducted both on digital platforms and in the physical locations where cultivation and other activities within the initiatives take place. The material that the field studies generate will consist of interviews with initiators and participants, as well as text excerpts from digital platforms. The project has a particular focus on how collaboration within local food security initiatives can be understood through theories of place, class, and gender.