It takes a village: Coordination and directionality in sustainable food systems

“It takes a village to raise a child” is a famous African proverb. Over the course of many hours of interviews with many different stakeholders in Uganda, there was an echo of this sentiment in working with agricultural cooperatives. In fact, one interviewed cooperative board member described his own cooperative as ‘a child learning to walk’. The strong, successful agricultural cooperatives operating in food systems today have been built over long periods of time with support from various policies, development programmes and individuals. In this thesis, the ‘village’ is explored in different ways. On the one hand, farmers are situated within local communities, interact with other local actors and receive support from various local partners. On the other hand, these farmers are part of the increasingly ‘global village’ of international markets and food systems; competing and collaborating with others to deliver their produce to markets. The current food systems in which these farmers operate face multiple social and environmental challenges. These challenges require cross-disciplinary and high impact solutions (Klerkx & Begemann, 2020; Kanter & Boza, 2020; Kok & Klerkx, 2023). In developing contexts, these challenges are often interlinked and exacerbated ‒ droughts, floods and other climate change disasters worsen food security and poverty rates. Many of these farmers are smallholders who organise themselves into farmer groups and cooperatives to improve their position within agricultural food systems (Drivas & Giannakas, 2010; Bijman et al, 2016; Bijman & Hohler, 2023). There is increasing global acknowledgement from researchers, multilateral organisations and policy makers that in order to help producers tackle wicked challenges, current food systems need to be transformed, and a wide range of actors need to coordinate more closely (Pigford et al., 2018; Weber et al., 2020). This suggests a sharpened focus on directionality within food systems towards environmental and social goals. As such, this thesis explores relevant systems-thinking and frameworks which provide deeper understanding on when, how and to what degree actors coordinate for more sustainable and equitable food systems as well as the drivers for coordination. The thesis focuses on two seemingly different and unrelated agricultural contexts: Ireland and Uganda. Through a central case study of Tororo Groundnut Growers Cooperative Society (TGGC) in Uganda which is supported by an Irish International Development Organisation (Self Help Africa) and a local Irish social enterprise (Partners in Learning), these contexts are woven together.

Funder

Teagasc Walsh Scholarship
University of Galway
Self Help Africa

Publisher

University of Galway

Rights

CC BY-NC-ND

cbn

Collections

University of Galway Theses (PhD Theses)