Browsing by Subject "food policy"

The aim of this Thesis was to analyze Finnish food policy from a sustainability point of view. Changing operational environment, both globally and nationally, place food systems under a variety of economic, socio-cultural and ecological pressures. In addition to meet the basic objectives, such as ensuring food security, food systems are expected to fulfill a number of other goals. The drivers and goals, as well as means to food system change are defined in food policy. Considering the ecological, economic and sociocultural dimensions of sustainability in the food system analysis can also be viewed as an agroecological approach. A content analysis, using Atlas TI software was done for three most recent and topical Finnish food policy documents: Food2030 - government report on food policy, and the government programs for local and - organic food sectors. The food policy documents were analyzed with the following research questions in mind: how well is the need for systemic change recognized in the Finnish food policy; what are the main drivers for change; how are different dimensions of sustainability taken into account; is the change anticipated as gradual improvements to the current food system or are there any references suggesting radically reformed food system? The recently renewed Finnish food policy is specifically drafted with the current and forecasted changes in the operational environment in mind. The main drivers were mainly identified as sociocultural trends such as globalization, urbanization and changes in consumer behavior. The economic drivers, especially the competitiveness and export orientation of the food sector emerged as important goals for the future. The ecological dimension to food system reform gave the lowest share in all three categories (drivers, means and goals). A change in a complex system such as a food system takes place by affecting one partof the system at a time. The current Finnish food policy does not present radical changes or radical means to change the current system. However system-level changes can often be identified only afterwards.