The key terms below are commonly-used (and often unclear) terms in food systems and urban studies. For my research, I used the following definitions:

 

• Community garden: a garden on private or public land where individuals produce fruit, vegetables, and/or ornamental plants within designated boundaries (i.e. in a plot) and/or in shared spaces. Garden members may have to pay a one-time or continuous rental fee, go through a certain application process, and/or commit to other obligations (e.g. volunteer hours, meeting participation) to keep their membership.

  • Allotment garden: refers to a similar concept as a community garden, yet the garden members are required to pay a fee. The fee members pay is likely to be higher than that of a community garden, and the owners of an allotment garden are more likely to be a for-profit business (even if the garden still has a social or environmental mission). There are also likely to be permanent garden employees, as well as tools and other services provided to garden members to help them care for their plots.

 

• Community farm: the same as a community garden, except there are farm animals, as well as plants, at the site. Any animals at a community farm are likely to be under joint care.

 

• Consumer cooperative: a group that purchases consumer goods directly from the producer for sale to its members. Consumer cooperatives may require that members contribute certain volunteer hours or fulfill other specified requirements.

 

• Gruppi Acquisto Solidale (GAS, or Solidarity Purchasing Group): a form of alternative food network and consumer cooperative unique to Italy. They are grassroots aggregations of consumers who buy food and other consumer goods directly from producers or other retailers at a price that is fair to both parties. While a semi-formal network of GAS exists throughout Italy, each GAS is governed by its own members and independently interprets how to practice “solidarity” with its producers, its members, and the environment. GAS was based on the teikei model.

 

• Teikei: a form of alternative food system that was developed by the Japanese Organic Agriculture Association (JOAA), a nonprofit organization comprised mostly of producers and consumers who seek to expand organic agriculture in Japan. Teikei entails the creation of direct relationships between consumers and producers, who both provide labor and capital to support their own delivery system. The term “teikei” refers not only to the food distribution but also its ten founding principles, which constitute “a dynamic philosophy to make people think of a better way of life either as a producer or as a consumer through their interaction” (JOAA).

 

• Food security: a situation that exists when people have secure access to sufficient amounts of safe and nutritious food for normal growth and development and an active and healthy life.

 

• Core components of food security:

1. ​Physical availability of food

2. Economic and physical access to food

3. Nutrition of consumption practices

4. Food safety

5. Stability of the other four dimensions

 

• Food insecurity: “a situation that exists when people lack secure access to sufficient amounts of safe and nutritious food for normal growth and development and an active and healthy life. It may be caused by the unavailability of food, insufficient purchasing power, inappropriate distribution or inadequate use of food at the household level. Food insecurity, poor conditions of health and sanitation and inappropriate care and feeding practices are the major causes of poor nutritional status. Food insecurity may be chronic, seasonal or transitory” (FAO 2016; see Appendix A for details on how I adapted the FAO’s 2008 definition and delineated components of food security to my own research)

 

• Food literacy: “the ability of an individual to understand food in a way that they develop a positive relationship with it, including food skills and practices across the lifespan in order to navigate, engage, and participate within a complex food system. It's the ability to make decisions to support the achievement of personal health and a sustainable food system considering environmental, social, economic, cultural, and political components” (Cullen et al., 2015).

 

• Food system: “an interconnected web of activities, resources, and people that extends across all domains involved in providing human nourishment and sustaining health, including production, processing, packaging, distribution, marketing, consumption and disposal of food. The organization of food systems reflects and responds to social, cultural, political, economic, health and environmental conditions and can be identified at multiple scales, from a household kitchen to a city, county, state or nation” (Grubinger et al., 2010).

 

• Food supply chain: “a series of food-related activities including production, processing, packaging, transport, distribution, consumption, and disposal (DiDominica, 2014).

 

• Local food system (LFS): Local food systems are complex socio-ecological systems encompass food production, processing, and sales within a defined geographical area (Balász, 2012). However, given the vastly different characteristics of the cities in question, the exact radius around each city center within which agricultural production is considered “local” will vary greatly. Often, LFS can be best defined by what they are not, or characterized in contrast to complex, long food supply chains that span within and across countries. They are also often “oriented towards a sustainability that is multidimensional: economic, environmental, and social” (Corrado, 2014).

 

• Peri-urban: refers to the area between a city and the countryside, often what is describes as the urban “fringe.” It may be defined as the rural-urban transition zone, where urban and rural uses both may and interact with each other, yet it can also be defined in its own right. Given the qualitative and quantitative characteristics that define a peri-urban area, my own designations of peri-urban will depend on the city in question.

 

• Urban: refers to the specific city boundaries as defined by the municipal and national government.

 

• Urban agriculture: “the growing, processing, and distribution of food and nonfood plant and tree crops and the raising of livestock, directly for the urban market both within and on the fringe of an urban area” (Taylor Lovell, 2010). Urban agriculture products may be sold, donated, or distributed through other formal and informal food supply channels. They may also be consumed directly (e.g. household consumption).

 

• Urban farm: a farm in an urban area that produces the majority of its food for retail distribution.