The Quality Turn of Food Deserts into Food Oases in European Cities: Market Opportunities for Local Producers

Laura Fernández-Casal (), Emel Karakaya Ayalp, Sevim Pelin Öztürk, Luis Manuel Navas-Gracia (), Feral Geçer Sargın and Julia Pinedo-Gil
Additional contact information
Laura Fernández-Casal: CARTIF Foundation, Parque Tecnológico de Boecillo, Parcela 205, 47151 Boecillo, Spain
Emel Karakaya Ayalp: Department of City and Regional Planning, İzmir Democracy University, 35140 İzmir, Turkey
Sevim Pelin Öztürk: Department of City and Regional Planning, İzmir Democracy University, 35140 İzmir, Turkey
Luis Manuel Navas-Gracia: TADRUS Research Group, Department of Agricultural and Forestry Engineering, University of Valladolid, 47011 Valladolid, Spain
Feral Geçer Sargın: Department of City and Regional Planning, İzmir Democracy University, 35140 İzmir, Turkey
Julia Pinedo-Gil: CARTIF Foundation, Parque Tecnológico de Boecillo, Parcela 205, 47151 Boecillo, Spain

Agriculture, 2025, vol. 15, issue 3, 1-23

Abstract: The current conventional food system is led by large-scale agribusinesses, characterized by industrialized production and increasing distance between food production and consumption. In response, alternative food initiatives (AFIs) have typically emerged as grassroots initiatives that may not be uniformly distributed or accessible. Food deserts, areas with limited access to healthy and affordable food, are often discussed without considering food quality. Addressing this, this article aims to assess food deserts for healthy, local, and sustainable products in 11 European cities, comparing conditions before and after the implementation of innovative actions focused on shortening food chains during three years of study. The methodology involves locating alternative production and consumption spaces (APSs and ACSs) and drawing a walking distance around them, identifying densely populated areas outside these radii as food deserts. The results show that the implementation of AFIs has reduced food deserts in 9 out of 11 cities (average from 10.1% at T0 to 7.4% at Tf), opening new market opportunities for local producers and increasing consumer access to local and sustainable produce. The implementation of this study’s approach can potentially transform food deserts into food oases, enhancing food security and sustainability.

Keywords: food deserts; food oasis; alternative food initiatives; food security; food accessibility; short food supply chains; sustainability; market opportunities; local producers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/15/3/229/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/15/3/229/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:15:y:2025:i:3:p:229-:d:1572701

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().