Emergent regional collaborative governance in rural local food systems development

Hongmei Lu and Angie Carter

Community Development, 2023, vol. 54, issue 2, 228-256

Abstract: This research analyzes the emergent collaborative governance of local food systems (LFS) development in a six-county region of Michigan’s Western Upper Peninsula, a post-industrial mining region with a long history of local food provisioning. We contribute to scholarship on rural food systems by framing LFS development as a social good, benefiting placemaking and long-term economic development. We use a community-based research case study and policy analysis to identify policy-related gaps, including LFS’ low legitimacy, goal divergence among different jurisdictions, and lack of regional leadership. LFS development may present ways for rural communities to foster placemaking and economic development; however, we find that LFS are less visible and not always on the policy agenda of local governments. In this study, collaborations among grassroots actors and organizations outside of local government are leading LFS development. We conclude that collaborative governance may have a better chance to succeed when LFS have a clear public identity and legitimacy as a social good, partners reach goal consensus, and appropriate leaderships are formed.

Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/15575330.2022.2135550 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:taf:comdev:v:54:y:2023:i:2:p:228-256

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RCOD20

DOI: 10.1080/15575330.2022.2135550

Access Statistics for this article

Community Development is currently edited by John Green, Rhonda Phillips and Anne Heinze Silvis

More articles in Community Development from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().