South West food community: A place-based pilot study to understand the food security system

Authors/Creators

Stephanie Louise Godrich, Edith Cowan UniversityFollow
Jennifer Payet, Edith Cowan UniversityFollow
Deborah Brealey, Edith Cowan UniversityFollow
Melinda Edmunds
Melissa Stoneham
Amanda Devine, Edith Cowan UniversityFollow

Abstract

The objectives of this study were to: (i) Identify initiatives supporting healthy food availability, access and utilisation in the South West region of Western Australia (WA); and (ii) understand how they were functioning as a system to enhance community-level food security (FS). This study used a novel approach; a Systemic Innovation Lab, to interview initiative leaders/stakeholders about their FS initiative. Initiative characteristics measured included those which were associated with creating the effective conditions for FS systems change. Information was uploaded to an innovative online tool, creating a 'transition card' (matrix) of initiatives and partnering organisations. Fifty-one participants reported on 52 initiatives. Initiatives were most likely to possess characteristics relating to reinforcing changes towards an enhanced way of working to address FS and creating disruption to the old way of working. The initiative characteristic that initiatives were least likely to possess related to identifying the different causal factors of FS, and working with other stakeholders on specific components of FS. The South West Food Community pilot project used a comprehensive yet defined approach to demonstrate the value of a place-based, co-design project. Participants and stakeholders could strengthen specific initiative characteristics to facilitate enhanced community-level FS.

RAS ID

28489

Document Type

Journal Article

Date of Publication

3-29-2019

ISSN

2072-6643

Volume

11

Issue

4

Funding Information

This research was funded by an Edith Cowan University School of Medical and Health Sciences Research Grant Scheme.

PubMed ID

30934905

School

School of Medical and Health Sciences

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Publisher

Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute

Comments

Godrich, S. L., Payet, J., Brealey, D., Edmunds, M., Stoneham, M., & Devine, A. (2019). South West food community: A place-based pilot study to understand the food security system. Nutrients, 11(4), Article 738. Available here

Recommended Citation

Godrich, S. L., Payet, J., Brealey, D., Edmunds, M., Stoneham, M., & Devine, A. (2019). South West food community: A place-based pilot study to understand the food security system. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/nu11040738