The current western agrifood system is highly successful in providing for human needs. However, the dominant agricultural approach of up-scaling and specialisation is put under pressure by a number of developments in the global landscape. Global developments such as population growth, pollution, soil degradation and climate change, in which agriculture plays a crucial role, make the need for a transition towards a paradigm with a broader range of values evident. Niche initiatives often develop as a reaction to needs not fulfilled by the regime. Therefore, certain niches may have the potential of driving a necessary transition. This research aims to determine if permaculture, being a niche, has this potential. The main question for this research was formulated as follows: How can a production system based on permaculture principles contribute to the agrifood transition? To answer this question, relevant current trends and global developments were used as a basis for developing a future scenario. Empirical qualitative data on permaculture businesses in the Netherlands was gathered as well, of which the results were used for a determination of permaculture’s performance in this future scenario. This was done by comparing a standardised permaculture system with a conventional potato system. As a result of this comparison, the Unique Selling Points of permaculture were identified, which determine the future potential of permaculture.
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The increasing rate of urbanization along with its socio-environmental impact are major global challenges. Therefore, there is a need to assess the boundaries to growth for the future development of cities by the inclusion of the assessment of the environmental carrying capacity (ECC) into spatial management. The purpose is to assess the resource dependence of a given entity. ECC is usually assessed based on indicators such as the ecological footprint (EF) and biocapacity (BC). EF is a measure of the biologically productive areas demanded by human consumption and waste production. Such areas include the space needed for regenerating food and fibers as well as sequestering the generated pollution, particularly CO2 from the combustion of fossil fuels. BC reflects the biological regeneration potential of a given area to regenerate resources as well to absorb waste. The city level EF assessment has been applied to urban zones across the world, however, there is a noticeable lack of urban EF assessments in Central Eastern Europe. Therefore, the current research is a first estimate of the EF and BC for the city of Wrocław, Poland. This study estimates the Ecological Footprint of Food (EFF) through both a top-down assessment and a hybrid top-down/bottom-up assessment. Thus, this research verifies also if results from hybrid method could be comparable with top-down approach. The bottom-up component of the hybrid analysis calculated the carbon footprint of food using the life cycle assessment (LCA) method. The top-down result ofWrocław’s EFF were 1% greater than the hybrid EFF result, 0.974 and 0.963 gha per person respectively. The result indicated that the EFF exceeded the BC of the city of Wrocław 10-fold. Such assessment support efforts to increase resource efficiency and decrease the risk associated with resources—including food security. Therefore, there is a need to verify if a city is able to satisfy the resource needs of its inhabitants while maintaining the natural capital on which they depend intact. Original article at: https://doi.org/10.3390/resources7030052 © 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI.
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