The concept of sustainable development has ąuickly gained importance during the last two decades. It has been recognised that economic growth that is achieved at cost of environmental deterioration will not last forever. Furthermore, economic growth does not solve many social problems. For example, income ineąualities on a world scalę have increased during the last four decades [Todaro, 1997, 42] \ also the problem of social exclusion within and between countries seems to be becoming a bigger and bigger problem [Castells, 1998], The aim of this short article is to discuss some theoretical issues of sustainability which are important for achieving sustainable development. First, the importance of knowledge to sustainable development will be discussed. Then, the relation between stakeholder interests, time-scale and sustainable development is elaborated. Finally, some thoughts on the ąuestion “sustainable development of what” will be presented.
The focus of this paper is the importance of issues of governance in the context of local sustainable development. An aim is to identify some important challenges in research on urban and rural agro-food Systems. First, within this context, the importance of setting priorities in local sustainable development is discussed. Second, the relation between good governance and local sustainable development is elaborated.Third, two case studies on the importance of institutions for food ąuality and the relation between ąuality enforcement mechanisms and governance structures in the food supply system are presented. Finally,some issues of the relation between investment, economic activity and sustainable development are discussed. An important finding is that analysis of governance structures and of stakeholders’ interests of is of crucial importance for achieving local sustainable development in the agro-food system. This may lead to the identification of priorities in the process of sustainable development, while the identification of factorsin the institutional environment and governance structures that may hamper such development makes it morę likely that change will be successful.
Although many widely known and applied criteria exist for making a generał comparison between countries, this is morę complicated for analysing agro-food systems and their importance for local sustainable development in different countries. In this rather explorative article we attemp to identify some conditions and criteria for making a comparative study of agro-food systems in different countries. Firstly, generał information on the agricultural sector in different European countries is analysed. Then, issues of studying agro-food systems are discussed within the context of the agro-food supply chain, where stakeholders, methods of data collection, initial data required and area of economic activity are identified. Finally, a summary of conditions and criteria for making a comparative study is presented. This paper is a contribution to creating a basis for international comparative research on urban and rural agro-food systems as a factor of local sustainable development.
At the beginning of March 2005 a short ąuestionnaire was carried out among 721 Polish students. The main aim was to obtain a rough picture of students’ awareness on some issues of sustainable development and healthy food, in order to create a basis for broader research among a larger group (e.g. farmers, housewives, civil servants, politicians, pensioners, etc.). Awareness on issues of sustainable development and healthy food is important for developing ecological policy [see Słodczyk and Sobuś, 1999], agricultural policy [see Rahman, 2005] and policies for sustainable development [see Byelyakov, this volume]. Furthermore, it may be helpful to stimulate sustainable consumption patterns [see Wong et al., 1996] and to increase the demand for ecological food products [see Słodka, 2004]. Students were chosen as the research group, as it was assumed that due to their education they should be quite well informed on the issues of interest. The questions concerned whether sustainable development is an important issue, opinions about the free market, preferences for healthy or cheap food, reading information on food labels, whether Polish or foreign food is healthier and the influence of EU accession on the quality of food.