Local food systems and rural sustainability initiatives by small scale rural entrepreneurs in Finland

Authors

• Pekka Jokinen University of Joensuu
• Marja Järvelä University of Jyväskylä
• Antti Puupponen University of Jyväskylä

Abstract

The paper addresses the re-localisation of food systems and aims to understand how it may open up new opportunities for rural entrepreneurship and how these opportunities might contribute to sustainable development and rural livelihood. The paper highlights the specific regional circumstances in the North that make food production particularly challenging in a competitive market. The core empirical data is qualitative and drawn from two local stakeholder groups representing different positions in the local food chain in Central Finland. One group consists of farmers who produce local food and the other of retail managers of supermarkets in the urban centre of the Jyväskylä region. It is concluded that local food production is still very much in its making in Central Finland. Entrepreneurial innovations in farming have remained relatively weak and the current network strategies are rather sporadic. Nevertheless, individual farmers have taken decisive steps towards establishing local food production