Mapping Sweden’s regional food strategies : An analysis of resilience and food security

Abstract: Global changes such as climate change and population growth, and unexpected shocks and stresses such as natural disasters, and economic and political crises, are factors leading to an increased pressure on the food system. In order to approach these issues, the concept of resilience may be used, looking at how well the system is able to withstand and adapt to changes over time and provide food security during such crises. Today, the food system in Sweden is criticised for not being able to provide food security in times of crisis. A National Food Strategy was launched in 2017 and Sweden’s 21 counties are currently not required to formulate their own food strategy. Due to the geographical spread of the counties, the agricultural conditions may vary between regions. For this study, a mapping was conducted in order to investigate which counties have formulated a food strategy and/or action plan. Furthermore, for each county, a word search with terms related to food security and resilience was conducted to examine the overall inclusion of these topics in the documents. Also, strategies and/or action plans of the three counties Gävleborg, Södermanland and Jönköping were examined with regards to how they apply resilience and food security, as well as how they can improve in this regard. Seven principles of resilience, as described by Biggs et al. (2015), were used as a framework to analyse the documents.  The mapping showed that all 21 counties in Sweden have a food strategy or an action plan. However, the length and structure of these documents varied greatly. Thus, the need for a template or guidelines is apparent. The results from the word search indicated that resilience and food security is not mentioned to a large extent. Gävleborg, Södermanland and Jönköping strive for increased local production of food, but should also consider increased local production of inputs. A wider variety of food products should also be considered to a greater extent. The effects of climate change are well covered in the documents, however other types of potential disturbances should also be included. Knowledge sharing between actors is prevalent throughout the measures described by the counties, although the counties could explore knowledge sharing between each other, since they seem to complement each other in terms of what information is available in the documents.