MSc Thesis AMS Institute - How the Metropolitan Region of Amsterdam could source a quarter of its food from the region by 2030
MADE Student Project
This master's thesis explores four future scenarios for short food supply chains in the Metropolitan Region of Amsterdam in 2030 and their potential spatial impact. Agricultural land in the Netherlands has been decreasing in recent decades, especially within the Metropolitan Region of Amsterdam. This trend is likely to continue in the coming decades (Planbureau voor de Leefomgeving, 2015; Lesschen et al., 2020). Alongside this, there is an ambition from both regional government bodies and non-government actors to source twenty-five percent of the food consumed from their own region. This research looks at opportunities for achieving this ambition and how the objectives can be accomplished despite the scarce space in the metropolitan region. Four future scenarios have been drawn up for 2030, based on two axes, with each scenario describing the measures that can be taken to achieve this future scenario. The first axis is focused on governance of the food chain: either by a strong directing government or by polycentric networks. The second axis addresses the use of space: either conventional agricultural land use remains dominant, or alternative forms of food production break through and change the demand for space. By describing the four future scenarios, this master's thesis attempts to highlight multiple paths to the different future scenario’s and to map the possibilities for short food supply chains for the future. As such, this thesis falls within the discussions surrounding the alternative food geographies paradigm.
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