Local co-production and food insecurity: leveraging institutional advantages of partner organisations

ABSTRACT

Across the developed world food insecurity has become a growing problem, including in contemporary Japan. A common response to food insecurity has been the development of food banks typically run by voluntary associations often in partnership with public agencies and private firms. Considerable ingenuity exists in the Japanese food bank sector that can inform public policymaking in addressing the problem of food insecurity. Adopting the conceptual prism offered by the co-production literature, we study three food banks: Second Harvest Nagoya, Food Bank Iwate and Food Bank Kanagawa. While the modus operandi employed by the three food banks differs considerably, a common thread underpinning their success resides in the fact that they all combine the comparative institutional advantages of their collaborating partner organisations in the local public and the private sectors.

KEYWORDS:

• Comparative institutional advantage
• food banks
• food insecurity
• Japan
• non-profit organisations

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yukio Kinoshita

Yukio Kinoshita is Associate Professor of farm management and agricultural economics at the Faculty of Agriculture of Iwate University in Japan and Adjunct Associate Professor in the UniSA Business at University of South Australia. His research focuses on agricultural economics, environmental policy, farm management and regional development in Japan and other developed countries. He has published articles and book chapters, as well as textbooks on farm management. His most recent articles include “Creating institutional advantage: local government co-production with community groups” in the Asia Pacific Journal of Public Administration (2020).

Brian Dollery

Brian Dollery is Professor of Economics and Director of the UNE Centre for Local Government at the University of New England in Australia and Visiting Researcher in the Faculty of Economics at Yokohama National University. He has written extensively on local government. Recent books include Perspectives on Australian Local Government Reform (2015) and Local Public, Fiscal and Financial Governance: An International Perspective (2020).