Loading...
Citations
Altmetric:
Date
2026-02
Abstract
“It takes a system to feed a society.” This is not a proverb, but it might well be one, given the layers of interdependence, cooperation, and complexity that underpin even the most basic acts of food production. Over the course of this research, this thesis traces the arc of food value chains from coastal aquaculture sites in Ireland to disrupted tomato farms in southern Ukraine, the same quiet truth kept surfacing: food systems are not isolated sectors but deeply entangled webs of people, processes, institutions, and environments. A mussel farm depends not only on water quality and marine licensing, but on a market that values its produce and a regulatory system that supports circular innovation. A tomato grower in wartime does not only need seeds and fertilizer, but functioning roads, peace, and the promise of a future. Value chains, like social systems, cannot be reduced to their most visible components. They carry histories, identities, risks, and hopes.
This thesis is not about any single farm or innovation or conflict. It is about the connective tissue: the unseen systems that hold food economies together or allow them to unravel. It explores how production systems develop, how innovation happens in the margins, and how shocks travel through supply networks and regional economies. In doing so, it acknowledges that food does not begin in the soil or the sea, nor does it end at the consumer. Rather, it moves through people and institutions that are themselves shaped by policy choices, environmental change, and collective values. Just as a child learns to walk with many hands guiding them, a resilient food system takes many actors pulling together across different scales. This research, in all its empirical diversity, reflects that truth.
Food systems are facing a key moment. Whether under pressure from war, environmental degradation, or policy-driven transformation, value chains are no longer passive structures for moving goods from farm to fork. They are dynamic arenas of struggle and adaptation, presenting much about how societies nourish themselves and what costs they are willing to bear in doing so. This thesis, titled Essays on Food Value Chains, traces the deep interdependencies, vulnerabilities, and potential pathways for change in food economies through a set of complementary studies. Though each chapter focuses on a distinct case, from aquaculture innovation in Ireland to wartime collapse in Ukraine, they are united by a common ambition: to understand how value chains behave under stress and transition, and how better modelling and policy tools can support their sustainability and resilience.
Supervisor
Description
Peer-reviewed
Publisher
University of Limerick
Citation
Files
Loading...
Stankova_2026_Essays.pdf
Adobe PDF, 2.17 MB
ULRR Identifiers
Funding code
Funding Information
Sustainable Development Goals
External Link
License
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International