Connecting the Dots: Matching Barriers and Levers in European Food Legume Value Chains

Open online seminar with Tobias Holmsgaard Rønn, Department of Food and Resource Economics.

About the seminar

Food legumes are central to sustainable and healthy food systems, yet European food legume value chains remain marginal. Building on prior work identifying stakeholder viewpoints on value chain barriers, this study applies a novel methodological approach to link perceived barriers to preferred levers at the respondent level.

Using paired Q-methodology data on evaluations of both barriers and levers from 79 value chain stakeholders across Denmark, Germany, Poland and Spain, we examine how different combinations of barrier and lever viewpoints align with a set of ex-ante expectations. We then interpret the three most common barrier-level combinations through a leverage points framework to clarify the mechanisms underlying these (mis)matches.

The results indicate that the most apparent interventions are not necessarily aligned with stakeholders’ preferred levers and may therefore underdeliver if used in isolation. Effective and robust policy mixes should combine interventions across leverage-point depths and explicitly incorporate stakeholders’ experiential knowledge.

How to participate

The seminar is open to all.
The seminar will take place online via Zoom