Abstract
This paper analyses the regional characteristics of Food Policy Networks (FPNs) – multi-sector stakeholder groups that are responding to social, political and ecological challenges facing food systems. As FPNs have grown in number around the globe, there is an absence of comparative research to understand their diversity across regions. In addition, there is scant understanding of how their placed-based characteristics might complicate the picture of an “urban food policy council”, raising questions about translocal influences – interventions, coalitions and crises – that impact the emergence of FPNs in regional settings. Drawing on interviews with 67 FPNs from across the world, the paper examines the significance of place and socio-cultural framing on transformative agendas for food systems. Applying a place-based and translocal conceptual lens, the paper asks: how do the regional contexts of FPNs shape their purpose, approach and impact? Can the analysis of diverse regional FPNs from one location contribute new understandings of others towards food systems transformation? How can regional perspectives inform urban food governance research? And how can translocal networks help rescale food system governance? This paper shows that not only are FPNs creating innovative governance structures to identify and tackle regionally contextualised food challenges, but they are also modelling forms of translocal collaboration across silos and sectors while striving for inclusivity beyond an urban-rural dichotomy.