Trust is often an assumed outcome of participation in Alternative Food Networks (AFNs) as they directly connect producers with consumers. It is based on this potential for trust “between producers and consumers” that AFNs have emerged as a significant field of food studies analysis as it also suggests a capacity for AFNs to foster associated embedded qualities, like ‘morality’, ‘social justice’, ‘ecology’ and ‘equity’. These positive benefits of AFNs, however, cannot be taken for granted as trust is not necessarily an (...) outcome of AFN participation. Using Chinese case studies of AFNs, which are characterised by a distinct form of trust pressure—consumers who are particularly cynical about small scale farmers, food safety and the organic credentials of producers—this paper highlights how the dynamics of trust are in constant flux between producers and consumers. I suggest that it is the careful construction of the aesthetic and multi-sensory qualities of food, which is often celebrated via social media, that human centred relations in Chinese AFNs are mediated. This leads to two key conclusions: first, that the key variable for establishing trust is satisfying the consumer's desire for safe (i.e. "fresh") food; and second, the materiality of the food and the perception of foods materiality (especially through social media), must both be actively constructed by the farmer to fit the consumer's ideal of freshness. (shrink)

Eating locally continues to be promoted as an alternative to growing concerns related to industrialized, global, corporate agriculture. Buying from local famers and producers is seen as a way to promote a healthier diet, reduce environmental impacts, and sustain communities. The promotion of the local food movement presents the question: is it possible to feed a community primarily from the foods produced locally? We conducted a systematic analysis comparing the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) recommended dietary requirements for the (...) estimated 2008 population with annual local agricultural production for the years 2004–2008 within the counties of the Willamette Valley growing region. Our results indicate that current agricultural production in this highly fertile region does not meet the dietary needs of the local inhabitants for any of the USDA’s six food groups: grains, vegetables, fruits, dairy, meat and beans, and oils. In the most recent year of our analysis, 2008, Willamette Valley agriculture production met 67% of annual required grains, 10% of vegetable needs, 24% of fruits, 59% of dairy, 58% of meat and beans, and 0% of dietary oil requirements. Over the past 5 years there have been significant fluctuations in crop production, particularly in 2006 when grain yields dropped to 29% of needs met. Additionally, many of these commodities are exported as cash crops, thus not contributing to meeting local food needs. We discuss these results as well as areas of potential for increasing production of edible crops for local consumption in the region. (shrink)

Interest in purchasing local food from suppliers who follow sustainable practices is growing in Canada. Such suppliers wish to have their products recognized in the market so that price premiums might be received, and new markets developed. In response, the organization Local Food Plus (LFP) developed standards and a certification process to authenticate local and sustainable claims. LFP provides certification seals, and labeling provisions for qualifying producers and processors. However, given pre-existing national food labeling rules, it is not evident that (...) existing regulations permit such claims. Using LFP as a case, this study examined whether current federal labeling rules might impede the marketing of local and sustainable claims. Key findings include that the use of the terms natural, sustainable, and local in panel language and on shelf-talkers could be contested; and that the absence of specific regulation of numerous pertinent terms means they can only be assessed against general fraud prevention regulations, resulting in case-by-case determinations of compliance. Sustainability food label approvals in Canada, based on these general provisions, have not always been favorable to sustainable producers and firms. Existing regulation of these potentially contested terms appears to be out of step with other policy-related developments at the federal level and / or conceptual developments in the field. Proposals are made for amending existing rules to better support local and sustainable claims. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to provide a holistic examination of local food entrepreneurs (LFE) across the local food system (LFS) of a specific U.S. geographic region, including the drivers and barriers to their success. Over the past few decades, there has been a surge in entrepreneurs becoming involved in the LFS which includes the production (farming and manufacturing), distribution, and retail of local ag-related products and services. The LFS is complex and entrepreneurs operating within the system are often (...) met with steep barriers of entry and have trouble maintaining long-term success. Through recorded semi-structured interviews of LFEs (producers, processors, and purveyors) in the Missouri Ozark region, data was gathered and coded according to grounded theory methodologies. From the data collection, 24 emergent themes were identified using thematic clustering. These were further consolidated into eight categorical themes (strategy, skills development, financially sustainable model, differentiation drivers, operational drivers, external drivers, internal constraints, and external constraints) and three over-riding themes (approach, drivers, and barriers). This cross-sectional approach in examining entrepreneurs across the value chain in an LFS provides new insights into the unique entrepreneurial mindset of LFEs. (shrink)

Interest is growing in the relocalization of staple crops, including wheat, in western Washington (WWA), a nontraditional wheat-growing area. Commercial bakers are potentially important food chain intermediaries in the case of relocalized wheat production. We conducted a mail survey of commercial bakers in WWA to assess their interest in sourcing wheat/flour from WWA, identify the characteristics of bakeries most likely to purchase wheat/flour from WWA, understand the factors important to bakers in purchasing regionally produced wheat/flour, and identify perceived barriers to (...) making such purchases. Sixty-one percent of survey respondents were interested in purchasing WWA wheat/flour. Bakers who used retail strategies to market their products were more likely to be interested in WWA wheat/flour compared to those not using retail methods. Bakers’ current purchases of Washington wheat/flour were not related to their interest in purchasing WWA flour. The most important factors bakers would consider in purchasing regionally produced wheat/flour were consistency of flour quality, quality of flour, and reliability of supply. Cost was the most frequently mentioned barrier to the purchase of regionally produced wheat/flour. Our results are relevant for other areas attempting to reconnect grain producers, commercial bakers, and consumers in mutually beneficial ways. (shrink)

Local food systems have grown in popularity around the world in recent years. Their framing often emphasizes the re-connection of producers and consumers against the “faceless” and “placeless” industrial agriculture. However, previous research suggests that such romanticized narratives may not keep up with reality. This relates to the transformative potential of LFSs and to whether they actually generate alternative modes of social organization that challenge problematic aspects of the food system. We place our focus on the practices and narratives that (...) construct the producer/consumer relationship and show how these systems are governed. Our fieldwork was carried out in two LFSs in two distinct settings: community supported agriculture groups in NYC and responsible consumption communities in Catalonia, Spain. Three main types of practices and narratives are identified: sharing, negotiation and utilization practices, and narratives. Our findings reveal great heterogeneity between the two LFSs and show how intermediates participate in the producer/consumer relationship. (shrink)

In this paper, we explore the entrepreneurial leadership strategies and routine work of actors located across a diverse array of organizational settings that combine to shape and sustain the Southern Arizona local food system. We use the theoretical principles of institutional entrepreneurship and logic multiplicity to show how the strategies and routine work of local food actors at the organizational level combine to negotiate system-level meaning and structure within and across the Southern AZ LFS, which is an otherwise seemingly fragmented (...) and contentious social space. We illustrate how the entrepreneurial work performed within multiple organizations and organizational types converge to form a hybrid local food logic. Implications are discussed and recommendations for practice are proposed. (shrink)

Despite the widespread use of the concept of embeddedness in the literature on agri-food networks, not much has been written on the process through which a food economy becomes embedded. To explore this dynamic and contribute to a more critical perspective on the meanings and implications of embeddedness in the context of food, this paper analyzes the emergence of saffron as a local food network in southern Tuscany. By adopting a constructivist approach, the analysis shows that embeddedness assumes simultaneously a (...) social, spatial, and temporal dimension that are dynamically created by participants in the saffron economy as a response to specific market requirements. The paper concludes that a focus on how embeddedness is achieved in the context of food has both theoretical and empirical implications. Theoretically, it supports the need for a more holistic and actor-oriented approach that takes into consideration the tensions inherent in the process of embedding and also its ramifications outside of the social realm. Practically, a focus on how a food network comes to be embedded complicates the notion of food relocalization – an issue that raises empirical questions about the sustainability of local food networks and their contribution to rural development. (shrink)

For centuries, heirloom rice varieties have been grown on the terraces of the Cordillera Mountains of Luzon, Philippines, terroirs known for their significant historical, cultural, and aesthetic values. However, heritage heirloom rice farming is gradually being abandoned, mainly because of its lower productivity and the struggle of the sector to create a sustainable niche market for heirloom rice by branding its cultural, social, and nutritional values. We propose several demand-side intervention strategies for the valorization of heirloom rice. To support the (...) development of a segmented marketing strategy for heritage farming, we provide evidence on urban consumers’ willingness to purchase heirloom rice. We interviewed 500 urban consumers from Metro Manila in July–August 2015, who placed a purchasing bid on a kilogram of heirloom rice. Consumers’ bids averaged PHP 72.61 kg−1, which is less than half its current market price. This explains why heirloom rice struggles to gain market share in urban markets in the Philippines. Given this bid price, we estimate a potential market size of PHP 20.3 billion that could be created for heirloom rice and tapped into by heritage farmers. Findings further indicate that women, business owners, and consumers who buy packaged rice and eat pigmented rice are willing to pay more for heirloom rice. Finally, our evidence suggests that proper information framing will be necessary to create demand and support the valorization of heirloom rice to preserve cultural heritage and in situ biodiversity of rice landraces in the Philippines. (shrink)

“Local food” is gaining in popularity, particularly within a rising alternative food movement, yet it remains an ambiguous term. We use an illustrative example—the case of “local milk” in Hawai‘i—to demonstrate this point. We evaluate "localness" by measuring the origins of production inputs by economic value and physical mass–an approach that is akin to the Made in America standard. The innovative method we propose is easily replicable to other food products or locations worldwide. We find that most first order production (...) related inputs are obtained from non-local sources. Our findings are significant to the local food debate because a focus beyond the point of production to upstream inputs in the life cycle of a food item can push towards a re-framing what local means both in Hawai‘i and beyond. In particular, our findings suggest that production system type, as opposed to location of production end-point, might have a greater impact on the degree of localness of a product. Looking forward, a shift in focus towards production system characteristics may help researchers make headway in exploring the environmental and economic effects of local food. (shrink)

The focus of this article is community supported agriculture (CSA) as an alternative food movement and a bottom-up response to the problems of the dominant food systems. By utilizing social innovation approach that explores the relationship between causes for human needs and emergence of socially innovative food initiatives, the article examines how the CSA projects emerge and why, what is their innovative role as part of the social economy and what is their transformative potential. Based on qualitative data from four (...) different models of CSA case studies in different regions of Wales, UK, and by using concepts from an alternative model for social innovation (ALMOLIN) as analytical tool, the article demonstrates that the Welsh CSA cases play distinctive roles as part of the social economy. They satisfy the needs for ecologically sound and ethically produced food, grown within communities of like-minded people and they empower individuals and communities at micro level, while at the same time experiment with how to be economically sustainable and resilient on a small scale. The paper argues that in order to become ‘workable utopias’, the CSA initiatives need to overcome the barriers that prevent them from replicating, participating in policies and decision-making at macro level, and scaling up. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question of how local can be defined in practice. It contributes to the growing literature on local food systems and particularly our understanding of what counts as local and the elements that influence those contours. While most of our conceptions of local food tend to rely on an articulation of either proximity traveled or relationship between entities, I argue that a more nuanced and complete understanding must take account of both of these aspects. I draw on (...) a dataset of locally oriented farm and food-related establishments in southern New England to identify how far local food travels in this region and how interconnected local food establishments are with one another and use these and other measures to tease out the tension between proximity and relationship as measures of local. I find that these two aspects not only are connected to each other in a complex dynamic, but also are bound up with other structural factors as well. (shrink)

Advocates for re-localizing food systems often encourage consumers to support local farmers and strengthen local food economies. Yet, local food systems hinge not only on consumers’ willingness to buy local food but also on whether farmers have the social support networks to address diverse challenges during food production and distribution. This study characterizes the challenges and support systems of farmers selling to local markets in Québec, Canada, across multiple growing seasons using a mixed-methods research design. We sent an online questionnaire (...) to 1046 farmers and conducted follow-up interviews with 15 of the 133 respondents. Our findings show that farmers relied on an average of four support actor groups, particularly employees, customers, and other farmers. Actors played distinct roles in terms of the importance, frequency, and formality of interactions, providing immediate and long-term support through formal and informal relationships across multiple spatial scales (farm, local community, and regional/international). Our thematic analysis showed that support actors helped farmers in four key domains: (1) Knowledge sharing and emotional support; (2) Labour and workforce; (3) Material and financial aid; and (4) Consumer education and business promotion. Farmer associations provided resources to tackle various challenges, acting as bridges across multiple support actor groups. Yet, our results suggest that political desires to encourage local food systems are in some cases poorly matched with resources to address specific types of challenges farmers face. Specifically, overlooking the role of diverse social support actors in helping farmers build food production and distribution capacity could undermine efforts to foster localization. (shrink)

Concerns about the unsustainability of the conventional food system have brought attention to so called alternative food networks, which are widely thought to be more sustainable. However, claims made about AFNs’ sustainability have been subject to a range of criticisms. Some of them present counterevidence, while others have pointed to problematic underlying features in the academic literature and popular discourse that may hamper our understanding of AFNs’ sustainability. Considering these criticisms, together with the fact that the literature often addresses a (...) specific type of AFN or a specific sustainability-related issue, it is hard to form a clear overall picture of the sustainability promise of AFNs. In this article, we seek to contribute to a clearer understanding of this promise through a structured review, focusing on links between AFN characteristics and sustainability. Through an analysis of AFN conceptualizations reflected in the literature, we identify and consolidate their key characteristics. We then synthesize claims of how these characteristics may translate into sustainability, finding a wide range of potential direct and indirect impacts. Examining these from different angles, we find that the sustainability promise of AFNs found in these claims is qualified by the presence of potentially unaddressed issues, by criticisms regarding for example the evidence base of the assumed impacts and their power in addressing sustainability, and by considerations of how these impacts might play out in actual, real-life food networks. Indirect impacts of learning and participation may be highly significant for sustainability. We conclude with recommendations for research and practice. (shrink)

Notions such as terroir and “Slow Food,” which originated in Mediterranean Europe, have emerged as buzzwords around the globe, becoming commonplace across Europe and economically important in the United States and Canada, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Given the increased global prominence of terroir and regulatory frameworks like geographical indications, we argue that the associated conceptual tools have become more relevant to scholars working within the “alternative food networks” framework in the United States and United Kingdom. Specifically, the Local Agrifood (...) Systems perspective, first articulated in 1996 by French scholars, seeks to understand the relationship between the development of local food systems and specific territories. We review the empirical and theoretical literature that comprises each of these perspectives, highlighting three areas in which SYAL scholarship may be relevant to AFN researchers. First, while AFN scholars tend to understand the “local” in terms of positionality, in a distributionist sense, SYAL studies frame local food systems as anchored within particular territories. Second, SYAL research places significant emphasis on collectivity, both in terms of collective institutions and shared forms of knowledge and identity. Third, although both perspectives are framed in opposition of the industrialization of the global food system, AFN scholars focus more on alternative distribution schemes, while SYAL researchers favor territorially anchored structures. (shrink)