A Socially-Based Redesign of Sustainable Food Practices: Community Supported Agriculture in Italy

Several grassroots initiatives in the last two decades have shown the need for different food practices that should be locally based and founded on ethical goals of social and environmental justice. Among the many “alternative food networks”, the Community Supported Agriculture model is particularly significant and interesting. By redefining meanings and social norms around food practices, this model actualizes significant processes of food re-socialization and re-territorialization. Focusing on Italy, this study aims to contribute to the understanding of the potential of this model. It does so through two investigations carried out in 2019 and 2020, aimed at analyzing, respectively, structural and organizational aspects of CSAs and the features of resilience shown by these initiatives during the first COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. On the whole, the two surveys give us the image of a radically innovative experience, potentially capable of deeply redefining production and consumption practices, being rooted in socially-shared knowledge, motivations, willingness, commitment and sense of community. In addition to being characterized by a determination to pursue sustainability and equity goals, the model shows a remarkable character of resilience thanks to the original arrangements that the common value basis and the strong sense of interdependence and solidarity of its members can provide.

Relational goods and direct purchase from farmers: estimating the value of the relationship between consumers and producers

Personal relationships can affect economic life, more importantly in alternative food networks. Estimating the value of enjoyment of the relational good produced by consumers’ personal relationship in direct sales from farmers is important to assess how much personal interactions can affect food purchases. We employ different stated preferences models to estimate from a consumer survey in open-air markets in four towns in Italy the value consumers buying directly from farmers attach to their particular choice of a specific vendor. Contingent on the chosen model, the average value of the personal relationship is 13.5-24.4% of their expenditure for fruits and vegetables.

Know the Farmer That Feeds You: A Cross-Country Analysis of Spatial-Relational Proximities and the Attractiveness of Community Supported Agriculture

While food production and consumption processes worldwide are characterized by geographical and social distance, alternative food networks aim to reconnect producers and consumers. Our study proposes a framework to distinguish multiple dimensions of proximity in the context of Community Supported Agriculture (a type of alternative food network) and to quantitatively evaluate them. In a principal component analysis, we aggregated various detailed proximity items from a multinational survey using principal component analysis and examined their relationship with the attractiveness of Community Supported Agriculture in a multiple regression analysis. Our findings highlight the importance of relational proximity and thus of increasing trust, collaboration, and the sharing of values and knowledge within and across organizations in the food system. Rather than focusing on spatial proximity, increasing relational proximity might support alternative food networks, such as Community Supported Agriculture.

Reducing the Risk of Co-Optation in Alternative Food Networks: Multi-Stakeholder Cooperatives, Social Capital, and Third Spaces of Cooperation

Farming cooperatives are organisations fundamentally based on social capital. However, the neoliberal and globalisation turn in the food system have led to the economisation of agricultural cooperatives as their main objective and criteria for evaluating their performance, and to a retreat from their participation in the wider cooperative movement. Nevertheless, new models of cooperation may provide a method to divert from this neoliberalisation trend by promoting social capital and mutual learning amongst different actors committed to a transition to sustainable food systems. This paper applies the anthropological concept of third spaces to examine the case of multistakeholder cooperatives. This type of food and farming cooperatives are composed of a diverse membership groups (e.g., producers, consumers, coordinators, buyers, etc). A nuanced analysis of these cooperatives’ capacity to generate social capital, and more specifically to blur the boundaries between bonding, bridging, and linking social capital, is presented. Evidence from five case studies suggests that multistakeholder cooperatives that remain at the border of their game, operating in both real and symbolic third spaces, are more likely to be based on and reproduce different types of social capital as well as social and environmental sustainability, while in turn reducing the risk of co-optation of their transformative practices.

Short Food Supply Chains: rebuilding consumers’ trust.

Whereas population is showing increasing distrust rates in the regular agri-food system, Alternative Food Networks (AFN) are gradually gaining space. This paper analyses the role of a specific kind of AFN, Short Food Supply Chains (SFSCs) and its contribution to the restoration of consumers’ trust in Spain. An online survey (n= 423) focus on trust and concern over food safety was conducted. The survey was addressed to very concerned and active consumers, which are interesting because they represent a powerful consumers’ profile from the policies point of view. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) studied consumers’ preferences on the different SFSC categories. This paper draws a map that signals which of SFSC attributes (such as labelling, common values or direct contact with producers) are more relevant in order to build consumers’ trust. In addition, this paper offers a classification of SFSC consumers according to their priorities. The information provided by the article offers ideas to policy makers and producers for designing their marketing strategies according to different consumers’ demands.

Re-energizing Japan's teikei movement: Understanding intergenerational transitions of diverse economies

In the 1960s-70s, Japan’s teikei movement, also referred to as Japanese community supported agriculture (CSA), emerged as a response to a period marred with multiple food scandals and environmental injustices and resulted in direct partnerships between consumers and organic farmers. Although this movement peaked in the 1990s just as the concept of alternative food networks (AFNs) gained popularity in western countries, little is known about what has happened to teikei today. This paper analyzes how teikei exemplifies diverse economies and explores how the possibilities of noncapitalist economic practice currently exist compared to the founding movement principles. Through case studies of two teikei groups in the Kansai region of Japan that transitioned their leadership to younger generations, I assess how changes made by current generations allow teikei to adapt to challenges that have long plagued the movement, such as the decline of volunteer labor provided by housewives. Drawing on a diverse economies approach, I argue that, despite current members’ detachment from strong activist identities, they sustain their organizations through part-time work, community building, and institutionalizing volunteer labor. The successes and struggles of current teikei groups provide insight into how AFNs seeking to build alternative economies can overcome difficulties that emerge from actualizing diverse economies.

Quantifying differences in alternative food network supply chain activities and their relationship with socio-economic outcomes

Alternative food networks (AFNs) have the potential to enhance and redistribute value in favour of producers and consumers through novel ways of organizing supply chain activities. What is more, AFNs are often characterized by their ‘sustainability promise’ – or the idea that their networks foster social, ecological or environmental improvements over conventional food networks. Based on a purposive sample of 286 producers across five Swedish AFNs (i.e. community supported agriculture, REKO-rings, farmers’ markets, farm stores and food nodes), we explore how differences in how supply chain activities are managed and relate them to profitability, fair wages, cooperation, logistics efforts, happiness and future beliefs. Using a combination of correlation analysis, linear regression and means comparisons, we challenge the notion that AFNs achieve their sustainability promise or enhance value through novel combinations of supply chain activities. Our findings include several key differences in how supply chain management (SCM) activities are organized across AFNs and their variant importance for profitability. Moreover, we find significant differences in happiness across AFNs that are better explained through beliefs about the future than profitability or fair wages. By exploring happiness and profitability, we offer insights into why some AFN actors thrive despite poor economic returns.