Building Resilience in Nonprofit Food Hubs

LeBlanc, Jacqueline R.; Conner, David S.; McRae, Glenn; Darby, Heather

doi:10.5304/jafscd.2014.043.005

Cited by 37 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 10 publications

(15 reference statements)

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“…Several panelists discussed the ways that economic and social forces pushed and pulled them between challenging the negative outcomes of the dominant food system and needing to compete economically with other food chain actors. This salient challenge of finding ways to develop local, grassroots alternatives to the industrial food system that address social and environmental concerns while remaining economically viable has also been raised in the literature on food hubs (see for example, Ballamingie & Walker, 2013;Blay-Palmer, Landman, Knezevic, & Hayhurst, 2013;Cleveland et al, 2014;LeBlanc, Conner, McRae, & Darby, 2014). In this literature, some scholars have questioned the ability of food hubs to meet food-system-change goals.…”

Section: Dandymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Several studies have addressed constraints related to logistics and competition with traditional food businesses (Barham et al, 2012;Diamond & Barham, 2011;Matson, Thayer, & Shaw, 2015;Stevenson, Clancy, King, Lev, Ostrom, & Smith, 2011); reliance on external funding (LeBlanc et al, 2014;Rysin & Dunning, 2016); and obstacles to building collaboration across communities with different identities and priorities (Mount et al, 2013). Similarly, panelists discussed the role of food hubs in addressing tensions but also breaking down barriers encountered in establishing and sustaining them.…”

Section: Encountering Barriersmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Building Sustainable Communities Through Food Hubs: Practitioner and Academic Perspectives

Levkoe

Hammelman

Craven

et al. 2018

J. Agric. Food Syst. Community Dev.

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Section: Dandymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Encountering Barriersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Building Sustainable Communities Through Food Hubs: Practitioner and Academic Perspectives

Levkoe

Hammelman

Craven

et al. 2018

J. Agric. Food Syst. Community Dev.

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show abstract

“…As a particular model of local food aggregation and distribution, nonprofit food hubs use grants and other outside funding to mediate between markets where large-volume production determines conventional prices and the smaller-scale production by farmers who produce at higher costs (LeBlanc, Conner, McRae, & Darby, 2014;Local Food Research Center, 2012). To mediate this disparity, nonprofit food hubs subsidize the higher cost of local food production and distribution to meet the price points expected by the food industry.…”

Section: Food Hubs and Food Democracymentioning

confidence: 99%

Local Food, Food Democracy, and Food Hubs

Perrett

Jackson

2015

JAFSCD

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In western North Carolina, where we and others have been working to build local food systems for the last 15 years, food hubs are part of an expanding network of local food distribution infrastructure intended to help the region's smaller local farms access larger, more mainstream market outlets. The impact of food hubs on the region's evolving food system, however, is contradictory. At the same time that food hubs further the development of local food supply chains and create market opportunities for farms, they can also run contrary to the bigger and longer-term goals of the local food movement. In this viewpoint article, we look critically at the role of nonprofit food hubs in efforts to build local food systems. Speaking from our experiences in the local food movement in western North Carolina and drawing from social movements and food systems scholarship, we argue that food hubs, when used as primary mechanisms of local food system building, can deprive the movement of its capacity to activate broad participation in the food system. We argue that efforts to build local food systems need a foundation of work that engages people (such as farmers, citizens, people who work in the food industry) in processes that can shape the practices, values, and impacts of systems of food production and distribution. While they can mitigate the mismatch between the smaller scale typical of local food and larger mainstream markets, food hubs alone cannot challenge industry norms and practices, and they can even aid the food industry in maintaining the status quo.

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“…Scholars proposed different perspective in FHs' definition, as well as noting the variety of organizational structures, target customers, ownership and control, function and operation [10], [11], [13], [14],. Despite this diversity it is possible to observe a common agreement about the potential of FHs to overcome the distributional limitations of small-scale AFNs and to help initiatives to 'scale-up' and deliver benefits for local communities [19], [8], [1], [3], [2], [16], [14].…”

Section: Food Hubs (Fhs): Theoretical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of ICTs in Supporting Collaborative Networks in the Agro-Food Sector: Two Case Studies from South West England

Gala

Reed

2017

Collaboration in a Data-Rich World

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DisclaimerThe University of Gloucestershire has obtained warranties from all depositors as to their title in the material deposited and as to their right to deposit such material.The University of Gloucestershire makes no representation or warranties of commercial utility, title, or fitness for a particular purpose or any other warranty, express or implied in respect of any material deposited.The University of Gloucestershire makes no representation that the use of the materials will not infringe any patent, copyright, trademark or other property or proprietary rights.The University of Gloucestershire accepts no liability for any infringement of intellectual property rights in any material deposited but will remove such material from public view pending investigation in the event of an allegation of any such infringement. PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR TEXT.This is a pre-print version of the paper submitted to Working Abstract. Over recent years, in a wide range of countries, grassroots initiatives have emerged aimed at overcoming the limits of the mainstream agro-business system. These initiatives aim at improving farmers' access to local and regional markets and consumers' access to fresh local produce. Among these initiatives, Food Hubs have emerged as a promising way to improve local food supply systems. They represent collaborative networks of producers and consumers that aggregate, distribute, and market local food products. ICTs enable these collaborative networks by allowing information exchange among their actors and by providing collaborative tools that allow quick co-ordination between members of the network. The paper aims to analyse, through a multi-case study analysis, how the adoption of ICTs have fostered the development of new, "alternative" initiatives oriented at establishing local food networks and to reconnect producers and consumers. The study will present results from the analysis of two food-hub initiatives based in South West England, which are adopting informative systems to support their activities and to implement novel business models: Stroudco Food Hub and Dean Forest Food Hub.

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Building Resilience in Nonprofit Food Hubs

Cited by 37 publications

References 10 publications

Building Sustainable Communities Through Food Hubs: Practitioner and Academic Perspectives

Building Sustainable Communities Through Food Hubs: Practitioner and Academic Perspectives

Local Food, Food Democracy, and Food Hubs

The Role of ICTs in Supporting Collaborative Networks in the Agro-Food Sector: Two Case Studies from South West England

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