Toward Alternative Food Systems Development: Exploring Limitations and Research Opportunities

Abstract

In recent years, interest in alternative food systems (AFS) has grown both in the popular imagination and in the academic literature. The literature is rife with justifications (or hopes) for the continued and necessary expansion of AFS in the face of unsustainable conventional food provisioning. Within the next five years it will be important to determine how to make alternatives more stable in order for them to play a more prominent role in battling the food insecurity and other social and economic challenges equated with agro-industrial foods. The goal of this commentary is to demonstrate some highly context-specific challenges and possible research trajectories in both the global South and the global North. We argue that in the global South more robust data collection can strengthen local food systems and traditional foods research, while in the global North, food skills and food literacy research may be important for scaling up and making alternative food systems more stable without compromising important social and economic ideals.

A new analytical framework of farming system and agriculture model diversities. A review

“…Alternative food systems have actively developed in OECD countries in opposition to globalised commodity-based food systems (Albrecht et al 2013;Lerman 2012;Lyson and Guptill 2004;Murdoch et al 2000;Penker 2006;Sonnino and Marsden 2006). They are organised around networks of producers and consumers, possibly with intermediaries.…”

“…Although alternative food systems are often idealised, it remains difficult to assess the effectiveness and resilience with which they can meet goals of sustainable agriculture and rural development (Albrecht et al 2013;Lerman 2012;Sonnino and Marsden 2006). For example, local supply chains may have greater energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions per unit of product due to the lack of economy of size (Lerman 2012).…”

An Exploratory Study on Local Brand Value Development for Outlying Island Agriculture: Local Food System and Actor–Network Theory Perspectives

“…The features of local food systems include an emphasis on quality, small-scale production, production information transparency, close geographic proximity between the food production and consumers and trust in the behaviors of local or regional producers and distributors [24]. Local food systems are playing an increasingly valuable role in such topics as food safety, social and economic justice and environmental sustainability because the local food system can provide environmental, economic and social benefits [9]. Scholars have introduced the concept of "sustainable culinary systems" to explain the environmental, economic and social relations that develop in hospitality value chains and pointed out local food can generate a multiplier effect that will contribute the local economy to more sustainable regions by using this concept [11,12].…”

“…Such "delocalized" food products also destroy the sense of connection between local producers and consumers. Consequently, how to counter homogenized food products has motivated local producers of food ingredients and food manufacturers to reflect on the true meaning of local food [9]. Driven by the industrialization of food production, the context of local food systems and processes of food production have taken up the operating features of the mainstream routinized food system (nonlocal food system) and it has become difficult to distinguish between these two types of food system in terms of their respective contexts and essential qualities.…”

Understanding the organization of sharing economy in agri-food systems: evidence from alternative food networks in Valencia

“…So far only few studies focused on the internal organization of AFNs (Murtagh 2010;Albrecht et al 2016), while mostly focusing on external linkages of AFNs with implications for society and regional development (Holloway et al 2007;Tregear 2011;Veen et al 2012). The strong or even exclusive presence of communitarian elements 1 3 in some AFNs show similarities with SPGs and AMAP initiatives in other contexts (Dubuisson-Quellier et al 2011;Pascucci et al 2013Pascucci et al , 2016, and explain their organization based on their origin and/or relatively small number of members.…”