Local food hubs for alternative food systems: A case study from Santa Barbara County, California

This chapter examines two food hubs in Oakland, CA and Chicago, IL in light of the food justice and neoliberalism critiques explained in the introduction to this volume. With regard to food justice, the chapter argues that although alternative food systems have often been created in ways that reify white norms and cultural frames, these organizations are steeped in African American cultural frameworks that position them as part of broader anti-racist struggles. Secondly, these food hubs simultaneously reproduce and contest neoliberalism through their collective approaches to the buying and selling of alternative foods. Taken together, these examples demonstrate some of the ways that alternative food projects are affected by and position themselves within the complexities of racial inequalities and neoliberal capitalism.

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Disruptive innovation and operationalization in local and sustainable food systems: Examining the University of Toronto-Local Food Plus partnership

Canadian Food Studies / La Revue canadienne des études sur l alimentation ◽

10.15353/cfs-rcea.v6i1.269 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

pp. 120-139

Author(s):

Lori Stahlbrand

Keyword(s):

Food Systems ◽

Large Scale ◽

Food System ◽

Local Food ◽

Disruptive Innovation ◽

Government Support ◽

Sustainable Food ◽

University Of Toronto ◽

The University

This paper traces the partnership between the University of Toronto and the non-profit Local Food Plus (LFP) to bring local sustainable food to its St. George campus. At its launch, the partnership represented the largest purchase of local sustainable food at a Canadian university, as well as LFP’s first foray into supporting institutional procurement of local sustainable food. LFP was founded in 2005 with a vision to foster sustainable local food economies. To this end, LFP developed a certification system and a marketing program that matched certified farmers and processors to buyers. LFP emphasized large-scale purchases by public institutions. Using information from in-depth semi-structured key informant interviews, this paper argues that the LFP project was a disruptive innovation that posed a challenge to many dimensions of the established food system. The LFP case study reveals structural obstacles to operationalizing a local and sustainable food system. These include a lack of mid-sized infrastructure serving local farmers, the domination of a rebate system of purchasing controlled by an oligopolistic foodservice sector, and embedded government support of export agriculture. This case study is an example of praxis, as the author was the founder of LFP, as well as an academic researcher and analyst.

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Alternative Agri-Food Systems Under a Market Agencements Approach: The Case of Multifunctional Farming Activity in a Peri-Urban Area

Environments ◽

10.3390/environments8070061 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 8 (7) ◽

pp. 61

Author(s):

Maria Cecilia Mancini ◽

Filippo Arfini ◽

Federico Antonioli ◽

Marianna Guareschi

Keyword(s):

Urban Area ◽

Food Systems ◽

Food System ◽

Large Body ◽

Alternative Food ◽

Design Stage ◽

Alternative Food Networks ◽

Alternative Food Systems ◽

Design And Implementation ◽

Trade Offs

(1) Background: A large body of literature is available on the environmental, social, and economic sustainability of alternative food systems, but not much of it is devoted to the dynamics underlying their design and implementation, more specifically the processes that make an alternative food system successful or not in terms of its sustainability aims. This gap seems to be particularly critical in studies concerning alternative food systems in urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA). This paper explores how the design and implementation of multifunctional farming activity in a peri-urban area surrounding the city of Reggio Emilia in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy impact the achievement of its sustainability aims. (2) Methods: The environmental, social, and economic components of this project are explored in light of the sociology of market agencements. This method brings up the motivations of the human entities involved in the project, the role played by nonhuman entities, and the technical devices used for the fulfillment of the project’s aims. (3) Results: The alternative food system under study lacked a robust design phase and a shared definition of the project aims among all the stakeholders involved. This ended in a substantial mismatch between project aims and consumer expectations. (4) Conclusions: When a comprehensive design stage is neglected, the threefold aim concerning sustainability might not be achievable. In particular, the design of alternative food systems must take into account the social environment where it is intended to be put in place, especially in UPA, where consumers often live in suburban neighborhoods wherein the sense of community is not strong, thus preventing them from getting involved in a community-based project. In such cases, hybridization can play a role in the sustainability of alternative food networks, provided that some trade-offs occur among the different components of sustainability—some components of sustainability will be fully achieved, while others will not.

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The Small World of the Alternative Food Network

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su10082921 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 10 (8) ◽

pp. 2921 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

Catherine Brinkley

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Food Systems ◽

Food System ◽

Local Food ◽

Small World ◽

Alternative Food ◽

Term Survival ◽

Food Network ◽

Robust Network Design ◽

Alternative Food Network

This research offers the first use of graph theory mathematics in social network analysis to explore relationships built through an alternative food network. The local food system is visualized using geo-social data from 110 farms and 224 markets around Baltimore County, Maryland, with 699 connections between them. Network behavior is explored through policy document review and interviews. The findings revealed a small-world architecture, with system resiliency built-in by diversified marketing practices at central nodes. This robust network design helps to explain the long-term survival of local food systems despite the meteoric rise of global industrial food supply chains. Modern alternative food networks are an example of a movement that seeks to reorient economic power structures in response to a variety of food system-related issues not limited to consumer health but including environmental impacts. Uncovering the underlying network architecture of this sustainability-oriented social movement helps reveal how it weaves systemic change more broadly. The methods used in this study demonstrate how social values, social networks, markets, and governance systems embed to transform both physical landscapes and human bodies. Network actors crafted informal policy reports, which were directly incorporated in state and local official land-use and economic planning documents. Community governance over land-use policy suggests a powerful mechanism for further localizing food systems.

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Alternative Food Systems at Ground Level: The Fairbanks Community Garden

Journal of Ecological Anthropology ◽

10.5038/2162-4593.16.1.6 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 16 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Alison Meadow

Keyword(s):

Food Systems ◽

Ground Level ◽

Alternative Food ◽

Community Garden ◽

Alternative Food Systems

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Nonhuman Animal Rights, Alternative Food Systems, and the Non-Profit Industrial Complex

PhaenEx ◽

10.22329/p.v8i2.4093 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 8 (2) ◽

pp. 209 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Corey Lee Wrenn

Keyword(s):

Animal Rights ◽

Food Production ◽

Food Systems ◽

Nonhuman Animal ◽

Alternative Food ◽

Industrial Complex ◽

Alternative Food Systems ◽

Non Profit ◽

Alternative Systems ◽

Nonhuman Animals

Alternative food systems (namely the humane product movement) have arisen to address societal concerns with the treatment of Nonhuman Animals in food production. This paper presents an abolitionist Nonhuman Animal rights approach (Francione, 1996) and critiques these alternative systems as problematic in regards to goals of considering the rights or welfare of Nonhuman Animals. It is proposed that the trend in social movement professionalization within the structure of a non-profit industrial complex will ultimately favor compromises like “humane” products over more radical abolitionist solutions to the detriment of Nonhuman Animals. This paper also discusses potential compromises for alternative food systems that acknowledge equal consideration for Nonhuman Animals, focusing on grassroots veganism as a necessary component for consistency and effectiveness.

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