This paper investigates the current research on how consumers select the foods they buy and how they define ‘quality’. Consumer decisions are complex and whilst a few consumers prioritise local above all other factors when selecting food, for most local is simply one of multiple factors which influence the food choices they make. Short Food Chains are not necessarily local but are based on supply chains with fewer steps in the chain from producer to consumer. Short Food Chains ensure that
A “farmers’ market” identifies a common area where farmers meet periodically to sell food products which do not need to be processed before consumption. Farmers’ markets have recently experienced steady growth mainly due to increasing demand for traditional foods and rising consumers’ interest towards locally produced food products. It is also the case that they provide transparency along the supply chain and decrease information asymmetries.
Short Food Supply Chains (SFSCs) are central to the alternative food movement discourse. SFSCs are based upon the interrelations among actors who are directly involved in the production, processing, distribution, and consumption of food products. They depend upon actors mobilising resources of various kinds: skills; knowledge; labour; capital; buildings etc. External factors such as policies and regulations can also encourage the creation of these shorter chains. The development of SFSCs can still be hindered by a range of other factors.
Innovations in the agri-food sector are needed to create a sustainable food supply. Sustainable food supply requires unexpectedly that densely populated regions remain food producers. A Dutch innovation program has aimed at showing the way forward through creating a number of practice and scientific projects. Generic lessons from the scientific projects in this program are likely to be of interest to agricultural innovation in other densely populated regions in the world.
This paper, presented at the 8th European IFSA Symposium ( Workshop 6: "Change in knowledge systems and extension services: Role of the new actors") in 2008, discusses the innovation network Waardewerken, a Dutch network of rural entrepreneurs pioneering in multifunctional agriculture. which aims to contribute to a professional multifunctional agriculture sector in the Netherlands. For this purpose it cooperates with researchers and policymakers in order to improve policy conditions and to develop knowledge for multifunctional farmers.
This report explores the role of rural networks in enhancing innovation processes, questioning the features of the agricultural/rural networks could enhance farmers’ ability to co-innovate in cooperation with other actors. The prospect of this investigation is also to provide interesting and significant experiences that constitute examples for the ‘European Innovation Partnership’ by increasing farmers’ capacities to create, test, implement and evaluate innovations in cooperation with other rural actors.
The French Ministry of Agriculture has called for agro-ecological transitions that reconcile farming and the environment. In this review, we examine the transformations of farmers and AKIS (Agriculture Knowledge Innovation System) actors’ work during agro-ecological transitions, and argue that the content, organization, and aim of farmers’ work are influenced by agricultural training, agricultural development, and discussions between peers, research, and regulations. Our main findings concern those transformations.
This volume is devided into three parts. The first part describes on-going
processes of change within, or aside, the socio-technical regime that we have
inherited from the modernisation and industrialisation process of agriculture,
which took part after the second world-war. The focus in this part is on studies
dealing with the issue of agro-ecological initiatives born in niches of organic
movement, which are questioning the mainstream regime of industrialised
agriculture.
In this paper, presented at the 8th European IFSA Symposium ( Workshop 6: "Change in knowledge systems and extension services: Role of the new actors") in 2008, the authors discuss a conceptual framework that understands innovation processes as the outcome of collaborative networks where information is exchanged and learning processes happen. They argue that technical and economic factors used to analyse drivers and barriers alone are not sufficient to understand innovation processes.
This paper, presented at the 8th European IFSA Symposium ( Workshop 6: "Change in knowledge systems and extension services: Role of the new actors") in 2008, discusses the FutureDairy project, which is developing more productive forage and feeding systems and testing technical innovations such as robotic milking in Australian pasture based dairy systems.