Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
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Advance Access published on 1 August 2005
doi:10.1093/jeg/lbi006
* School of City and Regional Planning, Cardiff University, Glamorgan Building, King Edward VII Avenue,
Cardiff CF10 3WA, Wales, UK. email <SonninoR@Cardiff.ac.uk>
** School of City and Regional Planning, Cardiff University, Glamorgan Building, King Edward VII
Avenue, Cardiff CF10 3WA, Wales, UK. email <MarsdenTK@Cardiff.ac.uk>
# The Author (2005). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
Abstract
182
so-called Rhongold dairy promoted a regional image that attracted to the area tourists
and business. Thus, an innovation strategy conceived to create alternative markets for
local farmers ultimately had economic benefits for the region as a whole. Similarly, de
Roest and Menghi (2000) show that the production system associated with Parmigiano
Reggiano cheese in Italy is, in itself, an example of rural development because of its
contributions to employment and to the perpetuation of artisanal, environmentally
benign, and labour-intensive production techniques.
Other researchers, however, are more cautious about positing a connection between
alternative food networks and the emergence of a new rural development paradigm.
Winter (2003a, p. 31), for example, states that whether the turn to localism represents
the first step towards an alternative food and agricultural economy is an issue open
to question. Similarly, Goodman (2004, p. 9) calls for a more realistic assessment of
the territorial value-added model to understand whether alternative food strategies
are truly mitigating long-standing rural problems of poverty, inequality, and social
exclusion.
Given the paucity of empirical data of sufficient reach and quality and the relatively
early development stage of many of the alternative food practices, it is still too difficult
to judge the viability and efficiency of alternative food networks in delivering goals of
sustainable agriculture and rural development (Marsden, 2004, p. 131). Nevertheless,
much can be done to enhance our understanding of their potential for helping producers to capture a bigger proportion of added value and for bringing consumers closer
to the origins of their food. To meet this goal, in this paper we aim to critically analyze
the rich and heterogeneous empirical dimension of alternative food networks, as this
emerges in the current literature, and then to develop a wider critical and comparative
overview of their nature and impacts in relation to some key debates in the new
economic geography (Clark et al., 2000; Sheppard and Barnes, 2000). These suggest
new processes of re-localization of economic activities and practices, territorial transformations, and contested battles over conventions.
We argue here that this is a necessary step to identify the conceptual and methodological tools needed to grasp the variability of alternative food networks, to explore
their nature and dynamics, and to relate this to broader issues of rural development. In
addition, there is a need to refresh these debates with wider economic geographys
theoretical concerns such as embeddedness, alternative economic spaces (see Lee and
Wills, 1997), and the relational turn (Boggs and Rantisi, 2003). The emergence of
alternative food networks represents a distinctive but contested feature of the new
rural/regional economy. A wider and more integrated analytical perspective is necessary
to understand how such networks begin to unravel Storpers complex organizational
puzzle (Storper, 1997b) in local and regional development.
In the first part of the paper, we analyze the emergence of alternative food networks
in the light of the crisis of the conventional agri-food sector. We then identify and
discuss some theoretical difficulties in drawing a clear distinction between conventional
and alternative food networks. Such difficulties, we believe, relate primarily to the often
ambiguous and highly competitive relationships between alternative networks and the
conventional food economy, as well as to their different (largely empirical) emphases on
differentiated and contested notions of quality (Harvey et al., 2004)an issue which is
also present in wider debates concerning alternative economic spaces (Leyshon et al.,
2003) and the embeddedness of a real social economy (Amin et al., 2003).
183
After reviewing the scholarly discourse surrounding the emerging food practices, we
focus on the concept of embeddednesswhich, as the literature makes clear, is one of
the main traits that distinguish alternative food networks from the conventional chains.
Building upon a growing literature on the meaning and implications of this concept in
the context of food, we utilize embeddedness as an analytical tool to identify a refined
agenda and framework for research and conceptualization on alternative food networks. In particular, by focusing on the new political and institutional scenario created
in Europe by the recent reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), we emphasize the need to situate more effectively the alternative food networks in their regulatory,
institutional, sociocultural, and spatial context.
184
Marsden et al. (2000) emphasize that, in contrast with conventional chains, alternative
food networks display new relationships of association and institutionalization; they
involve companies and actors that have redefined their relationships with the state; they
reconfigure the natural, quality, regional, and value constructions associated with food
production and supply; they show positive value-added gains in terms of farm income;
and they reveal considerable variation in the associational and face-to-face interactions
involved in the production, animation, and sales of food.
A few case studies, however, show that, in some cases, although abstract distinctions
between alternative and conventional food systems can be made, there are no clear
boundaries between them. Murdoch and Miele (1999), for example, provide two case
studies that illustrate the complexities of contemporary food production in Italy. The
first concerns a large egg producer company that, over time, has moved from a standardized, generic production of eggs towards a plurality of new products imbued with
natural and animal-friendly qualities and dedicated to specific groups of consumers.
The second case involves a group of small organic producers, embedded in a traditional
world of production, who, by collectively establishing a commercial structure, have
partially standardized a dedicated organic produce. Similarly, Straete and Marsden
(2003) analyse two dairy companies, in Norway and Wales, which, on the one hand,
operate in the traditional agri-industrial world, trying to modernize traditional recipes
to satisfy industrial claims; on the other hand, however, both companies emphasize
qualities linked to local alternative food and farm-based processing.
These empirical analyses show that, in the context of the evolutionary dynamics of
alternative food networks, the conventional dichotomy between standardized and localized food does not thoroughly reflect the present reality of the food sector. From a
theoretical perspective, this warns against the widespread inclination to posit clear distinctions between conventional and alternative food networks and it encourages the
search for new conceptual and methodological tools to explore the nature and dynamics
of the alternative sector. From an empirical and political perspective, there is also an
urgent need to develop a more rigorous theoretical framework around alternative food
networks. One of the factors indirectly responsible for blurring the boundaries between
conventional and alternative food networks is the latters emphasis on attributes of
quality, a negotiable and contested concept that, as we will discuss, is always open
for interpretation and appropriation. Morris and Young (2000) argue that in the food
sector, quality does not refer exclusively to the properties of the food itself. It also
embraces the ways in which those properties have been achieved. In their words, it
is these different methods and systems that are responsible for the reshaping and
reorganization of food supply networks as producers and other actors are forced to
modify methods of production and processing, build new relationships with others in
the supply chain and adapt to new regulatory pressures (Morris and Young, 2000,
p. 105). This process is not necessarily smooth or problem-free. In fact, it is often the
case that different supply-chain actors, including those who operate in the conventional
system, compete for the authority to define the particular character of food quality. As
with any contested concept, these disagreements are not merely semantic disputes. They
are substantive political arguments that reflect different interests, agendas, and values.
There is potential for powerful actors within the food productionconsumption chain
to manipulate meanings, thereby creating difficulties for small producers who wish to
differentiate their products and secure added value (Ilbery and Kneafsey, 2000, p. 220).
185
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ence to its specific productionconsumption context (Ilbery and Kneafsey, 2000, p. 219)
and it reflects different patterns and locations of economic power in the particular
food chain.
As a result, at all levels, different alternative food networks are built around different
and competing definitions of quality that reflect differences in farming systems, cultural
traditions, organizational structures, consumer perceptions, and institutional and
policy support (Renting et al., 2003, p. 394). This variation has important implications for our attempts to conceptualize alternative food products. Tregear (2003),
for instance, shows that the classic concept of typical products, informed by Roman
conventions based on a strong cultural belief in the relationship between geographic
origin and special quality, is inadequate to classify typical products in the UK.
By tracing, over time, the key social, economic, political, and cultural influences
on the links between food and territory in the UK, in terms of both production
and consumption, Tregear elaborates an alternative typology and a broadened concept
of typical products. Again, this study emphasizes the difficulties implicit in the attempt
to develop a general and comprehensive framework to classify alternative food
products; as Tregear (2003, p. 103) concludes, if examination is grounded in the
specific contexts and conventions of another country, a different set of norms
emerges and a more subtle and insightful picture ensues of the links between food
and territory.
Several studies can be brought together here to identify the variation in quality
attributes and criteria existing among different countries. For example, in Italy,
Spain, and France the development of alternative food networks mostly builds on
activities of regional quality production and direct selling with long-lasting traditions
(Marsden, 2004). In fact, those countries, along with Portugal and Greece, originate
more than 75% of European registered, regionally designated products. Parrott et al.
(2002) explain this by referring to the combination of a number of cultural and structural factors that mediate and reinforce links among region of origin, tradition, and
quality in southern Europe. These include the predominance of small, diversified, and
labour-intensive family farms employing traditional methods; the prevalence of the
convention of domestic worth, with the market and industrial conventions embedded
in robust localistic and civic orders of evaluation; and the presence of highly fragmented
food-processing sectors. Within this context, southern producers have often been
attuned to traditional and typical regional foods and, more generally, to the view
that the terroir, or the context of production (culture, tradition, production process,
terrain, climate, local knowledge system), strongly shapes the quality of the product
itself. In these European countries, the national and EU legislation on legal protection
of quality production has been an institutional stimulus for the consolidation of
alternative food networks.
In contrast, in countries such as the UK, the Netherlands, and Germany the development of alternative food networks is often based on modern and more commercial
quality definitions, stressing environmental sustainability or animal welfare, and on
innovative (and retailer-led) forms of marketing. In this sense, they may exemplify
the general move towards ecological modernization that reconciles agriculture and
environment in ways which continue to support agricultural production (Evans et al.,
2002). Parrott et al. (2002) point out that, in contrast with the south, northern
European countries share cultural and structural factors that tend to militate against
187
the construction of regionally distinctive foods and against any clear association with
spatialized notions of quality. Such factors include the prevalence of larger, more
capital-intensive, economically efficient and specialized farms; the presence of localistic
or ecological conventions that are embedded inand gain their value withinan
industrial and market context; and a more centralized and standardized
processing sector dominated by medium-sized and large food manufacturers and
retailers.
In contrast with the south, then, northern European countries have developed a
legal system of protection and marketing revolving around privately owned brand
trademarks and a more functional approach to food governance. In this context, the
quality of food is determined more by matters of public health and hygiene than by
organoleptic properties. As a result, in the north economic efficiency and responsiveness to the market, underpinned by health and safety legislation, are considered the
most effective means of delivering quality food.
In conclusion, we can see from this review that research and understanding of alternative food networks have progressed only so far. The emphasis in what we might term
the first phase of research has been on empirically objectifying the phenomenon and in
realizing and exposing some of its diversity. This diversity, however, raises important
spatial and analytical questions about the degree to which current theoretical and concrete analyses incorporate the evolutionary dynamics of alternative food networks at
different spatial scales. Moreover, this body of work has re-emphasized and questioned
the redefined nature of space and territory as both an active and reactive ingredient in
the development of alternative networks. A common theme here is to frame this in
terms of a re-localization of food. However, thus far, this process is by no means clearly
analytically understood, and there is a danger of it following the political rhetoric
contained in many of the policy documents of recent years. In the UK, for example,
the Report on the Future of Farming and Food (known as the Curry Report), published by a policy commission in 2002 in an effort to chart a course out of the foot and
mouth crisis, urges farmers to develop the alternative sectori.e. to increase the
market share of local, locality, regional, and organic foods. Local food, in particular,
is seen as one of the greatest opportunities for farmers to add value and retain a bigger
slice of retail value (Policy Commission on the Future of Farming and Food, 2002,
p. 43). On the ground, however, the government is doing very little to support the
alternative food sector through the development of much needed forms of innovative
demand management in the areas of public procurement and marketing, for example.
Quite the opposite, in an effort to let the market become more liberalized and to avoid
deviations from the principles of European competition policy, which restricts state
aids, the governments Food Standards Agency is leaving largely intact a private sector
system of food regulation implemented by the retailers. Based on highly restrictive
quality conventions (which require, for instance, the stripping away of fats, offal,
and poorer quality meat cuts) and on strict planning, hygiene, and fiscal control, this
hygienic/bureaucratic regulatory regime allows retailers to maintain control over the
food chain (Marsden, 2004). On the other side, however, producers wishing to diversify
into meeting the market for non-industrially produced foods are still forced to comply
with the logic and requirements of the conventional agri-food system. Examples of this
kind show that there is, therefore, a distinct analytical need, especially from within the
disciplinary realms of economic geography and rural sociology, to assess more rigorously and critically the nature of this supposed re-localization of food as potentially a
188
sort of elision between the local and the social (see Amin et al., 2003) and as part of an
emerging and new agri-food paradigm.
189
The concept of embeddedness can be a very useful theoretical device to deepen the
investigation of the relationship between food and territory. Broadly speaking, this
notion has been long and widely used to emphasize the social component of economic
action. In agri-food studies, embeddedness has proved to be an effective concept to
emphasize the more socially entrenched character of alternative food networks. Sage
(2003), for example, makes the case that social embeddedness and relations of mutual
regard underpin the existence of an alternative good food network in southwest
Ireland.
Various scholars, however, warn against the limitations of studies that utilize the
notion of embeddedness exclusively to describe and emphasize the social dimension
of alternative food networks. As Hinrichs (2000) and Goodman (2004) indicate, this
type of focus can in fact reinforce a very optimistic view of local economic relations,
based on an overly simplistic opposition between global capitalist actors and their
embedded local counterparts (Goodman, 2004, p. 5).
We believe that, for embeddeness to become a truly powerful explanatory concept
(Winter, 2003a, p. 24) in agri-food studies, it is necessary to assess its implications
also outside the social realm. As some researchers have begun to argue, the concept
of embeddedness assumes a much wider meaning in the context of food as it embraces
also the economic, environmental, cultural, and political dimensions of food networks.
Murdoch et al. (2000), for instance, have utilized the notion of embeddedness to
describe the interrelationship among nature, provenance, and quality that differentiates
local food products from globalized commodities. More recently, Kirwan (2004) has
adopted a more actor-oriented approach to suggest that, in the context of the agri-food
system, embeddedness can be utilized in three different ways: first, to create alternative
systems of food production and distribution that incorporate social, environmental,
and health issues into the production and consumption of food; second, to valorize
local assets and obtain a comparative commercial advantage that enables marginal
areas to remain economically viable; third, embeddedness can be appropriated by
actors operating at the globalized level to maximize their commercial profit by accessing
niche markets.
Building upon these wider interpretations and on recent calls for studies that identify
different degrees and qualities of embeddedness (Winter, 2003a, p. 24) and assess
powerful disembedding forces (Goodman, 2004, p. 10), we propose a research framework based upon a more holistic approach to embeddedness. We believe that if we
want to understand how alternative food networks are built, shaped, and reproduced
over time and space and whether or not this process is realistically contributing to a new
rural development paradigm, the development of these networks must be analyzed at
two different, but strongly interrelated, levels. The first level involves the political,
institutional, and regulatory context in which alternative food networks operate. The
second concerns the local/regional context in which they take shape. Schweizer (1997)
illustrates the interconnection between these two levels well when he argues that embeddedness has not just a horizontal facet that involves the interpenetration of
societal/cultural domains. It also has a vertical facet that relates to hierarchical linkages of individual and corporate actors at the local level to the larger society, economy,
and polity of which they are part. This larger context constrains local action but also,
by providing new opportunities, allows local manoeuvring and interacts with the local
level.
190
the formation of new local economic or social relationships, the understanding of new ways of
seeing the food system, the background politicking required for the formation of new policies,
the training or mentoring of new civic entrepreneurs, the creation of new food system
infrastructures, and the growing body of research analysing and evaluating new alternatives.
(Feenstra, 2002, p. 104)
Recently, the so-called relational turn in economic geography has also emphasized
the need for an analytical integration of different scales. As Boggs and Rantisi (2003)
explain, relational economic geography emphasizes agency and the micro-level
of analysis, but does not treat the local simply as the most effective site for the coordination of socioeconomic activity. In fact, by recognizing that this conflation takes
place during the translation of the meso-level concept from a network into a scale
(Boggs and Rantisi, 2003, p. 113), relational geographers do not privilege one scale
a priori. Rather, they consider the interrelations among different scales; in so doing,
they problematize space, which comes to be seen as a perspective for examining social
relations instead of the object of analysis (Boggs and Rantisi, 2003, p. 114).
To account for both the horizontal and the vertical embeddedness of alternative food
networks, it is necessary to integrate the analysis of the wider institutional and governance system in which alternative food systems carve and maintain their space (i.e. the
vertical dimension) with a bottom-up consideration of local conditions and agency
(i.e. the horizontal dimension). Although the analysis of food governance identifies
the macro-regulatory context in which food networks develop and operate, the adoption of an agency-oriented approach is essential to uncover local practices and strategies
with regard to the development and consolidation of alternative food networks.
New economic networks of production, processing, and marketing always create new
horizontal platforms of action and actor-space which develop their own discourses of
competition and trust, negotiation and quality. The analysis of such discourses is necessary, for example, to understand the dynamic conventions of quality that alternative
food networks develop and the new type of symbiosis among nature, animals, and
actors in which they are grounded.
In one of the few attempts to reach a practical understanding of what it takes
to make a food system sustainable, Feenstra (2002) supports this need for a
holistic approach when she argues that the development of sustainable food systems
involves an invisible web of very different dimensions and activities. In her words,
these include
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agenda that explores in more detail the competitive (and often highly dependent) relations that such alternative food networks have with the corporate sector (particularly
the retailers) and that analyzes more thoroughly their regional/institutional context,
social configuration, and the extent to which they are spreading and impacting on
wider spatial development processes.
To account for both the vertical (i.e. the political and institutional) and the horizontal
(i.e. the societal, spatial, and cultural) embeddedness of alternative food networks in
Western Europe, we need to develop and integrate research on at least three main
dimensions.
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farming sector. These should include, they argue, measures that expand the market
for this quality sector as well as policy measures based on targeted environmental
action, such as financial aid for avoiding absorption into more intensive systems and
regulations and programmes which restrict the activities and externalities of the
conventional agri-food sector. In Wales, on the other hand, an analysis of the
constraints to the embodiment of local and regional quality in food supply networks
leads Banks and Bristow (1999) to suggest a specific need for public investment in
processing capacity. Marsden and Smith (in press) compare two socio-technical
food niches in the UK and the Netherlands which seem to require alternative forms
of regulation to defend their spatial and social boundaries against the CAPs lock-in
effects of production-based subsidy structures, intensively based production systems,
low value-added chains, and a clientelistic farmerstate relationship. Finally, in supporting the need to develop local products through mainstream channels in the UK,
Weatherell et al. (2003) advocate a more interventionist approach in the food supply
chain to promote explicit and independent mechanisms that monitor and certify the
production and distribution of local foods.
194
actors (Boggs and Rantisi, 2003, p. 112), the relational turn approach enables
researchers to uncover the role of power in shaping peoples interrelations and to
identify different governance structures.
Constructions of quality entail power relations among different social actors. The
two processes are inseparable now in both the alternative and conventional food
systems. In this respect, the dichotomy between alternative and retailer-led food
supply chains can be represented as a battlefield of knowledge, authority and
regulation fought around different levels of embeddedness and socio-technical definitions of quality (Marsden, 2004). The outcome of this ongoing battle is to empower or
disempower particular sets of supply chain actors, which in turn sets in train a geographical dynamica process that has ramifications both at the level of food production, where it can affect rural development, and at the level of food consumption,
largely, but not exclusively, in the urban realm. In fact, it is important to emphasize
that, in the context of food, power ought not to be located unequivocally in the sphere
of production. Consumers also must be acknowledged as relational actors in recursive,
mutually constituted food circuits (Goodman, 2002, p. 272).
In short, to assess the level and degree of horizontal embeddedness of alternative
food networksi.e. the extent to which they are socioculturally, economically, and
environmentally embedded in their localityit is crucial to investigate the strategies
used by different actors to start, consolidate, and develop these innovations. Often
based on negotiated and socially constructed notions of quality, such strategies speak
about power relations within and between food chains. Investigating how power is
distributed across the food chain and, more specifically, how actors involved in alternative food networks see their role in challenging and reshaping the agri-food system is
an essential step for understanding the nature of these networks and their potential for
new forms of rural development.
195
DE-LOCALIZATION
Conventional agri-food
RE-LOCALIZATION
Alternative agri-food
Emphasis on quality;
producers finding strategies to
capture value-added; new
producer associations; new
socio-technical spatial niches
developing.
Type of spatial
relationships
Producer relations
Processing and
retailing
Institutional
frameworks
Associational
frameworks
Consumer relations
Variable consumer
knowledge of place,
production, product, and the
spatial conditions of
production; from face-to-face
to at-a-distance purchasing.
Local/regional processing and
retailing outlets; highly
variable, traceable, and
transparent; spatially
referenced and designed
qualities.
Regional development and
local authority facilitation in
new network and
infrastructure building; local
and regional CAP support
(Pillar II).
Relational, trust-based, local,
and regionally-grounded;
network rather than linearbased; competitive but
sometimes collaborative.
Figure 1. Rural space as competitive space and the battleground between the conventional and
alternative agri-food sectors.
represents the first phase of scientific treatmenta phase which has been severely hampered by the lack of official statistical data on the trends themselves, and a reluctance
by many national governments to alter the increasingly outmoded data collected under
the conventional agricultural sector.
In the second part of the paper we have begun to posit a second phase of critical
scholarly engagement. This, of course, builds upon the assumption that these processes,
and the academic interest and commitment towards them, will continue to grow. We
believe that this is almost certainly the case given the continuing crises associated
with the conventional agri-food system and the growing vibrancy of the new rural
development/agri-food paradigm which is developing in Europe (see Marsden, 2003;
Van der Ploeg et al., 2000). However, as we attempt to frame in abstract terms in Figure
1, like all intellectual developments this is a highly contingent and contested process.
We cannot assume, for instance, that the agri-industrial system will simply wane despite
its crisis-ridden tendencies. Neither can we expect many new alternative and re-localized
agri-food initiatives not to fall prey to the intense price competitive and economiesof-scale pressures the agri-industrial system places upon them. The processes of
de-localization and re-localization outlined in Figure 1 only begin, in abstract terms,
to delineate what is represented more broadly in the new economic geography literature
as Storpers puzzle (Storper, 1997b, p. 255). As he defines it:
196
197
Acknowledgements
This paper is part of a research project supported by the Economic and Social Research Council
(UK) entitled Going Local? Regional Innovation Strategies and the New Agri-food Paradigm
(ref Toe50021). The authors would like to thank the editor of this journal and two anonymous
referees for their very helpful comments. They also wish to acknowledge the support of their two
partners in the project: Kevin Morgan and Jonathan Murdoch.
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