Understanding Alternative Food Networks: Exploring the Role of Short Food Supply Chains in Rural Development

In this paper we explore the development and incidence of alternative food networks within a European-wide context. By developing a consistent definition of short food supply chains, we address both the morphology and the dynamics of these, and then examine empirical evidence concerning their incidence and rural development impact across seven EU member states. These developments need to be seen as one significant contribution to the current transitions in rural Europe concerning the crisis of conventional intensive and productivist agriculture and the public consumer pressure for a larger variety of distinctive ‘quality’ food products.

[1]  D. Roep.  Value of Quality and Region: The Waddengroup Foundation , 2002 .

[2]  Romano Prodi,et al.  Living countrysides : rural development processes in Europe: the state of the art , 2002 .

[3]  Henk Renting,et al.  Reconnecting nature, farming and society: environmental cooperatives in the Netherlands as institutional arrangements for creating coherence , 2001 .

[4]  K. Knickel.  The marketing of Rhöngold milk: an example of the reconfiguration of natural relations with agricultural production and consumption , 2001 .

[5]  J. van der Ploeg,et al.  The road towards sustainable rural development: issues of theory, policy and research practice , 2001 .

[6]  Creating sustainability: the social construction of the market for organic products , 2001 .

[7]  G. Bristow,et al.  Food supply chain approaches: exploring their role in rural development. , 2000 .

[8]  Karlheinz Knickel,et al.  Rural Development: From Practices and Policies towards Theory , 2000 .

[9]  Gianluca Brunori,et al.  Synergy and coherence through collective action : Some insights from wine routes in Tuscany , 2000 .

[10]  H. Renting,et al.  Methodological and Conceptual Issues in the Study of Multifunctionality and Rural Development , 2000 .

[11]  D. Goodman.  Organic and conventional agriculture: Materializing discourse and agro-ecological managerialism , 2000 .

[12]  Tim P. Vos.  Visions of the middle landscape: Organic farming and the politics of nature , 2000 .

[13]  Moya Kneafsey,et al.  Reading the space of the farmers' market: a preliminary investigation from the UK. , 2000 .

[14]  J. Murdoch,et al.  Quality, Nature, and Embeddedness: Some Theoretical Considerations in the Context of the Food Sector* , 2000 .

[15]  D. Barjolle,et al.  The socio-economics of origin labelled products in agri-food supply chains : spatial, institutional and co-ordination aspects , 2000 .

[16]  K. Roest.  The production of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese: the force of an artisanal system in an industrialised world. , 2000 .

[17]  Moya Kneafsey,et al.  Niche Markets and Regional Speciality Food Products in Europe: Towards a Research Agenda , 1999 .

[18]  On power and weakness, capacity and impotence: Rigidity and flexibility in food chains , 1999 .

[19]  T. Marsden,et al.  Consuming Interests: The Social Provision of Foods , 1999 .

[20]  M. Renard.  The Interstices of Globalization: The Example of Fair Coffee , 1999 .

[21]  P. M. Stassart.  Du savoir aux saveurs. 101 chemins pour une alimentation de qualite , 1999 .

[22]  D. Goodman.  Agro-Food Studies in the ‘Age of Ecology’: Nature, Corporeality, Bio-Politics , 1999 .

[23]  Johannes Michelsen,et al.  The European Market for Organic Products: Growth and Development , 1999 .

[24]  B. Nygard,et al.  De-globalization of Food Markets? Consumer Perceptions of Safe Food: The Case of Norway , 1998 .

[25]  T. Marsden.  New rural territories: Regulating the differentiated rural spaces , 1998 .

[26]  J. Pretty.  The living land : agriculture, food and community regeneration in rural Europe , 1998 .

[27]  I. Bowler,et al.  From agricultural productivism to post-productivism , 1998 .

[28]  Sarah Whatmore,et al.  Nourishing Networks: Alternative Geographies of Food , 1997 .

[29]  R. Farnsworth,et al.  COMMUNITY SUPPORTED AGRICULTURE: FILLING A NICHE MARKET , 1996 .

[30]  T. Marsden,et al.  Constructing Quality: Emerging Food Networks in the Rural Transition , 1995 .

[31]  Neil Ward,et al.  THE AGRICULTURAL TREADMILL AND THE RURAL ENVIRONMENT IN THE POST-PRODUCTIVIST ERA , 1993 .

[32]  W. Boyd,et al.  Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity@@@Risk and Rationality: Philosophical; Foundations for Populist Reforms , 1993 .

[33]  Mark Shucksmith,et al.  FARM HOUSEHOLD BEHAVIOUR AND THE TRANSITION TO POST-PRODUCTIVISM , 1993 .

[34]  C. Shapiro.  Premiums for High Quality Products as Returns to Reputations , 1983 .