Soft innovations and Alternative Food Networks for sustainable agrifood systems

Economics as a science is rooted on the concept of finite resources. While resources are limited, humans have unlimited wants, hence they have to choose and make trade-offs: in other words, we have to efficiently allocate resources. Notwithstanding this very basic concept, the contemporary mass production and consumption models do not take into account resource scarcity and behave as if there exist no limit to growth and consumption. Luckily, however, after a few decades of academic debate, the topic of sustainability has been mainstreamed in politics and society as well. While global institutions started discussing and promoting sustainability since the early 1980’s, consumer awareness over sustainability issues is a more recent phenomenon, which has gained popularity since the early 2000’s. The adoption of sustainable lifestyles and consumption behaviours among a growing number of consumers pushes suppliers to offer alternative products and processes which consume less resources, generate less pollution, are more easily and safely disposed at the end of their lifecycle, i.e. are more sustainable. Moreover, not only environmental concerns drive these consumers’ choiches: indeed, they usually take into account different aspects of the sustainability spectrum, and include ethical and social considerations as well. The research presented in this document explores the contemporary trends in alternative and ethical consumption behaviours, in particular in the field of food choice. Nutrition in its nature is a basic human need and deeply rooted into all cultures, however inefficiencies and negative externalities of the global industrial food system are extremely costly. In response to the drawbacks of the green revolution, governments, practitioners, and researchers explore alternative production systems, which are expected to be more sustainable. We are witnessing a soft form of agricultural innovation, not only based on technical progress, but also on social relationships and values. Hence, this research explores the motivations for consumers and producers to participate in Alternative Food Networks (AFNs), together with the individual and social gains which AFNs generate. This document follows a three-paper structure. The first paper provides a broad review of the literature on agricultural economics and food production before and after sustainability became a leading concept, then provides an overview on present research trends linked to agrifood business and sustainable food production. The second paper presents an exploratory model to analyse consumer participation to, and satisfaction over AFNs. The spatial focus of this research is the Northeast Italy, as it is home to a broad variety of AFNs: farmers markets, community gardens, community-supported agriculture, box schemes, ethical purchasing groups. Finally, the third paper investigates the extreme trend of sustainable consumption and its spillovers, that is when consumers become producers: it reports a case study on the urban farming model of Ljubljana, and how urban farming, as a green infrastructure, contributes to build a sustainable city, generating goods, services, and amenities for the entire community.