Certifying agroecology: tracing organic boundaries

The histories of agroecology and organic are both long and intertwined (Bellon et al., 2011). The specific terminology “agroecology” has had different uses and trajectories in scholarly literature, policies and social movements (Bellon and Ollivier, 2018; Ollivier and Bellon, 2013), where each offer up their own specific visions of the concept. These range from a science, to a set of ecology informed agronomic practices, through socio-economic values, to political platforms (Wezel et al., 2009). Over the past ten years, the term agroecology has gained traction in research and higher education (Nicot et al., 2018), in farmers’ practices, in international expert discussions, and within specific national politics; thus legitimating it as a means to achieve sustainable agriculture (Loconto and Fouilleux, 2019). One element of agroecology that has received less attention is the market for agroecological products and the institutions that are required to ensure that an ‘agroecological’ quality is recognized and valued in market exchanges (Loconto et al., 2018). While organic agriculture has built up a set of institutions that enable producers to know which practices deliver ‘organic’ quality and permit consumers to recognize this through on-package labelling (Fouilleux and Loconto, 2017), the landscape for agroecological products is rather fluid and diversified. Often, products are traded directly between producers and consumers and quality is transmitted verbally. However, there has been a general increase in the use of private labels to claim that the products are agroecological or ‘beyond organic’ (Poméon et al., 2019). This paper interrogates this recent movement by asking: what quality attributes are claimed through on-package labels for agroecology and how are the institutions constructed to guarantee these claims? To answer this question, data on labels that claim they are ‘agroecological’ and their corresponding guarantee systems were collected through internet research, market surveillance and semi-structured interviews in Argentina, Brazil and France. This three-country comparison offers interesting insights into the overlaps and boundaries between agroecology and organic in terms of the markets that are created for their products. We explore in this research the range of claims used to characterize on-package labels. We then develop a typology of agroecological products that captures the variety of attributes and enables us to see where and how boundaries are created between agroecology and organic in three markets, where organic labels are highly regulated

Voiceless but empowered farmers in corporate supply chains: contradictory imagery and instrumental approach to empowerment

There have been calls for a shift of focus towards the political and power-laden aspects of transitioning towards socially equitable global supply chains. This paper offers an empirically grounded response to these calls from a critical realist stance in the context of global food supply chains. We examine how an imaginary for sustainable farming structured around an instrumental construction of empowerment limits what is viewed as permissible, desirable and possible in global food supply chains. We adopt a multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to examine the sustainable farming imaginary for smallholder farmers constructed by one large organization, Unilever, in a series of videos produced and disseminated on YouTube. We expose the underlying mechanisms of power and marginalization at work within the sustainability imaginary and show how “empowerment” has the potential to create of new dependencies for these farmers. We recontextualize the representations to show that while the imaginary may be commercially feasible, it is less achievable in terms of empowering smallholder farmers

Strategies for tropical forest protection and sustainable supply chains: challenges and opportunities for alignment with the UN sustainable development goals

Governance for sustainable development increasingly involves diverse stakeholder groups, with the promise of enhanced legitimacy and effectiveness in decision-making and implementation. The UN sustainable development goals (SDGs) emphasise the important role of multiple (non-state) actors, including businesses and non-governmental organisations, including in efforts to ensure the sustainability of supply chains, and to reduce tropical deforestation and forest degradation. This paper critically analyses sustainability strategies to examine how the UN SDG agendas related to ‘sustainable supply chains’ and ‘tropical forest protection’ are framed and enacted by two contrasting non-state actors: (1) Instituto Centro de Vida (ICV), an NGO in Brazil working to address deforestation, including by supporting farmers to produce commodities, and (2) Unilever, a global consumer goods manufacturer and major buyer of such commodities. By identifying areas of variability in the discursive techniques used by ICV and Unilever, we unearth particular power dynamics that can shape the processes and outcomes of sustainability strategies. This paper finds that the two organisations use diverse strategies at different levels of governance, both participate actively in multi-stakeholder forums to advance their organisations’ goals, but have divergent framings of ‘sustainability’. Despite being considered ‘non-state’ actors, the strategies of the two organisations examined both reflect, and influence, the structural effects of the state in the implementation of non-state organisations’ strategies, and progress towards the SDGs. Although there is alignment of certain strategies related to tropical forest protection, in some cases, there is a risk that more sustainable, alternative approaches to governing forests and supply chains may be excluded

A Recent Class of Chemosensory Neurons Developed in Mouse and Rat

In most animal species, the vomeronasal organ ensures the individual recognition of conspecifics, a prerequisite for a successful reproduction. The vomeronasal organ expresses several receptors for pheromone detection. Mouse vomeronasal type-2 receptors (V2Rs) are restricted to the basal neurons of this organ and organized in four families. Family-A, B and D (family ABD) V2Rs are expressed monogenically (one receptor per neuron) and coexpress with either Vmn2r1 or Vmn2r2, two members of family-C V2Rs. Thus, basal neurons are characterized by specific combinations of two V2Rs. To investigate this issue, we raised antibodies against all family-C V2Rs and analyzed their expression pattern. We found that six out of seven family-C V2Rs (Vmn2r2-7) largely coexpressed and that none of the anti-Vmn2r2-7 antibodies significantly stained Vmn2r1 positive neurons. Thus, basal neurons are divided into two complementary subsets. The first subset (Vmn2r1-positive) preferentially coexpresses a distinct group of family-ABD V2Rs, whereas the second subset (Vmn2r2-7-positive) coexpresses the remaining group of V2Rs. Phylogenetic reconstruction and the analysis of genetic loci in various species reveal that receptors expressed by this second neuronal subset are recent branches of the V2R tree exclusively present in mouse and rat. Conversely, V2Rs expressed in Vmn2r1 positive neurons, are phylogenetically ancient and found in most vertebrates including rodents. Noticeably, the more recent neuronal subset expresses a type of Major Histocompatibility Complex genes only found in murine species. These results indicate that the expansion of the V2R repertoire in a murine ancestor occurred with the establishment of a new population of vomeronasal neurons in which coexists the polygenic expression of a recent group of family-C V2Rs (Vmn2r2-7) and the monogenic expression of a recent group of family-ABD V2Rs. This evolutionary innovation could provide a molecular rationale for the exquisite ability in individual recognition and mate choice of murine species

Value Chains and Chains of Values: Tracing Tanzanian Tea

The objective of this paper is to examine value chain governance through case studies of four different certified value chains for Tanzanian tea. This paper takes a look at a traditional export commodity, tea, and discusses the implications of involvement in value-based certification schemes (Ethical Trading Initiative, Fairtrade, Organic and Rainforest Alliance) on certified producers in Tanzania. Each of these certification schemes makes claims on specific values that it is instilling in a particular ‘value chain’. This paper specifically analyses the network construction of each certified value chain and answers the questions: 1) which actors are involved in each value chain, 2) which values are claimed as organizing principles of these value chains, and 3) what does this mix of actors and values contribute to our understanding of value chain governance. Between 2008 and 2010, eighty in-depth interviews were conducted with stakeholders who are certified against sustainability standards. Twenty-one focus groups were formed comprising certified smallholders and hired labourers. The conclusions suggest that despite claims about the ability to change trading relationships through the certification systems, most of the old networks are still in place. The certification systems only add additional buyers to global value chains that were already governed by highly relational and hierarchical mechanisms. These conclusions thus place in question some of the claims made by certification bodies as to their abilities to change practices

Exploring prosumption: Reconfiguring labor through rural-urban food networks?

The aim of this special issue is to explore emergent phenomena in the agri-food sector through the lens of prosumption, in order to highlight its heuristic value in identifying new and emerging trends in the field, especially focusing on the interplay between social and economic relations. This introduction explores the theoretical foundations of the notion of prosumption and the linkages with the alternative agri-food networks literature in order to propose a new set of research questions that can help scholars to better articulate the relationships between the emergence of hybrid actors and new forms of work in the production and consumption of food