Alternative Food Networks Development and Multiple Actors’ Participation in China: A Review

This article reviews the studies about the alternative food network development in China, summarizes the results and identifies the issues for further research. It first introduces different theoretical perspectives in alternative food network studies in China, including community supported agriculture, nested market, short food supply chains and producerconsumer connection. The causes of rising alternative food networks are the serious food safety problem, the un-balanced power between different actors in the mainstream agrofood system and the increasing number of middle income citizens. Its development close relates to the changes in the international agro-food system. And the government dominates the establishment of the certification system and give limited support to the emerging food networks. The consumers and majority of producers are social elites, and the small scale farmers participate in the networks under the support of intermediaries. Further studies can pay more attention to following issues: the landscape of alternative food networks development in China, the value construction processes between different actors, the role of companies in alternative food network construction and introducing technical perspective of ecological agriculture into research

Nested markets in marginal areas: weak prosumers and strong food chains

This paper is an attempt to test the importance of nested markets in Italy. The concept of nested markets, born in agricultural settings, has been expanded to other sectors and to urban areas. It is focused on two aspects of rural development literature: the prominence of exchanges of resources and services on their ownership/availability, and the emergence of new forms of spatialised intermediations versus the simple idea of globalised and digital dis-intermediation. The concept is applied to seven Italian cases that were presented in a conference and then published in the journal \u2018Culture della sostenibilit\ue0\u2019. It is a secondary analysis of a purposive small sample. A general statistical analysis is not possible due to the great variety and informality of exchanges. Two weaknesses however are quite common on analysed cases: vertical organisation of exchanges (filiere) prevails on territorial integrated organisation (district), and consumers are weakly involved. The ideal of nested markets driven by prosumers or a consumption movement results feebler than expected

Desvio, problematização e solidariedade como atributos de criação de lugares sustentáveis

This paper aims to progress a conceptual and analytical view to the appreciation and connectivity of spaces, places and nature in reconceptualising and progressing sustainability transitions. We look at the interrelationships between the distinct approaches of deviant mainstreaming of socially innovative practices, problematisation through innovative translation, and anchoring sustainable translations through solidarity assemblages. These three dimensions allow us to develop a neo-Callonist perspective for sustainable placemaking and translation in sustainability science. We refer to some empirical experiences to appreciate these interrelationships that contribute to new realities and create new spaces and places of innovation.Este artículo pretende avanzar en una visión conceptual y analítica de la valoración y la conectividad de los espacios, los lugares y la naturaleza en la reconceptualización y el progreso de las transiciones hacia la sostenibilidad. Se examinan las interrelaciones entre los distintos enfoques de la integración desviada de las prácticas socialmente innovadoras, la problematización a través de la traducción innovadora y el anclaje de las traducciones sostenibles a través de los ensamblajes solidarios. Estas tres dimensiones nos permiten desarrollar una perspectiva neocallista para la creación de lugares sostenibles y la traducción en la ciencia de la sostenibilidad. Nos referimos a algunas experiencias empíricas para apreciar estas interrelaciones que contribuyen a nuevas realidades y crean nuevos espacios y lugares de innovación.Este documento tem como objetivo avançar uma visão conceptual e analítica da apreciação e conectividade dos espaços, lugares e natureza na reconceitualização e progresso das transições de sustentabilidade. Analisamos as inter-relações entre as abordagens distintas de integração de práticas socialmente inovadoras, problematização através de traduções inovadoras, e ancoragem de traduções sustentáveis através de assembleias solidárias. Estas três dimensões permitem-nos desenvolver uma perspectiva neocallonista para a construção de um lugar e tradução sustentáveis na ciência da sustentabilidade. Referimo-nos a algumas experiências empíricas para apreciar estas inter-relações que contribuem para novas realidades e criam novos espaços e lugares de inovação

The Effects of Organic Products on Conventional Products and Retailer Assortment Planning

The rapid growth in organic products has posed a major challenge to conventional retailer assortment planning. On the one hand, conventional retailers, driven by the relatively high margins of organic products, have increased organic product offerings. On the other hand, the shelf space for conventional retailers has remained the same, with newly opened stores much smaller in sizes. Therefore, retailers need to carefully manage their conventional product assortments to harvest the benefit of offering and increasing organic product assortments. In order to manage the assortment efficiently, conventional retailers need to understand how organic products would affect their existing products, consumers, and supply chain relationships. From the two essays that comprise this dissertation, the first essay aims to explain how organic products would affect retailers’ conventional assortments, as well as how supply chain power would shift the connection between organic assortments and conventional assortment. The second essay estimates the substitution effect between organic products and conventional products, and how consumers choose between organic and conventional products while multiple other product attributes also present. Research questions proposed in the essays are answered by statistical analysis of difference-in-difference analysis, instrumental variable regressions, and structural estimations on retailer scanner panel data that contains weekly product sales over a 4-year time horizon. Our findings suggest that a market expansion effect due to the introduction and expansion of organic products outweighs the operational costs for increasing both organic and conventional assortments. However, the supply chain power structure between retailers and manufacturers as well as retailer shelf space constraints will shift the relationship between organic and conventional assortments. We also find that consumers are more price-sensitive in organic products, and organic condition, product style, and seller attributes are all highly influential in shaping consumers’ purchasing decisions

The contribution of leisure and entertainment to the evolving polycentric urban network on regional scale - towards a new research agenda

The urban landscape in advanced economies transforms from monocentric cities to polycentric urban networks on regional scale. The growing amount of research that is being devoted to this transformation sticks to classic activity systems like residential development, economic production and employment and commuting. Synchronous to this transformation, a 'new' activity system, outdoor leisure and entertainment, increasingly leaves its stamp on the economic performance and spatial organisation of urban areas in general. Due to tremendous dynamics of consumption, production, and urban politics with regard to this activity system, it is subject of a composite of spatial pressures for centralisation in inner-cites, de-concentration away form central cities and (re-)concentration in suburbs and exurban places. Notwithstanding this composite spatial dynamics, leisure and entertainment are not part of the research agenda on regional polycentric urban networks. Based on brief overviews of literature on both polycentric urban development and the dynamics of leisure and entertainment in urban areas, this paper presents a few basic research questions in order to initiate the research agenda on the contribution of the leisure activity system to the development of polycentric urban networks on regional scale.

Competition and Public Information: A Note

We study price discrimination in a market in which two firms engage in Bertrand competition. Some consumers are contested by both firms, and other consumers are “captive” to one of the firms. The market can be divided into segments, which have different relative shares of captive and contested consumers. It is shown that the revenue-maximizing segmentation involves dividing the market into “nested” markets, where exactly one firm may have captive consumers

Rethinking the divide: Exploring the interdependence between global and nested local markets

The debate on smallholder commodification trajectories tends to be polarised between mainstream approaches that advocate tighter integration of smallholders into global value chains, and alternative approaches that favour localised markets on the grounds that these provide greater autonomy over production and marketing, and allow a greater share of value to be realised for producers and the wider community. This debate obscures the interrelations and possible synergies between them; a critique taken up in this paper. Using a case study on agricultural diversification in the former homeland of Venda, South Africa, we explore the usefulness of the nested markets concept to make sense of smallholders' patterning of markets by combining tree crops for export with seasonal vegetables for local markets. Exploring the drivers of diversification, we show how farmers’ patterning of markets depends on their profiles and corresponding trajectory of accumulation. Local markets are articulated systems that function as hybrid spaces of interaction that enable farmers without any alternative off-farm income to gain and sustain access to global commodity markets. This challenges the framing of nested markets as an act of resistance as well as the dichotomy between local versus global markets as mutually exclusive. Instead, we argue that these markets can be interconnected and mutually supportive and are opportunistically used as such by petty commodity producers to sustain their export-oriented production system. If these relations are better understood, they stand to enable agrarian policy, which currently favours high-value tree crops, to be more inclusive of young and less well-resourced farmers