Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Introduction: Bringing Together Alternative Agro-Food Networks and the Knowledge Economy: Why This Study, Why Now?

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Reclaiming the Knowledge Economy

  • 90 Accesses

Abstract

The introductory chapter of the book explains why an exploration of the links between alternative agro-food networks (AAFNs) and the knowledge-based economy (KBE) is important. It describes the rationale for the book and sets out the social, political economic and historical context for the emergence of both KBE and AAFNs. It introduces the wider debate over the ‘cognitive turn’ of contemporary post-industrial economies and its manifestation in agriculture and food, before delving into a more detailed account of both concepts, also in ways that help us realise the research need and timeliness for bringing these two areas of interest together. The last section of this introductory chapter provides a snapshot of the book, offering a route-map for the reader through the chapters and the argument to unravel.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
eBook
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 69.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Allen P., FitzSimmons M., Goodman M. and Warner K. (2003) Shifting plates in the agrifood landscape: the tectonics of alternative agrifood initiatives in California, Journal of Rural Studies 19(1): 61–75.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Allen, P., Van Dusen, D., Lundy, J. and Gliessman, S. (1991) Integrating social, environmental, and economic issues in sustainable agriculture, American Journal of Alternative Agriculture 6(1): 34–39.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Allen, P. and Wilson, A.B. (2008) Agri-food inequalities: globalization and localization, Development 51(4): 534–540.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Anteweiler, C. (2004) Local knowledge, Theory and Methods: an urban model from Indonesia. In Bicker, A., Sillitoe, P. and Pottier, J. (eds.) Investigating Local Knowledge. New Directions, New Approaches. Ashgate: pp. 1–34.

    Google Scholar 

  • Birch, K, Levidow, L. and Papaioannou, T. (2010) Sustainable Capital? The Neoliberalisation of Nature in the European Knowledge-based Bio-economy, Sustainability 2: 2898–2918.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brennan, T. (2000) Exhausting Modernity: Grounds for a new economy. London and New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown, S. and Getz, C. (2008) Towards domestic fair trade? Farm labor, food localism, and the ‘family scale’ farm, GeoJournal 739(1):11–22.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bruckmeier, K. and Tovey, H. (2008) Knowledge in sustainable rural development: from forms of knowledge to knowledge processes, Sociologia Ruralis 48(3): 313–329.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Buttel, F. (1997). Some Observations on Agro-Food Change and the Future of Agricultural Sustainability Movements. In Goodman, D. and Watts, M. (Eds.) Globalising Food: Agrarian Questions and Global Restructuring. London: Routledge: pp. 344–365.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clarke, N., Cloke, P. Barnett, C. and Malpass, A. (2008) The spaces and ethics of organic food, Journal of Rural Studies 24:219–230.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Collins, H.M. and Evans, R. (2002) The Third Wave of Science Studies: Studies of Expertise and Experience, Social Studies of Science 32(2):235–296.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cooper, M. (2008) Life as Surplus: Biotechnology and Capitalism in the Neoliberal Era. Seattle: University of Washington Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Du Puis, E.M. and Goodman, D. (2005) Should we got home to eat? Towards a reflexive politics of localism, Journal of Rural Studies 21:359–71.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • EC (2000) The Lisbon European Council—An Agenda of Economic and Social Renewal for Europe. Brussels: The European Commission, DOC/00/7.

    Google Scholar 

  • Feagan, R. (2007) The place of food: Mapping out the ‘local’ in local food systems, Progress in Human Geography 31(1):23–42.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Feenstra, G. (1997) Local food systems and sustainable communities American Journal of Alternative Agriculture 12:28–36.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fonte, M. (2008) Knowledge, Food and Place. A Way of Producing, a way of knowing, Sociologia Ruralis 48(3): 200–222.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fonte, M. and Grando, S. (2006) A Local Habitation and a Name: Local Food and Knowledge Dynamics in Sustainable Rural Development, CORASON project. Available online at www.corason.hu.

  • Fonte, M. and Papadopoulos, A. (2010) Naming Food After Places: Food Relocalisation and Knowledge Dynamics in Rural Development. Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Funtowicz, S.O. and Ravetz, J.R. (1994a) Uncertainty, Complexity and Post-Normal Science. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 13(12): 1981–1984.

    Google Scholar 

  • Funtowicz, S.O. and Ravetz, J.R. (1994b) Emergent Complex Systems. Futures 26(6): 568–582.

    Google Scholar 

  • Getz, C., Brown, S. and Shreck, A. (2008) Class Politics and Agricultural Exceptionalism in California’s Organic Agriculture Movement. Politics Society 36(4): 478–507.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gibson-Graham, J.K. (1996) The End of Capitalism (As We Knew It): A feminist Critique of Political Economy. Oxford UK and Cambridge USA: Blackwell Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gibson-Graham, J. K. (2006) A Postcapitalist Politics. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goodman, D. (2003) The quality ‘turn’ and alternative food practices: reflections and agenda. Journal of Rural Studies 19:1–7.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goodman, D. and Goodman, M. (2007) Localism, Livelihoods and the ‘Post-Organic’: Changing Perspectives on Alternative Food Networks in the United States. In Maye, D, Holloway, L. and Kneafsy, M. (eds.) Alternative Food Geographies Representation and Practice. Elsevier.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goodman, D. and Redclift, M. (1991) Refashioning Nature. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goodman, M.K., Maye, D. and Holloway, L. (2010) Ethical foodscapes?: Premises, promises, and possibilities, Environment and Planning A 42(8): 1782–1796.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gottlieb, R. (2001) Environmentalism Unbound: Exploring new pathways for change. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Guthman, J. (2004) The trouble with ‘organic lite’ in California: a rejoinder to the ‘conventionalisation’ debate, Sociologia Ruralis 44(3): 301–316.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hardt, M. (1999) Affective Labour, Boundary 2 26(2): 89–100.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hardt, M. and Negri, A. (2004) Multitude: War and Democracy at the Age of Empire. New York: The Penguin Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hartwick, E. (1998) Geographies of consumption: a commodity-chain approach, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 16: 423–437.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hassanein, N. (2003) Practicing Food democracy: a pragmatic politics of transformation, Journal of Rural Studies 19:77–86.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Henderson, E. (1998) Rebuilding local food systems from the grassroots up, The Monthly Review: An Independent Socialist Magazine 50:112–124.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Henderson, E. (2000) Rebuilding local food systems from the grassroots up. In Magdoff, F., Bellamy Foster, J. and Buttel, F.H. (Eds.) Hungry for Profit: The agribusiness Threat to Farmers, Food and the Environment. New York: Monthly Review Press: pp. 175–188.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hendrickson, M. and Hefferman, W. (2002) Opening spaces through relocalization: locating potential resistance in the weaknesses of the global food system, Sociologia Ruralis 42:347–69.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hinrichs, C. (2000) Embeddedness and local food systems: notes on two types of direct agricultural market, Journal of Rural Studies 16: 295–303.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hinrichs, C. (2003) The practice and politics of food system localization, Journal of Rural Studies 16:33–45.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ikerd, J. (1993) Two related but distinctly different concepts: organic farming and sustainable agriculture, Small Farm Today 10(1):30–31.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ilbery, B. and Bowler, I. (1998) From agricultural productivism to post-productivism. In B. Ilbery (ed.) The Geography of Rural Change. London: Longman.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ilbery, B. and Maye, D. (2005) Alternative (shorter) food supply chains and specialist livestock products in Scottish-English borders, Environment and Planning A 37(4):823–844.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ilbery, B., Watts, D., Simpson, S., Gilg, A. and Little, J. (2006) Mapping local foods: evidence from two English Regions, British Food Journal 108(3):213–225.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Iles, A. (2005) Learning in sustainable agriculture: food miles and missing objects, Environmental Values 14(2): 63–183.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jackson, P. Ward, N. and Russel, P. (2009) Moral economies of food and geographies of responsibility, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 34:12–24.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jessop, B. (2007) Knowledge as a fictitious commodity : insights and limits of a Polanyian perspective. In: Bugra, Ayse and Agartan, Kaan, (eds.) Reading Karl Polanyi for the twenty-first century: market economy as political project. Palgrave, Basingstoke.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jessop, B. (2008) State power: a strategic-relational approach. Cambridge: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kloppenburg, J., Henrickson, J. and Stevenson, G.W. (1996) Coming in to the foodshed, Agriculture and Human Values 13:33–42.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kloppenburg, J., Lezberg, S., De Master, K., Stevenson, G.W. and Hendrickson, J. (2000) Tasting Food, tasting sustainability: Defining the Attributes of an alternative food system with competent, ordinary people, Human Organisation 59 (2): 177–186.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Via Campesina (1996) Tlaxcala Declaration of the Via Campesina. April 1996. Available online at http://www.viacampesina.org/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=445:ii-international-conference-of-the-via-campesina-tlaxcala-mexico-april-18-21&catid=32:2-tlaxcala-1996&Itemid=48.

  • Lacy, W. (2000) Empowering Communities through public work, science and local food systems: revisiting democracy and globalisation, Rural Sociology 65:3–26.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lang, T. (2009) Re-shaping the food system for ecological public health, Journal of Hunger and Environmental Nutrition 4(3/4): 315–335.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lang, T., Barling, D. and Caraher, M. (2009) Food Policy: Integrating Health, Environment and Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Lazzarato, M. (1996) Immaterial Labor. In Hardt, M. and Virno, P. (eds.) Radical Thought in Italy: A Potential Politics, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota: pp. 133–50.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, R. (2000) Shelter from the storm? Geographies of regard in the worlds of horticultural consumption and production, Geoforum 31:137–157.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Levidow, L. (2008) European quality agriculture as an alternative bio-economy. In Guido Ruivenkamp, Shuji Hisano and Joost Jongerden (Eds.) Reconstructing Biotechnologies: Critical Social Analyses. Wageningen Academic: pp. 185–205.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levidow, L. and Boschert, K. (2008) Coexistence or contradiction? GM crops versus alternative agricultures in Europe, Geoforum 39(1): 174–190.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Levidow, L. and Carr, S. (2007) GM crops on trial: technological development as a real-world experiment, Futures 39(4): 408–431.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Levidow, L., Birch, K., Papaioannou, T. 2012a. Divergent paradigms of European Agro-Food Innovation: the Knowledge-based Bioeconomy (KBBE) as an R&D agenda, Science, Technology and Human Values, 38(1): 94–125.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Levidow, L., Birch, K. and Papaioannou, T. 2012b. EU agri-innovation policy: two contending visions of the bio-economy, Critical Policy Studies 6(1): 40–65.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marsden, T.K. (1998) New rural territories: Regulating the differentiated rural spaces, Journal of Rural Studies 14(1):107–117.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marsden, T.K. (2004) The quest for ecological modernisation: re-spacing rural development and agri-food studies, Sociologia Ruralis 44:129–146.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marsden, T.K. and Sonnino, R. (2008) Rural development and the regional state: Denying multifunctional agriculture in the UK, Journal of Rural Studies 24:422–431.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marsden, T. and Farioli, F. (2015) Natural Powers: From the Bio-economy to the Eco-economy and sustainable Place-making, Sustainability Science 10: 331–344.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marsden, T., Murdoch, J. and Morgan, K. (1999) Sustainable agriculture, food supply chains and regional development: editorial introduction, International Planning Studies 4(3):295–301.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marsden, T.K., Banks, J. and Bristow, G. (2000) Food supply chain approaches: exploring their role in rural development, Sociologia Ruralis 40:424–438.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McMichael, P. (2000) The power of food. Agriculture and Human Values 17:21–33.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McMichael, P. (2009) A Food Regime Genealogy, The Journal of Peasant Studies 36(1): 139–169.

    Google Scholar 

  • Merton, R.K. (1948) The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy, The Antioch Review 8(2): 193–210.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Morgan, K. and Murdoch, J. (2000) Organic versus Conventional Agriculture: Knowledge, Power and Innovation in the Food Chain, Geoforum 31:159–173.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morgan, K. J. and Sonnino, R. (2007) Empowering Consumers: The Creative Procurement of School Meals in Italy and the UK, International Journal of Consumer Studies 31(1):19–25.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Morris, C. and Buller, H. (2003) The local food sector: A preliminary assessment of its form and impact in Gloucestershire, British Food Journal 105(8):559–566.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Morris, C. and Young, C. (2000) ‘Seed to shelf’, ‘teat to table’, ‘barley to beer’ and ‘womb to tomb’: discourses of food quality and quality assurance schemes in the UK, Journal of Rural Studies 16:103–115.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Murdoch, J., Marsden, T. and Banks, J. (2000) Quality, nature and embeddedness: some theoretical considerations in the context of the food sector, Economic Geography 76(2):107–125.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nygren, A. (1999) Local Knowledge in the Environment_Development Discourse: From dichotomies to situated knowledges, Critique of Anthropology 19:267–288.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • People’s Food Policy (2019) A People’s Food Policy: Transforming Our Food System. Available Online at www.peoplesfoodpolicy.org

    Google Scholar 

  • Ploeg, J.D. van der, Renting, H., Brunori, G., Knickel, K. Mannion, J. Marsden, T.K., de Roest, K., Sevilla-Guzman, E. and Ventura, F. (2000) Rural development: from practices and policies towards theory. Sociologia Ruralis 40(4):391–408.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ponte, S. (2009) From Fishery to Fork: Food Safety and Sustainability in the Knowledge-Based Bioeconomy, Science as Culture 18(4):483–495.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pretty, J., Ball, A., Lang, T. and Morison, J. (2005) Farm costs and food miles: an assessment of the full cost of the weekly UK food basket, Food Policy 30(1):1–19.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Psarikidou, K. and Szerszynski, B. (2012a) Growing the Social: Alternative Agro-Food Networks and Social Sustainability in the Urban Ethical Foodscape, Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy 8(1): 30–39.

    Google Scholar 

  • Psarikidou, K. and Szerszynski, B. (2012b) The Moral Economy of Civic Food Networks in Manchester, International Journal for the Sociology of Agriculture and Food 19(3): 309–327.

    Google Scholar 

  • Psarikidou, K., Kaloudis, H., Fielden, A. and Reynolds, C. (2019) Local Food Hubs in deprived areas: De-stigmatising Food Poverty? Local Environment: The International Journal for Justice and Sustainability 24(6): 525–538.

    Google Scholar 

  • Raynolds, L. (2000) Re-embedding global agriculture: the international organic and fair trade movements. Agriculture and Human Values 17:297–309.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Raynolds, L.T. (2004) The Globalisation of Organic Agro-Food Networks, World development. 32(5):725–743.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Renting, H., Marsden, T. and Banks, J. (2003) Understanding alternative food networks: exploring the role of short food supply chains in rural development, Environment and Planning A 35(3): 393–411.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reynolds, L. and Szerszynski, B. (2010) Contested agro-technological futures: the GMO and the construction of European space. In Robbins, P. and Huzair, F. (Eds.) Transitioning the Life Sciences, Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sage, C. (2003) Social embeddedness and relations of regard: alternative ‘good food’ networks in south-west Ireland. Journal of Rural Studies 19:47–60.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schumpeter, J. (1942) Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. New York: Harper. 

    Google Scholar 

  • Seyfang, G. (2006) Ecological citizenship and sustainable consumption: examining local organic food networks, Journal of Rural Studies 22(4):383–395.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sielbert, R., Larchewski, L. and Dosch, A. (2008) Knowledge dynamics in valorising local nature, Sociologia Ruralis 48(3): 223–240.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sonnino, R. and Marsden, T.K. (2006) Beyond the Divide: Rethinking Relations Between Alternative and Conventional Food Networks in Europe, Journal of Economic Geography 6(2): 181–199.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stuiver, M., Leeuwis, C. and van der Ploeg, J.D. (2004)The Power of Experience: Farmers’ Knowledge and Sustainable Innovations in Agriculture. In J.S.C. Winskerke and J.D. van der Ploeg (eds.) Seeds of Transition: Essays on novelty production, niches and regimes in agriculture. The Netherlands: Koninkijke van Gorcum BV.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sunder Rajan, K. (2006) Biocapital: The Constitution of Postgenomic Life. Durham and London: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Tovey, H. (2008) Introduction: Rural Sustainable Development in a Knowledge Society Era, Sociologia Ruralis 48(3):185–199.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Trentmann, F. (2007) Before ‘fair trade’: empire, free trade, and the moral economies of food in the modern world, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 25:1079–1102.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Walby, S., Gottfried, H., Gotschall, K. and Osawa, M. (eds.) (2019) Gendering the Knowledge Economy: Comparative Perspectives. Palgrave MacMillan. 

    Google Scholar 

  • Wallace, H. (2010) Bioscience for Life? Who Decides what research is done in health and agriculture? Genewatch UK Report. March 2010.

    Google Scholar 

  • Watts, D.C.H., Ilbery, B. and Maye, D. (2005) Making reconnections in agro-food geography: alternative systems of food provision, Progress in Human Geography 29(1): 22–40.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Whatmore, S. and Thorne, L. (1997) Nourishing networks: alternative geographies of food. In Goodman, D. and M. Watts (Eds.) Postindustrial Natures: Culture, Economy and Consumption of Food. London, Routledge: pp. 287–304.

    Google Scholar 

  • Whatmore, S., Stassart, P. and Renting, H. (2003) What’s alternative about alternative food networks? Environment and Planning A 35: 389–391.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Winter, M. (2003) The policy impact of the foot and mouth epidemic, Political Quarterly 74(1): 47–56.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wynne, B. (2005) Risky Delusions: How GM Science has imagined—and provoked—its publics. In Taylor, I. and K. Barrett (Eds.) Genetically Engineered Crops: Decision-making under Uncertainty. Canada, UBC Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wynne, B. (2007) Risky Delusions: Misunderstanding Science and Misperforming Publics in the GE Crops Issue. In I.E.P. Taylor (ed.) Genetically Engineered Crops: Interim Policies, Uncertain Legislation. Haworth Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Sussex, Brighton, UK

    Katerina Psarikidou

Authors
  1. Katerina Psarikidou
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Katerina Psarikidou .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Psarikidou, K. (2021). Introduction: Bringing Together Alternative Agro-Food Networks and the Knowledge Economy: Why This Study, Why Now?. In: Reclaiming the Knowledge Economy. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-6843-2_1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-6843-2_1

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-16-6842-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-16-6843-2

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation