Agroecology, local food systems and their markets

Allison Marie Loconto (1) , Alejandra Jimenez , Emilie Vandecandelaere (2) , Florence Tartanac (2)

1 LISIS - Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire Sciences, Innovations, Sociétés
2 FAO - FAO Sub-regional Office for Eastern Africa [Addis Ababa, Ethiopie]

We examine the emerging phenomenon of markets for ‘agro-ecological’ products and ask two fundamental questions: 1) Do they exist?; and 2) What forms do they take? Based on qualitative analysis of 12 case studies from different initiatives in developing countries, we focus on how different types of actors (producers, consumers and intermediaries) create markets for agro-ecological products. Preliminary results show that around 18 different market channels are used to sell products that are recognized as ‘agro-ecological’. Supply chains are short (2-3 links), even in export markets. The main values defined for agroecology and searched for by actors relate to health and organoleptic characteristics of agro-ecological products, thus indicating that there is not a clear demand for ‘agro-ecological’ products per se. We characterize these initiatives as ‘nested market networks’ where intermediaries have a strong role to play in ensuring the diversity that we found in these networks.

Mots clés: territorial markets; agroecology; local food systems; quality; fair price

Domaines: Sociologie

Allison Marie Loconto, Alejandra Jimenez, Emilie Vandecandelaere, Florence Tartanac. Agroecology, local food systems and their markets. AGER: Journal of Depopulation and Rural Development Studies, 2018, 25 (2), pp.13-42. ⟨10.4422/ager.2018.15⟩. ⟨hal-01966250⟩