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This introduction provides an overview of the discourse on alternative agrifood movements (AAMs) to (1) ascertain the degree of convergence and divergence around a common ethos of alterity and (2) context the chapters of the book. AAMs have increased in recent years in response to the growing legitimation crisis of the conventional agrifood system. Some agrifood researchers argue that AAMs represent the vanguard movement of our time, a formidable counter movement to global capitalism. Other authors note a pattern of blunting of the transformative qualities of AAMs due to conventionalization and mainstreaming in the market. The literature on AAMs is organized following a Four Questions in Agrifood Studies (Constance, 2008) framework. The section for each Question ends with a case study to better illustrate the historical dynamics of an AAM. The literature review ends with a summary of the discourse applied to the research question of the book: Are AAMs the vanguard social movement of our time? The last section of this introduction provides a short description of each contributing chapter of the book, which is divided into five sections: Introduction; Theoretical and Conceptual Framings; Food Sovereignty Movements; Alternative Movements in the Global North; and Conclusions.

Food movements and organizations are increasingly complementing their longstanding emphasis on environment with a focus on social justice. This conceptual chapter discusses dimensions in which engagements in this arena diverge and converge along a continuum from neoliberalization to opposition/structural change. Categories and visions of social justice vary widely, highlighting certain social categories and locations while eliding others. Gender, in particular, is a social category that is a key factor in the allocation of power and privilege, but that has not been significantly addressed in efforts toward social justice in most food movements.

The topics and categories movements consider most important determine their assignments of energies. These assignments in turn create common understandings of priorities and mechanisms for changing the food system, although they may omit consideration of key axes of oppression. For example, strategic preferences for family farms and food-system localization may not consider legacies and contemporary practices of enslavement, exploitation, and patriarchy.

As movements increase their focus on social justice, they can engage in critical reflection and dialogue to interrogate the nature of conditions of injustice and the causes behind these conditions. This would include examining how practices and discourses of racism, classism, and sexism – along with the ways they intersect – have shaped, reflect, and reproduce the food system. This process must privilege the participation, perspectives, and priorities of those who suffer from injustice. It can then best illuminate strategic definitions and pathways that can move toward transformation of a food system grounded in conditions of social justice.

As one of its major strategies, China has made a new plan to further expand High Standard Farmland (HSF) to all permanent basic farmland (80% of total farmland) for grain security over the next decade. Yet, what will be the impact of farmland infrastructure investment on agrifood systems? The paper aims to systematically evaluate the multiple effects (food security, economy, nutrition and environment) of expanding HSF construction under the context of the “Big Food vision” using an interdisciplinary model.

An interdisciplinary model – AgriFood Systems Model, which links the China CGE model to diet and carbon emission modules, is applied to assess the multiple effects of HSF construction on agrifood systems, such as food security and economic development, residents’ diet quality and carbon emissions. Several policy scenarios are designed to capture these effects of the past HSF investment based on counterfactual analysis and compare the effects of HSF future investment at the national level under the conditions of different land use policies – restricting to grain crops or allowing diversification (like vegetables, and fruit).

The investments in HSF offer a promising solution for addressing the challenges of food and nutrition security, economic development and environmental sustainability. Without HSF construction, grain production and self-sufficiency would decline significantly, while the agricultural and agrifood systems’ GDP would decrease. The future investment in the HSF construction will further increase both grain production and GDP, improve dietary quality and reduce carbon emissions. Compared with the policy of limiting HSF to planting grains, diversified planting can provide a more profitable economic return, improve dietary quality and reduce carbon emissions.

This study contributes to better informing the impact of land infrastructure expanding investment on the agrifood systems from multiple dimensions based on an interdisciplinary model. We suggest that the government consider applying diversified planting in the future HSF investment to meet nutritional and health demands, increase household income and reduce carbon emissions.

The purpose of this paper is to present a conceptual framework and set of propositions to analyze competitiveness of India's agrifood chain. Nine components constitute the framework. These are identified on the basis of theoretical studies and expert consultations. Each component leads to at least one proposition.

The framework is dependent on two major streams of management – value chain analysis (VCA) and strategic competitiveness. Porter's diamond at the industry level and Momaya's asset‐process‐performance (APP) model at the firm level provide the base for competitiveness discussions.

The framework comprises of “human” and “non‐human” components. They are more like members of a network where action of each has an impact on the other. By examining the roles of human components like national government, producers, processors, etc. and non‐human components like food quality, regulatory scenario, etc. side‐by‐side, this study breaks new grounds in exploring the synergy of VCA and competitiveness management.

Journal papers based on Indian food industry's competitiveness or supply chain are very limited. There is also a dearth of literature on India's agrifood sector. This has reduced the scope for published references from India.

The paper can serve as a reference point for researchers/students and other stakeholders interested in Indian food and retail industry. The framework has implications for developing countries like India that are exploring opportunities in global retail diffusions. It is also of use to researchers from developing economies where the role of “national government” can be significant in the development of an industry. The framework is built as a flexible and adaptable tool, which can suit other industry sectors with minor modifications.

The paper has attempted to create a common ground where the two theories of VCA and competitiveness are able to meet. An empirical validation of the framework can encourage more future research on this topic. This paper can also be used by researchers as a reference point for studies on Indian agrifood sector. The proposed framework can be used as an analytical tool by researchers to study similar industries from developing economies like textiles, leather, etc. that are unorganized.

The success enjoyed by some of the alternative agrifood movements has led to a dual process: on the one hand, their mainstreaming and cooptation; while on the other hand, their institutionalization into public regulation and law. This dual process is the result of the influence these movements have had on consumers and politicians and serves to demonstrate the constant exchange between the spheres of public and private regulation, a feature that characterizes the neoliberal model of governance. In turn, this has led to the appearance of new alternative initiatives which may converge with or diverge from founding initiatives when these are the result of divisions within a movement. The question that arises here is obvious: despite these evident achievements, by working within the market and using the tools of neoliberal regulation, have these movements managed to generate the social change they intended from the outset? This chapter will attempt to answer the question by offering a reflection on two of the most widely discussed aspects of this strategy: first, the private and/or public space where these movements develop and the citizen-consumer duality of the actors to whom they appeal; and second, their ability to generate standards, norms, and certification systems, that is, their ability to establish the rules of the game.

The purpose of this research is to analyze the ability of agrifood systems to construct “customized competitiveness” strategies that can allow firms to meet the specific and constantly changing demands of foreign markets.

The research performs a comparative analysis of three case studies of agrifood systems in Argentina: lemon, pork, and dairy products. The authors obtained primary data from 79 semi-structured interviews with key persons in each agrifood system carried out online between March 2020 and February 2021. Secondary data was obtained from databases, academic studies, and reports from business associations and public agencies.

The authors find wide disparities in the development of customized competitiveness strategies between the studied agrifood systems (higher in lemon, lower in dairy products, and incipient in pork). The authors attribute the disparity to the varying degrees in which these systems are capable of coordinating their own actions and their interactions with State agencies.

The paper provides comparative evidence about the role of private coordination in the ability of agrifood systems to construct customized competitiveness strategies.

Food sovereignty has increasingly become a common political framework for alternative food movements seeking for radical change in the agrifood system. The transformative potential of food sovereignty is context-dependent, resulting in different approaches and strategies in different territories. In this chapter, we address the case of Catalonia (Spain), as an example of global North food sovereignty movement, in which consumers play a predominant role. Based on five discourses on food sovereignty previously identified as a political proposal for social change in Catalonia, namely “activism,” “anti-purism,” “self-management,” “pedagogy,” and “pragmatism,” we discuss internal divergences within the movement that lead to convergences with other political trends in the agrifood system. Despite the movement converges in several critical points at a conceptual level, such as what is the meaning of food sovereignty, or its understanding of the food sovereignty proposal as a vehicle for deepening democracy, it has strong divergences at the operational level, that is, on how to achieve the social and political change it seeks. A structuralist or agency-focused vision of social change and the relevance assigned to ideological affinity among actors are core elements explaining such divergences. In this chapter, the authors explore these internal divergences within the Catalan food sovereignty movement, which at the same time lead to convergences with other repoliticization concepts within the agrifood studies literature (specifically food democracy, food citizenship, and political consumerism).

In recent years the production and consumption of food have become both more transnational and diversified. Concurrent with these transformations has been the increasing use of standards to differentiate both agricultural products and processes. Historically standards were understood as “natural market lubricants,” but today they are increasingly viewed as tools for competitive advantage. As the use of standards has proliferated, the need to ensure compliance has also increased. Third-party certification (TPC) is one way to ensure compliance and it is becoming increasingly prominent in the global agrifood system. This chapter examines the complex effects that the widespread implementation of standards and TPC is having on the global agrifood system. What is occurring is not simple standardization and differentiation, but rather differentiated standardization and standardized differentiation. In the first instance, whereas we have standardization, it is differentiated, as multiple options remain. For example, while TPC for food safety and quality is becoming increasingly common, what such certification means continues to have considerable diversity. In the latter case, different kinds of agricultural practices are becoming standardized (i.e., organic). That is, difference (e.g., alternative agriculture) is becoming standardized, so that it is increasingly becoming the same globally. In concluding, we argue that standardization and differentiation are both taking place simultaneously in the global agrifood system, and that analyses of the globalization of food and agriculture must begin to recognize this.

Being constantly exposed to emerging economic and environmental challenges and other external shocks, such as the recent pandemic, agrifood systems must be resilient and adaptive. The Danish AgriFood System (DAFS) adopted a number of organisational changes in response to environmental demands and external shocks, both in the sector and the management by public authorities, leading to the development of new strategies and instruments. The DAFS has demonstrated an ability to anticipate, to be proactive and to recover quickly from difficulties, exhibiting remarkable resilience and the capacity to adapt and to position itself as a frontrunner in sustainable agrifood. In this process, the organisational institutional settings play a prominent role, where public and private actors interact and coordinate their activities, develop synergies and resolve conflicts within collaborative governance structures. The DAFS provides four interlinked and equally important success stories worth emulating: governance, cooperation, professionalism and social capital. Governance structures incorporating the state-administration-agrifood sector in close collaboration provide the necessary institutional conditions for adaptation and the accommodation of new solutions to emerging problems. Integrated cooperative organisation ensures the fair distribution of the added value and enables the resolution of conflicts and consensus-driven decisions. High levels of expertise and professionalism support the sector to identify new strategies and viable innovative solutions in the long term, responding to new demands while remaining competitive by promoting and externalising sector interests. Strong social capital binds everything together and ensures sustainability and resilience.

This research aims to investigate the role of digitalization in facilitating the integration of circular economy (CE) principles within a firm operating in the Italian agrifood sector. The study seeks to explore the evidence and effects emerging from the adoption of digital technologies in a small and medium enterprise (SME) operational setting.

An interpretative case study was conducted on an SME operating in the Italian agrifood sector. The selected firm is known to adopt a business model oriented towards circularity by using entirely digitized closed-loop hydroponic cultivation.

The findings reveal that the digitalization of the production process, supported by an integrated information system, enables optimizing the use and consumption of natural resources and minimizes waste during the production stage. Additionally, the authors observed that digitalization triggers a complex mechanism of interaction between various firm factors, market dynamics and forms of institutionalization, which are intrinsically intertwined with the concepts of sustainability and resilience in the agrifood sector.

From a theoretical point of view, the interpretive reading key – historically appropriate to embrace the complexity of the phenomena under study – can foster a deeper understanding of the dynamics underlying digitalization as an enabling factor to facilitating the adoption of CE principles in the agrifood sector. Regarding managerial implications, the study contributes to the debate on the importance of digital transition in the agrifood industry, which in the Italian context shows considerable resistance due, especially, to the size of the firms (mainly SMEs and micro) and managerial conservatism tradition.