Abstract
Over the last decades, the economic, social and environmental sustainability of the conventional agri-food system has and continues to be contested within both academic and public institutions. For small farms, the unsustainability of the food system is even more serious; farms’ declining share of profit and the cost-price squeeze of commodity production has increased barriers to market access with the inevitable effect of agricultural abandonment. One way forward to respond to the existing conventional agri-food systems and to create a competitive or survival strategy for small family farms is the re-construction of regional and local agri-food systems, aligning with Kramer and Porter’s concept of shared value strategy. Through a critical literature review, this paper presents “regional and local food hubs” as innovative organizational arrangements capable of bridging structural holes in the agri-food markets between small producers and the consumers—individuals and families as well as big buyers. Food hubs respond to a supply chain (or supply network) organizational strategy aiming at re-territorialising the agri-food systems through the construction of what in the economic literature are defined as values-based food supply chains.
Highlights
Over the last decades, the sustainability of the conventional agri-food system has and continues to be contested as both academic and public institutions advocate a transition to “sustainable agri-food systems”
From both the “values-based agri-food supply chain management” and the “sustainable food community development” perspectives, the food hubs” (FHs) understood as intermediary organisations have a coordinating function articulated in many tasks serving farmers, food processors, distributors, retailers and consumers by creating “shared value” for mutual economic benefit while advancing social and ethical values: sustainability, small and medium size farms viability, social justice and social health
This intermediary organisation is the activator and the animator of the Food Hub Strategic Network (FH-SN) which is a “strategic network” [111] involving all the actors along the farm to table chain, collaborating according to different levels of joint endeavour—varying from networking to collaboration [70,71]—to co-produce “shared value” to be equitably distributed within the network and that has strategic positive economic-social and environmental spillover effects in the locality. Both in the academic and the political arenas, it is claimed that the way forward to respond to the existing conventional agri-food systems and to create a competitive or survival strategy for small family farms is the re-construction of regional and local agri-food systems
Summary
The sustainability of the conventional agri-food system has and continues to be contested as both academic and public institutions advocate a transition to “sustainable agri-food systems”. As outlined in the 2016 Agriculture’s Special Issue “Distributed, Interconnected and Democratic Agri-Food Economies: New Directions in Research” global agri-food systems dominated by vertically integrated, large private enterprises have undoubtedly contributed to achieving higher food output and productivity levels along the food supply chain This success, has resulted in several negative economic, environmental and social externalities [1,2], which caused increased marginalization, inequality and vulnerability of small family farms. From the perspective of small farms, redefining products, markets and supply chains can help to develop a new value creation strategy based on shared value. We explore the shared value’s small farms competiveness strategy with a focus on the creation of new supply chains and on the “regional and local food hubs” (FHs). The paper provides a new definition which broadens the existing definitions of FHs by introducing the two components of Food Hub Intermediary Organization (FH-IO) and Food Hub Strategic Network (FH-SN) that are fundamental for the understanding of what the FHs really are
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
