Abstract
Abstract We examine collective action in the food system of the Canadian Maritimes to determine its effect on the resilience and adaptive capacity of food producers, distributors, retailers and governance institutions. Our data suggest that beyond their immediate benefits for their participants, expressions of collective action generate higher‐level impacts which often translate into drivers of adaptive capacity. Drawing on a metaphor from urban design, we suggest that collective action should be considered a desire line for food systems adaptation: rather than building adaptation strategies based on top‐down design, collective action emerges from farmers’ needs and capacities to build financial resilience, enhance human and social capital and strengthen institutional agency within the system.
Highlights
Are there ever any shortcuts in food systems adaptation? One wishes there were, but the complexity of the global food system resists quick fixes
We examine how collective action, climate change and food systems interact by asking: How does collective action emerge in land-based food systems? How does it affect these systems’ resilience and adaptive capacity? And how can it contribute to the broader goal of successful climate change adaptation? Our research aims to build on the emergent understanding of how collective action affects food systems adaptation and to inform decision-making at the regional and federal levels in Canada
We set out to understand how collective action emerges in the land-based food system, how it affects food systems actors and whether it can contribute to the broader goal of food systems adaptation to climate change, especially in a policy leadership vacuum
Summary
Are there ever any shortcuts in food systems adaptation? One wishes there were, but the complexity of the global food system resists quick fixes. Tracks often appear where people repeatedly leave city-imposed sidewalks behind in order to navigate more efficiently These repeated paths are called desire lines: communally generated vectors which solve the problem of getting from one point to another while nimbly ignoring ineffective structures (Smith & Walters, 2018). Like institutions, they become ‘behavioural grooves where many people tread’ Collective action and desire lines may follow the same path: both react to an imposed environment with tacit knowledge adapted to local conditions Both provide emergent and endogenous solutions independent of what could be elaborated exclusively from theory. It may be that building policy goals in accordance with collective action is one path to building resilience in the food system at the regional scale
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