CONCEPTUALIZING “HYBRID” FOOD NETWORKS: ENGAGING CONVENTIONAL FOOD SYSTEM INFRASTRUCTURE TO BUILD LOCAL FOOD SYSTEMS
Open Access
- Author:
- Bloom, J. Dara
- Graduate Program:
- Rural Sociology
- Degree:
- Master of Science
- Document Type:
- Master Thesis
- Date of Defense:
- January 14, 2009
- Committee Members:
- Cynthia Clare Hinrichs, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
Cynthia Clare Hinrichs, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor - Keywords:
- value chains
hybrid food networks
local food systems
alternative food networks
conventional infrastructure
economic sociology - Abstract:
- Many alternative food movements have been built around the mantra of “cutting out the middleman.” Direct relationships between producers and consumers counter the faceless anonymity of conventional marketplaces and allow producers to retain a higher percentage of their profits. However, confining local food system development to direct marketing limits its scope and potential effect. Scaling up local food systems to meet growing demand may require alternative food movements to engage with the conventional food system, creating hybrid food networks that draw on heterogeneous resources and operating mechanisms. This thesis serves as an initial inquiry into the theories and practices surrounding hybridity in local food networks. I draw upon theories of economic sociology, particularly embeddedness theory and conventions theory, to provide a theoretical framework for understanding how actors balance competing priorities, with special attention to what I consider to be the “progressive political project” of alternative food networks. I then apply these theories to the value chain model, originally developed by Michael Porter and adapted to the agri-food field by Stevenson and Pirog (2008), which I argue serves as a framework for understanding how hybrid supply chains can be structured in ways that incorporate progressive values with conventional infrastructure. The value chain structure and governance mechanisms are used as points of comparison for three qualitative case studies, located in rural, urban and exurban regions of Pennsylvania. Each case study describes a hybrid food network that revolves around a conventional, wholesale produce distributor and explores the relationships that develop around their procurement and distribution of local produce. Analysis of these case studies reveals the importance of a region’s type of local food movement in determining whether local produce is differentiated, which in turn influences the value that it is assigned and how distributors regulate their relationships with producers. These case studies suggest the possibility that local food systems that combine conventional infrastructure with local production and consumption may draw upon industrial conventions of organization, despite their local embeddedness. Participants in the urban hybrid food supply chain were better able to resist this industrial logic than those in the rural or exurban hybrid food supply chains, which allowed producers in the urban network to secure higher profit margins and negotiating capacity by marketing a specialized, niche product. However, in the urban network the challenge that direct marketing initiatives face of making local produce more accessible remains unaddressed. These findings suggest that in order to promote rural development by moving local produce through conventional food system infrastructure, additional strategies to generate and redistribute value are needed. Fostering a wider range of local food system infrastructure, such as locally-owned and operated processors, could help to strengthen hybrid food networks and enhance their contribution to rural development, while also increasing the ability of local food supply chains to serve institutional buyers that may have limited on-site processing abilities. In addition, support and facilitation of new business models based on shared ownership could strengthen hybrid food networks and provide producers and local communities more control over their local food systems.