24 pages, Alternative food networks (AFN) are argued to provide platforms to re-socialize and re-spacealize food, establish and contribute to democratic participation in local food chains, and foster producer–consumer relations and trust. As one of the most recent examples of AFN, Participatory Guarantee Systems (PGS) have gained notable traction in attempting to redefine consumer-producer relations in the organic value chain. The participation of stakeholders, such as consumers, has been a key element theoretically differentiating PGS from other organic verification systems. While research on farmer participation in PGS is attracting interest, consumer participation is still widely overlooked. Using a mixed methods approach, this paper describes five PGS markets in Mexico, Chile and Bolivia. A survey was conducted with consumers in the PGS markets to explore their awareness of the PGS, how consumers participate in the PGS, and their level of trust in the respective PGS and its certified products. Results showed a low level of awareness of PGS among market consumers, few participation possibilities, and minimal consumer participation overall. Nevertheless, trust in organic quality was generally high. Consumers primarily relied on the direct relationship with producers and the PGS market itself as sources of trust. These results provide novel insight into PGS consumer-market interactions, and contribute to discussions concerning social embeddedness, awareness and participation within AFN.
Examines current and potential connections between the environmental sustainability of contemporary farming practices and the socioeconomic viability of rural communities.
15 pages, Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) are central to sustainability standards and certifcation programmes in the global cocoa chain. Pruning is one of the practices promoted in extension services associated with these sustainability efforts. Yet concerns exist about the low adoption rate of these GAPs by smallholder cocoa farmers in Ghana. A common approach to addressing this challenge is based on creating enabling conditions and offering appropriate incentives. We use the concepts of inscription and afordance to trace the vertically coordinated travel of recommended pruning from research to extension
and farming sites, and to describe how pruning is carried out diferently at each site. Our analysis suggests that enactments of pruning at the extension site reduce the number of options and space for interactions, and this constrains making the practice meaningful to farmers’ repertoires. The conventions guiding and legitimising actions at this site, reinforced by sustainability standards, certifcation schemes and associated inspections and audits, favour standardised recommendations
and consequently narrow room for context-specifc diagnostics and adaptions. Therefore, we reframe the adoption problem as a matter of fitbetween different sites in the ‘agricultural research value chain’ embedded in the operational cocoa chain. Our contribution problematises the dominant framing of low adoption and highlights that the movement of pruning and the sequential enactment at different sites constrain the affordances available for rendering the practice meaningful to farmers’ repertoires. Consequently, addressing the low uptake of GAPs requires institutional work towards conventions that can construct a fit between sites along the agricultural research value chain
