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To build sustainable food systems, a transition must occur from current norms and practices to futureones that are more sustainable. Innovators in developing countries have long been linking diverse agriculturalproduction to sustainable consumption, but few of these initiatives are documented or analyzed.How do farmers, communities, distributors, public authorities, researchers, and consumers build suchsystems and based on what values of sustainability? What types of innovations stimulate and govern thesetransitions? Answers to these questions can help us understand how interdependent system componentsrealign around more sustainable practices; and how societal actors make changes in their technologies,networks, value chains, rules and daily routines – on the farm, on the road and at the table – to createsustainable, diverse food systems.

International audience; The socio-technical transitions literature has focused on sustainability (Grin, et al., 2010, Markard et al., 2012) and the epistemic controversies of agronomic knowledge (Sumberg and Thompson, 2012). It tells us that systems are faced with oppositional pressures from path-dependencies and socio-technical lock-ins; innovations must de-link from existing pathways so to re-direct them or create new ones (Geels, et al., 2016) and their regulation must likewise accommodate multi-layered hybridity (van Zwanenberg, et al., 2013). While early studies traced historical transitions, recent advances focus on the ‘anchoring’ of technologies, networks and institutions (Elzen, et al., 2012) where linking novelties with existing structures and institutions is precarious. We are in the midst of diverse transitions to sustainable food systems at multiple levels, thus any analysis of them needs to capture their dynamics; we must study ‘transitions in the making’. This requires a shift in the analytical focus from historical pathways to the practices of actors as they construct the pathways (Elzen, et al., 2011, 2007, Steyaert et al., 2016, Stirling, 2011). One area that remains understudied is the role of intermediaries (e.g., Howells, 2006). These actors are typically characterized as independent and disinterested parties who introduce new flows of knowledge and objects to existing networks or fill knowledge gaps in system failures. But recent work on sustainability in food systems found anomalies (Loconto, et al., 2016). At times, knowledge is uncertain, contested or old; networks are not pre-formed; and interests and normative values are misaligned. Intermediation is thus not always performed by a designated third-party, but by an interested actor who takes up a new role within the system, stimulates learning processes and changes the rules and routines (Kilelu, et al., 2011). In sum, there is a gap in understanding the role of intermediaries in governing the direction of transitions towards sustainable food systems, which we try to fill with this paper by following intermediaries as they work out solutions to the challenges they face in transitioning food systems. (...)

From 2013 to 2014, the FAO and the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique(INRA) undertook a survey of innovative approaches that enable markets to act asincentives for the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices. Through a competitiveselection process, 15 cases from around the world provide insights into how small-scaleinitiatives that use sustainable practices have been driven by market demand to createinnovations in the institutions that govern sustainable practices and market exchanges.These cases have responded to both local and distant consumers’ concerns about thequalities of the food that they eat. Through this study we learned that the initiatives relyupon social values to better adapt sustainable practices to local contexts while creatingnew market outlets for their products. Specifically, private sector and civil society actorsare leading partnerships with the public sector to build market infrastructure, integratesustainable agriculture into private and public education and extension programmes, andensure the exchange of transparent information about market opportunities. The resultsare: (i) system innovations that allow new rules for marketing and assuring the sustainablequalities of products; (ii) new forms of organization that permit actors to play multipleroles in the system (e.g. farmer and auditor, farmer and researcher, consumer and auditor,consumer and intermediary); (iii) new forms of market exchanges such as box schemes,university kiosks, public procurement or systems of seed exchanges; (iv) new technologiesfor sustainable agriculture (e.g. effective micro-organisms, bio-pesticides, soil analysistechniques, personal protective equipment). We have found that the public sector plays akey role in providing legitimate political and physical spaces for multiple actors to jointlycreate and share sustainable agricultural knowledge, practices and products.

This edited volume has gathered together a collection of selected case studies from around the world, documented by the innovators themselves. The preceding chapters detail how each case has innovated within its organizational and institutional environments to create markets for its sustainable products. All the case studies in this volume are considered “market-driven” innovations. We classify them as such because the innovators are relying upon innovative market instruments and institutions to sell products that are cultivated using sustainable agricultural practices. One of the selection criteria for the case studies was proof that the agricultural practices used by the innovators were in line with the categories documented in FAO’s Save and grow publication (2011). We argue that the 15 cases presented in this book exemplify new ways of organizing farmers who practise sustainable agriculture. These new ways have changed the rules about how farmers and consumers can be linked through market exchanges. In this chapter, we explain how we arrived at this conclusion. The chapter is organized as follows. First, we present our analytical framework of “institutional innovations”, which is followed by three sections that explain why and how institutional innovations work. We conclude by explaining how it is through these institutional innovations that markets act as incentives for the local use of sustainable practices.

The study presented in this chapter focused on these institutional and market intermediaries and illustrated how markets work to create incentives for the adoption of sustainable practices (Loconto et al., 2016). This chapter presents a summary of the core results of this study, with a specific focus on the six African experiences included in the study. First, we summarize the study methodology and present the concept of ‘institutional innovations’. Second, we introduce the six African experiences from Benin, Namibia, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda and present the core elements of the innovative mechanisms that are at work in these cases (multi-actor innovation platforms (IP) and participatory guarantee systems (PGS). We conclude with the policy recommendations that were developed through a participatory researcher-practitioner workshop that was held in Bogotá, Colombia in 2015.

International audience; This study focuses on these institutional and market intermediaries by asking: how do markets work to create incentives for the adoption of sustainable practices?

Post-harvest concerns, particularly in terms of quality (in its multiple forms), are both highly important and often down-played in the analysis of local food systems. The ability of actors in local food systems to provide consistent quantities of food products that meet these quality standards has not been consistently analysed in developing country contexts, nor has it been theorized sufficiently in terms of the institutions that are necessary for ensuring these qualities. This paper seeks to fill this gap by examining the construction of a sustainable local food system through a single case study of the Songhai Centre in Benin Republic. We show that a multi-actor innovation platform facilitates the creation of a local food system that produces products that meet actors’ perceptions of quality and ensure sustainability.

International audience

As an output of the international workshop held in Bogota from 23 to 25 June, the Plant Production and Protection and Division and the Rural Infrastructure and Agro-Industries Division of FAO have launched a report on innovative approaches for linking sustainable and agro-ecological production to markets in developing countries (Enfoques innovadores que vinculan la producción sostenible y agroecológica con los mercados en los países en desarrollo). The report focuses on the role of markets in providing producers with incentives for adopting more sustainable agricultural practices that facilitate a transition towards sustainable agricultural systems. The publication describes 21 innovative initiatives from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, the Pacific islands and the Near East, and summarizes the discussions held during the workshop. It emphasizes practitioners’ needs for information and research to reinforce these innovations, and makes recommendations on the public policies needed to promote them. The report highlights how market incentives can promote the development of innovative initiatives that strengthen food sovereignty while linking small producers to markets. It also recognizes the role of the promoters of these initiatives as social mediators who bring together scientific and traditional knowledge and mobilize other actors, promoting sustainable innovations. Finally, the document proposes various public policies for strengthening innovative initiatives, such as the creation of legislation and a legal framework to support agro-ecology and sustainable agriculture, and the recognition of local and indigenous knowledge and its integration into scientific knowledge through a formal framework for education and dissemination.

International audience

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