‘The missing actor’: alternative agri-food networks and the resistance of key regime actors - Transition Pathways towards Sustainability in Agriculture: Case Studies from Europe - page 145

The perspective that we develop in this chapter, based on three niches, can be related
to the specificity of alternative marketing channels: the framework federating actors
which support AAFNs is mainly structured around an alternative vision of economy ba sed
on autonomy regarding industrial food production, processing and/or marketing. In other
words, the dynamic of those different niches is a multidimensional process of autonomy
toward the dominant food regime. In Rennes and Pilsen, the aim is for notions of equity
and of direct negotiation in economic relationships between producers and consumers
(Darrot and Durand, 2011) to replace the anonymous power within long agri-industrial
supply chains. In a similar way, the technical and economic autonomy gained by
winemakers in Santorini, thanks to their close partnership with the tourism sector, can be
understood as a dynamic cutting the power of international wine market operators, who
dominated negotiations around prices and market conditions.
In the three case studies, the notion of quality brings the actors involved in the niche
together. Their vision of quality challenges that promoted by agri-industrial chains (based
on hygiene rules, standardized products and stable organoleptic food characteristics). On
the contrary, the turn to 'quality' (Murdoch et al. , 2000) can be understood as both a
landscape pressure and a feature characterizing our niches. It relates the notion of quality
of social (local product identity, a sense of territory, history, and heritage), ecological
(related to environmentally-friendly production or transportation practices), or ethical
(social links enabled by the production and marketing process, equity in income and profit
share) dimensions. This last element drives the close relationship between the
expectations of autonomy and quality, as elaborated by the various types of actors
connected around the niche.
We will describe, compare and comment on the emerging transition processes
observed during the extension of a wide range of local marketing solutions for farm
products in Rennes (France); generalization of farmers' markets in Pilsen (Czech
Republic); and local quality wine marketing of Santorini Island wines through the tourism
sector (Greece). We will first present the components of these emerging transitions: the
sub-systems characterizing the alternative marketing channels, and the characteristics of
the niches which initiated the transition. We then analyse the processes characterizing the
anchoring and linking of the initiatives in the local dimension of the regime. We pay
particular attention to resistance from some of the sub-regimes; how and why they
appeared and how they were eventually overcome by networking in the niche. In the
concluding section, we reflect on the lessons learned about transition through the analysis
of resistance processes.
Overview of the transition
The sub-regimes
Studying AAFNs implies a focus on the agri-food regime. This regime is based on several
intertwined functions: agricultural production, processing and marketing (under which we
also include consumption habits). These three areas represent the three sub-regimes of the
agri-food regime. In Rennes and Pilsen, the dominant regime is characterized by modern
industrial agriculture and a processing industry which is directly related to distribution of