Local quality and certification schemes as new forms of governance in sustainability transitions - Transition Pathways towards Sustainability in Agriculture: Case Studies from Europe - page 168

developing, the niche has to establish its own governance structures which are different
from those mainstreamed in the regime. In our case studies, these were local quality and
certification schemes which actors perceived as the way to protect and develop the initiative
towards sustainability. These schemes can further develop into local micro-financing
activities, as the Czech case demonstrates, supporting the production of sustainable local
products or helping to engage local people, as in the Bulgarian and Greek cases, if the links
between networks and schemes are designed to support collective action and not only as an
instrumental arrangement. The reason why actors create niches as 'islands of positive
deviation' is because, in their view, regime governance structures are not able to deal with
the problems in the regime. They construct new governance structures in parallel to the
regime, without the ambition to change it, because these actors are locally embedded. Many
of them are often not specifically related to the agri-food regime when they join. They are
newcomers, with views and experiences from other regimes. As a result, corresponding
values and norms enable transitions. If the initiative is successful, and is used by others as
an example of good practice, then the governance structures are supported by regime actors,
as was the case in the Czech 'Regional Food' project which was adopted by the Ministry of
Agriculture.
Landscape, as a set of deep structural trends, values and norms, is a highly important
element in supporting the transition processes. It is the landscape which provides actors
with support for their reflexivity on the views existing in the regime, in order to create a
niche governance structure. Landscape changes can open windows for 'regime graffiting'
when actors such as newcomers from other regimes (tourism and environment protection in
our cases), start to operate in the agri-food regime and bring with them their ideas (often
contradicting existing views) from other regimes.
Although the networks seem to be of late modern, fluid and liquid design, the actors
solidify them through references to traditions, or embeddedness in the locality, when
developing new forms of governance. The latter echoes the nature of farming - being
always somehow embedded in the locality since land cannot be easily transferred into other
parts of the world. This characteristic of farming also impacts on the transitions to new
forms of governance in agriculture: challenging modern governance structures from
traditional perspectives and also from the late modern point of view.
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