The role of food digital platforms in the transition to sustainable agrifood systems

Proyecto: Investigación

Detalles del proyecto

Descripción

Modern industrial, capitalist agrifood systems exhibit serious sustainability problems related to climate change, soil, water and air pollution, and biodiversity loss, among others (IPES-Food, 2016; Willet et al., 2019). Even though they have increased food access for many people around the world in terms of both availability and affordability, they have also contributed to rising obesity rates and micronutrient deficiencies, manifested in high levels of non-communicable diseases (Paarlberg, 2011; Popkin, 2004). The COVID-19 pandemic is a clear example of the systemic interrelations between agriculture, nutrition and health. Mobility restrictions due to the pandemic have modified consumption patterns in all dimensions of life, including food consumption (Echegaray, 2021). One of the most noticeable changes in the Colombian context refers to the boom of digital platforms to buy locally produced, often organic food (mainly fruit and vegetables). Digital platforms act as online intermediaries which usually disrupt the industry in which they operate (Frenken et al., 2020). They shorten the distance between producer and consumer, usually expose further information about products, and make room for interaction and feedback about consumers’ experience (Dreyer et al., 2019; Hein et al., 2020). Anecdotal evidence suggests that such platforms have increased consumers’ knowledge about the food they consume and has raised awareness of previously ignored aspects of food production, such as food seasonality, the role of intermediaries, farmers’ quality of life, and producers’ practices of care when relating to the ecological systems where they produce. Therefore, it may seem that digital platforms have made more visible for more people some of the problems related to dominant agrifood systems, while also proposing an innovative model to solve some of their above-mentioned socially, economically, ecologically, and health-related negative outcomes. In other words, food digital platforms may respond to, and contribute to the redesign of agrifood systems and reorientation towards food security and sovereignty which have been urgently called for in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic (Graddy-Lovelace, 2020; Petetin, 2020; Pretty, 2020). While some food digital platforms had already emerged in Colombia, this phenomenon boomed during the COVID-19 pandemic and is experiencing an ongoing and highly dynamic development in the post-pandemic context. Furthermore, these platforms are organized according to a wide range of different business models, such as for- or non-profit, producer- or consumer-led, etc (e.g., Oncini et al., 2020). Therefore, there is little understanding of its characteristics and, most importantly, of its potential to contribute to changes towards sustainability of the food system. Many of the platforms promise to shorten food supply chains, to reduce environmental impact through regenerative and/or organic agriculture, and to revive rural peasant economies, but no evidence exists to date on the actual realization of such envisioned impacts. Specifically, it remains unclear what type of change(s), if any, are brought about by this phenomenon and their ‘quality’, i.e. if they contribute to both ecological and social sustainability of the food system. For example, these platforms may contribute to the diversification of socio-economic values (i.e. beyond profit-making), because they allow non-capitalist logics (e.g. social and ecological justice, caring relations between humans and nonhumans emerging from the process of food cultivation) to exist and spread; they may empower smallholders, peasant and their communities, who get access to otherwise inaccessible markets; they may also cause a change in diets (e.g. more seasonal, as linked to local production), thereby reducing the ecological impact of food production and distribution (e.g. reduced food miles, more seasonal produce), and increasing the nutritional quality of food (because local producers harvest in a more timely manner than industrial producers that supply commercial retail chains, hence maximizing the nutritional value of the produce); they can also change consumers’ perception of food, by enabling a socially and ecologically re-connection with food and the rural world more generally, and by stimulating awareness of the human-nonhuman networks of care involved in local settings of production. From a policy perspective, this research gap on the emerging phenomenon of food digital platforms in Colombia is crucial as these platforms are posited to support a transition towards more sustainable food systems and, even more ambitiously, to also subvert some of the core logics (i.e. values), and socioecological relations (consumer-producer, consumer-environment/nature) that characterise capitalist agri-food systems (Dal Gobbo et al., 2022; Koretskaya and Feola, 2020) and their widely reported negative impacts on the environment and society. Yet, in order to support such a transition, and the transformative potential of food digital platforms, policy-makers and practitioners alike need a solid understanding of the conditions under which distinct types of food digital platforms achieve which types of impacts. This calls for a systematic, comparative analysis of the emerging food digital platforms in Colombia, and of their impacts. From a theoretical standpoint, the research gap identified above raises equally important questions. Sustainability transition theories have overlooked the importance of analyses and critiques of capitalism in theorizations of sustainability transitions (Feola, 2020; Newell, 2020). This has resulted in inability to appreciate socioeconomic diversity harboured within existing, predominantly capitalist socioeconomic systems, and has constrained the conceptualization of sustainability transition as changes within this dominant socioeconomic model. Previous research on online platforms and the sharing economy (Kostakis et al., 2016; Frenken, 2017) have argued that, while these platforms can give rise to changes in capitalist systems (e.g. towards cooperativism, or the commons), they can also be appropriated and co-opted by corporations, in dynamics that pre-empt platforms from having transformative effects on socioeconomic and socioecological systems. Therefore, it is crucial to develop better theorizations of how new forms of socioeconomic organizations, such as food digital platforms, play a role in dynamics of sustainability transitions within capitalist systems, and potentially ‘stretching’ them by introducing post-capitalist relations (Gibson-Graham and Dombroski, 2020; Koretskaya and Feola, 2020; Ramos-Mejía et al., 2021) as well as human and non-human networks of care in food production (Popke, 2006; Dong et al. 2020; Arabska, 2021), involving gendered relations (Allen and Sacks, 2012). These questions are of even greater importance in institutional settings such as the Colombian one, where formal and informal institutions often reproduce patterns of social exclusion by strengthening the privileges of already powerful actors (Ramos-Mejía et al., 2018), and where the rural question remains open, in the face of persisting urban-rural gaps, trade liberalization, social marginalization of peasants, and the effects of climate change on ecosystems, among others (Pérez Martínez, 2004; Richani, 2012; Feola et al., 2015; Ojeda, 2016; Feola, 2017). Against this backdrop we will conduct a qualitative study based on interviews, direct observation and ethnographic work. We plan four data collection stages. We aim to have a broad understanding of the phenomenon, and by studying in depth 4-6 cases, we aim at understanding in more detail the multi-dimensional notions, relations and practices that food digital platforms create and develop. This study will contribute to understand which types of platforms, and under which conditions, contribute to a transition towards more sustainable and just food systems. We expect to produce an academic publication that contributes to theorizations of sustainability transitions in agrifood systems in the global south, and a guide of practical use for practitioners and policy-makers interested in implementing food digital platforms to promote sustainable agrifood systems. table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Tabla normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:8.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:107%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language:NL; mso-fareast-language:NL;}
EstadoFinalizado
Fecha de inicio/Fecha fin13/02/2312/08/24

Palabras clave

  • Cuidado
  • Plataformas digitales
  • Sistemas agroalimentarios
  • Transiciones hacia la sostenibilidad

Estado del Proyecto

  • Sin definir

Financiación de proyectos

  • Interna
  • Pontificia Universidad Javeriana

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