Modern food systems generate social inequalities in the access to healthy food, but some families maintain behaviors that provide an alternative to these systems. Agroecological consumers (ACs) and non-agroecological direct market consumers (DMCs) are key actors in alternative food systems. We assessed the characteristics of ACs and DMCs using data from a representative sample of households in Ibarra, Quito and Riobamba (n = 2914). We also deepened the exploration of motivations for adopting these practices through mini-ethnographies with families who were identified as ACs or DMCs (n = 15). We found motivations related to personal health problems, food quality (e.g., taste, freshness), and safety (e.g., avoiding pesticides) to be key. Other motivations were price and community solidarity with farmers. Barriers included inconvenience, lack of awareness, and insecurity of market location. Using Chi-square tests, we found differences between ACs and DMCs on place of residence, education, employment, health, and diet. Controlling for socioeconomic and health variables using logistic regressions, we found DMC dietary habits to be similar to the remainder of the study population, except that they were less likely to eat processed foods less frequently (adjusted odds ratio (AOR) 0.6, 95% confidence interval 0.4–0.9). In contrast, ACs were more likely than the remainder of the study population to control their salt intake (3.2, 1.9–5.2) and have greater knowledge of nutrition labels (2.8, 1.7–4.6). They were more likely to eat traditional foods frequently (1.9, 1.1–3.3), fruit and vegetables daily (1.6, 1.0–2.8), and processed foods less frequently (2.7, 1.5–4.8). Hence, these two types of alternative food provisioning practices (AC and DMC) were adopted by different types of consumers, with heterogenous motivations and food consumption practices. These findings have implications for public health initiatives aiming to scale up the nutrition and ecological potential of alternative food systems.

In exploring the social dynamics of agrofood movements in Ecuador as examples of self-organization (i.e., locally distributed and resolved development), this article departs from a preoccupation with innovation by means of design and the use of scaling as a metaphor for describing research contributions in agriculture and food. The case material highlights that much development is contingent, unpredictable, and unmanageable as well as unbound to fixed spaces or places. In their study of people’s daily practice, the authors do not find clear boundaries between dichotomies of internal–external, lay–expert, traditional–modern, or local–global organization, but heterogeneous blends of each. For the purposes of sustainable development, this highlights the need for attention to be paid to relationships (social, material, and biological), adaptation (the capacity to innovate), and responsibility (adherence to norms of sustainability). Far from romanticizing self-organization, the authors acknowledge that people and their institutions share varying degrees of complicity for the goods as well as the bads of their economic activity, such as mass soil degradation, agrobiodiversity loss, and poisoning by pesticides. Nevertheless, even under highly difficult conditions, certain actors effectively bypass the limitations of formal institutions in forging a socio-technical course of action (i.e., policy) for relatively healthy living and being. As such, the authors have come to appreciate self-organization as a neglected, if paradoxical, resource for policy transition towards more sustainable agriculture and food.

El artículo aborda la comunalización del cuidado y el sostenimiento de la vida en condiciones de crisis. Partiendo de investigación cualitativa acerca de los procesos de reproducción en una localidad periférica de la costa manabita tras el terremoto de 2016 en Ecuador, el texto discute la potencia y los límites de la acción comunitaria. Ésta se rearticula cuando lo que resguarda el diario vivir -cobijo, alimentación, salud, educación, agua, etc.- colapsa. Inmersa en un contexto histórico de explotación laboral y territorial y de una limitada acción estatal, la población pone en marcha dinámicas de cooperación y cogestión en distintos frentes, y transforma las que operaban previamente. Discutiendo con la literatura sobre cuidado, comunidad y común desde el feminismo y la que trabaja sobre vulnerabilidad, riesgo y desastres, la pregunta central que motiva la reflexión es: ¿qué informa el análisis de este tipo de crisis sobre las prácticas comunales de reproducción social?