Agriculture e-commerce technologies are transforming how small and medium-scale farmers distribute food, consumers access local food, and market vendors negotiate sales. However, most of the social scientific literature exploring digital agriculture concentrates on big data analytics in the context of commodity farming systems and conventional supply chains. In this paper we review the social scientific literature on agriculture e-commerce technologies and situate this literature within broader debates over digital agriculture and its uneven social and economic dynamics. We find that most social scientific literature does not include agriculture e-commerce in its definition of digital agriculture, instead defining it predominantly in terms of production (e.g., variable-rate technology) or verification (e.g., blockchain) technologies. We contextualize this review with results from a series of focus groups exploring the challenges faced by Ontario's “digital farmgate sector”—the suite of agriculture e-commerce platforms that organize local food sales for hubs, farmers' markets, and small- and medium-scale farmers—related to lack of platform interoperability. We find that local food systems actors are increasingly adopting e-commerce platforms, particularly in the context of the pandemic, and observing substantial business-related benefits to their adoption. Yet, there are common frustrations with digital tools due to market fragmentation and lack of platform interoperability. We recommend the collaborative development of an open standard for e-commerce platforms that allows for the cross-platform sale of local food and farming products.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted a series of concatenating problems in the global production and distribution of food. Trade barriers, seasonal labor shortages, food loss and waste, and food safety concerns combine to engender vulnerabili­ties in food systems. A variety of actors—from academics to policy-makers, community organizers, farmers, and homesteaders—are considering the undertaking of creating more resilient food sys­tems. Conventional approaches include fine-tuning existing value chains, consolidating national food distribution systems and bolstering inventory and storage. This paper highlights three alternative strategies for securing a more resilient food system, namely: (i.) leveraging underutilized, often urban, spaces for food production; (ii.) rethinking food waste as a resource; and (iii.) constructing produc­tion-distribution-waste networks, as opposed to chains. Various food systems actors have pursued these strategies for decades. Yet, we argue that the COVID-19 pandemic forces us to urgently con­sider such novel assemblages of actors, institutions, and technologies as key levers in achieving longer term food system resilience. These strategies are often centered around princi­ples of redistribution and reciprocity, and focus on smaller scales, from individual households to com­munities. We high­light examples that have emerged in the spring-summer of 2020 of household and community efforts to reconstruct a more resilient food system. We also undertake a policy analysis to sketch how government supports can facilitate the emergence of these efforts and mobilization beyond the immediate confines of the pandemic.

Food systems are vulnerable to socioeconomic and environmental changes, and increasing food system resilience has emerged as a key public policy priority. Vertical agriculture is one potential strategy to contribute to food system resilience. To date, the literature exploring this technology has focused on consumer perceptions, with less examination of broader social-ecological system considerations or on-the-ground implications for vulnerable food system actors. This study explores local food system stakeholders’ account of vertical agriculture’s potential contributions to food system resilience, and specifically to food system decentralization, increasing stakeholder decision-making autonomy and diversifying food systems. The results of an exploratory focus group with 16 participants, including local government officials and members of community food organizations, are presented. Participants discussed how vertical agriculture can contribute to food system decentralization by operating across a variety of scales and in public institutions, although local land-use zoning barriers, competing land use priorities, and lack of community acceptance may hinder its widespread implementation. Further, vertical agriculture may contribute to food system diversification by increasing the amount of regionally available produce in the face of future supply disruptions. The potential implications of vertical agriculture for increasing decision-making autonomy will vary, depending on whether it is governed at more or less accessible scales and forms. It is recommended that further research consider diverse scenarios and engage with wider stakeholder and community groups for vertical agriculture’s planning and implementation, particularly in less explored land use contexts, such as in agricultural regions or in public institutions.

Novel agri-food technologies such as cellular agriculture present strong economic opportunities, with potential to reduce the environmental footprint of agriculture, improve animal welfare, and feed the world. A rich body of literature has emerged in the past five years that evaluates those claims, and illuminates the diverse food system futures framed by novel agri-food technology actors across the food system. To date, those characterizations of food system futures rely mainly on public data, such as technology advertisements and press releases, and have yet to engage deeply with a broader suite of social, economic, and material pathways for their emergence. The need for a robust social scientific framework through which to describe and evaluate concrete futures for novel food technologies such as cellular agriculture is needed. In this paper, we draw from a set of fifty-two interviews and 3 focus groups with key cellular agriculture stakeholders from industry, academia, investment, and research institutions. We found three key considerations for cellular agriculture futures: to understand the places and scales across which cellular agriculture ‘happens’, to balance competitive industry interests with public-private collaboration, and to navigate the extent to which cellular agriculture interfaces with traditional agriculture. From these considerations, we draw from the literature to deduce three dimensions across which to describe and evaluate concrete futures for novel agri-food technologies, broadly: centralization, access, and integration. Plotting food system futures across these three variables illuminates assumptions, preconceptions, and enabling conditions that may engender more or less desirable futures.