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Food poverty and/or food insecurity have become a substantial problem in the advanced capitalist world, with growing portions of people struggling to eat healthy food every day. At the same time, just in the European Union (EU), around 88 million tonnes of food waste are generated annually. We call this paradox the “food paradox”. The question is, how to tackle food paradox? Food banks are usually presented as a win–win solution to tackle the food paradox, despite being quite controversial. Indeed, food banks are highly contested because, according to critics, they do not aim to address the structural causes, but rather they only intervene on the effects of the food paradox. This paper develops the PAHS conceptual framework, the acronym of prefiguration, autonomy, hybridization, and scalability, which provides the four categories through which to explore the transformative potential of food surplus redistribution initiatives. The PAHS is adopted to investigate the case study of Magazzini Sociali, a food bank project developed by IoPotentino, a not-for-profit organization operating in Potenza. The results show a good transformative potential of the organization and provide an example of social innovation that can be replicated in other contexts.
Giaime Berti; Claudia Giordano; Mariavaleria Mininni. Assessing the Transformative Potential of Food Banks: The Case Study of Magazzini Sociali (Italy). Agriculture 2021, 11, 249 .
AMA StyleGiaime Berti, Claudia Giordano, Mariavaleria Mininni. Assessing the Transformative Potential of Food Banks: The Case Study of Magazzini Sociali (Italy). Agriculture. 2021; 11 (3):249.
Chicago/Turabian StyleGiaime Berti; Claudia Giordano; Mariavaleria Mininni. 2021. "Assessing the Transformative Potential of Food Banks: The Case Study of Magazzini Sociali (Italy)." Agriculture 11, no. 3: 249.
Giaime Berti. Agroecological Farming for Inclusive and Sustainable Agriculture. Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals 2020, 1 -13.
AMA StyleGiaime Berti. Agroecological Farming for Inclusive and Sustainable Agriculture. Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. 2020; ():1-13.
Chicago/Turabian StyleGiaime Berti. 2020. "Agroecological Farming for Inclusive and Sustainable Agriculture." Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals , no. : 1-13.
Today, technological global agri-food economies dominated by vertically integrated large enterprises are failing in meeting the challenge of feeding a growing global population within the limits of the “Planetary Boundaries”, and are characterised by a “triple fracture” between agri-food economies and their three constitutive elements: nature, consumers, and producers. In parallel to this crisis, new eco-ethical-driven agri-food economies are built around new farming and food distribution practices to face the challenge of food system transition to sustainability. By exploring these new emerging agri-food economies in both developing and developed countries, this Special Issue aims to develop a multidisciplinary discussion on “re-territorialisation” as a strategy to face the existing global agri-food economies crisis. These new agri-food economies are built starting from the farm level, involve the construction of innovative supply chains and markets and are developed through the support of public policies.
Giaime Berti. Sustainable Agri-Food Economies: Re-Territorialising Farming Practices, Markets, Supply Chains, and Policies. Agriculture 2020, 10, 64 .
AMA StyleGiaime Berti. Sustainable Agri-Food Economies: Re-Territorialising Farming Practices, Markets, Supply Chains, and Policies. Agriculture. 2020; 10 (3):64.
Chicago/Turabian StyleGiaime Berti. 2020. "Sustainable Agri-Food Economies: Re-Territorialising Farming Practices, Markets, Supply Chains, and Policies." Agriculture 10, no. 3: 64.
The chapter introduces digital food hubs as disruptive business models in the agri-food system shifting away from the unsustainable industrialized and conventional food sector and moving toward a re-localized food and farming pattern. They are new digital business models developed to support small and mid-size farms with a value focus, forming new ways to leverage the technology as a facilitator for coopetitive organizational forms. Indeed, they respond to a competitive strategy constituted by a “value strategy” oriented to the production and distribution of “shared value.” Second, they are based on an “organizational strategy” that shifts from individual competition to “coopetition” through the development of local “strategic networks” among small size producers. Central to the development of these business models is the digital disruption that has offered the space for the creation of unconventional exchange and transaction mechanisms distinguishing them from the already existing traditional ways of work. The agri-food markets exhibit structural holes that impede small farms from connecting with local consumers. This is due to a lack of material infrastructures and organizational forms on behalf of small farms that cannot reach the consumers, as well as the concentration of power in the hands of a restricted numbers of distributors, which causes the unequal redistribution of the economic value and impedes small farms accessing the food market. The advent of the digital technology is reshaping the market relationship by allowing out centralized intermediaries and creating new bridges between producers and consumers.
Giaime Berti; Catherine Mulligan; Han Yap. Digital Food Hubs as Disruptive Business Models Based on Coopetition and “Shared Value” for Sustainability in the Agri-food Sector. Global Opportunities for Entrepreneurial Growth: Coopetition and Knowledge Dynamics within and across Firms 2017, 415 -438.
AMA StyleGiaime Berti, Catherine Mulligan, Han Yap. Digital Food Hubs as Disruptive Business Models Based on Coopetition and “Shared Value” for Sustainability in the Agri-food Sector. Global Opportunities for Entrepreneurial Growth: Coopetition and Knowledge Dynamics within and across Firms. 2017; ():415-438.
Chicago/Turabian StyleGiaime Berti; Catherine Mulligan; Han Yap. 2017. "Digital Food Hubs as Disruptive Business Models Based on Coopetition and “Shared Value” for Sustainability in the Agri-food Sector." Global Opportunities for Entrepreneurial Growth: Coopetition and Knowledge Dynamics within and across Firms , no. : 415-438.
Over the last decades, the economic, social and environmental sustainability of the conventional agri-food system has and continues to be contested within both academic and public institutions. For small farms, the unsustainability of the food system is even more serious; farms’ declining share of profit and the cost-price squeeze of commodity production has increased barriers to market access with the inevitable effect of agricultural abandonment. One way forward to respond to the existing conventional agri-food systems and to create a competitive or survival strategy for small family farms is the re-construction of regional and local agri-food systems, aligning with Kramer and Porter’s concept of shared value strategy. Through a critical literature review, this paper presents “regional and local food hubs” as innovative organizational arrangements capable of bridging structural holes in the agri-food markets between small producers and the consumers—individuals and families as well as big buyers. Food hubs respond to a supply chain (or supply network) organizational strategy aiming at re-territorialising the agri-food systems through the construction of what in the economic literature are defined as values-based food supply chains.
Giaime Berti; Catherine Mulligan. Competitiveness of Small Farms and Innovative Food Supply Chains: The Role of Food Hubs in Creating Sustainable Regional and Local Food Systems. Sustainability 2016, 8, 616 .
AMA StyleGiaime Berti, Catherine Mulligan. Competitiveness of Small Farms and Innovative Food Supply Chains: The Role of Food Hubs in Creating Sustainable Regional and Local Food Systems. Sustainability. 2016; 8 (7):616.
Chicago/Turabian StyleGiaime Berti; Catherine Mulligan. 2016. "Competitiveness of Small Farms and Innovative Food Supply Chains: The Role of Food Hubs in Creating Sustainable Regional and Local Food Systems." Sustainability 8, no. 7: 616.