Agri-food in search of sustainability: cognitive, interactional and material framing

Abstract

The agro-food sector is under pressure to move towards sustainability. Given the complex value chain, not only technical, but also socio-institutional changes are needed. The innovation processes aiming at a sustainable agro-food chain involve many actors, such as knowledge institutes, governments, farmers, businesses, intermediary organizations and societal organizations. Such encompassing innovation processes, concerning the whole agro-food chain, entail questions about the alignment of perspectives and about the reframing of issues, identities and processes in interaction between actors. Moreover, while sustainable development is an openended term which may circulate in discourse it will be articulated more precisely in concrete actions and interactions. Accordingly, the research question addressed in this paper is: What reframing processes are taking place within and between actors of the agro-food value chains and how can these reframing processes be understood? We will first investigate the concept of 'reframing' and relate it to current theories of framing. We suggest including 'material frame' as a third category next to 'cognitive' and 'interactional' frames. Subsequently, we will empirically investigate different types of reframing. We compare and contrast several cases of reframing that we draw from a study of a Dutch project aimed at sustainable agro-food chains. On the basis of in-depth interviews and document analysis we gain more insight into reframing, and the way they influence the outcome of innovation processes We conclude with a reflection and present insights in reframing processes, in relation to innovation processes, in which different types of reframing can be distinguished and different contextual factors influencing reframing can be found.

Foreword: sustainability in agrifood chains and networks

“…The development of shared images is shown to relate to existing frames of mind by Zwartkruis, Moors, Farla and van Lente (2012). They show that framing specific properties of an innovation can considerably affect its acceptance and success.…”

“…This makes multidimensional optimisation practically impossible, the more so since minor disturbances in one of the bottom lines may result in unacceptable effects on the other(s). This may play out in the societal debate, where agro parks are measured against golden standards (Hoes et al, 2012), or may threaten innovations where specific natural frames cannot be adapted to a realistic sustainability aim (Zwartkruis et al, 2012). In the market place such difficulties are often circumvented by not specifying a strict definition of sustainability.…”

Research on agro-food sustainability transitions: where are food security and nutrition?

“…Interestingly, there are also some papers that deal with urban/peri-urban agriculture (Gilioli et al 2015) and urban food systems (Chiffoleau et al 2016; Cohen and Ilieva 2015; Gorissen et al 2018; Moragues-Faus and Morgan 2015).Similarly, production (generally referring to crop production) is the most-addressed stage of the food chain, but there are some papers that deal with processing(Long et al 2018;Wiskerke 2003), distribution and food procurement(Audet et al 2017;Randelli and Rocchi 2017;Stahlbrand 2016), consumption(Clear et al 2015(Clear et al , 2016Davies 2014;Davies and Doyle 2015;Dedeurwaerdere et al 2017;Liu et al 2016; O'Rourke and Lollo 2015; Twine 2015) and food waste(Wonneck and Hobson 2017). Other papers adopt a 'food system' approach and address different stages of the food chain simultaneously(Alrøe et al 2017;Bui et al 2016;Ely et al 2016;Hinrichs 2014;Hubeau et al 2017;Zwartkruis et al 2012).…”