Farmers’ Attitudes towards Participation in short Food Supply Chains: Evidence from a Chinese field research

Abstract

As the industrialized agro-food supply systems have been commonly criticized for their adverse environmental and social impact, Short food supply chains have emerged as a promising sustainable alternative. Given that the history of SFSCs is relatively short, the majority of empirical evidences is from developed countries, and existing studies on SFSCs in developing country context are rather limited. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the farmers’ attitudes towards participating in SFSCs by conducting a field research in China. Semi-structured interviews were implemented with eight participants selected from a local farmer market as a pilot study. The social and economic reasons are found to be the main motivations of Chinese farmers participating in SFSCs. However, none of these interviewed participants are aware of the environmental effects of SFSCs. Moreover, the findings were cross-compared with existing studies conducted in developed countries. It was found that Chinese farmers participating in SFSCs are mainly passive choice, as they lack of relevant knowledge and governmental support.

Sustainability concerns on consumers’ attitude towards short food supply chains: an empirical investigation

“…This construct receives the least approval from participants and the consumers’ opinions towards this factor varies significantly as well, meaning participated consumers still prefer quality control from official authorities. This finding also coincidences with the findings in a previous study, which investigated the SFSCs in the pilot city from the farmers’ perspective (Wang et al 2018 ). According to the interviewed farmers, only agriculture products from greenhouse receive regular checks from the local government, all other produces receive no external monitors and they can sell these products to consumers freely without any regulations.…”

“…A growing trend in developing these new food systems have been witnessed in recent years, which is represented by the growth in selling organic, fair trade, local and quality food through typical instances, such as farmers’ markets, CSAs, farm shops, etc. (Wang et al 2018 ; Maye and Kirwan 2010 ). Owing to their potential in mitigating the sustainability and safety issues and improving livelihoods of farmers, the interest in these new forms of food supply chains have surged among academic, campaigning and policy-making circles in the last two decades (Owen 2014 ).…”

“…Among these newly emerged forms of food supply systems, Short Food Supply Chains (SFSC) is identified as a prominent sustainable practice (Kumar et al 2019 ; Wang et al 2018 ; Marsden et al 2000 ). It operates like a local food system and short-circuits the traditional long food supply chains.…”

“…It was originally proposed as examples of farmers to show resistance to the modernization of the food system (Van der Ploeg et al 2000 ), and received resurgence interest in recent decades (Ilberz and Maye 2005 ; Kneafsey et al 2013 ; Sellitto et al 2018 ; Kumar et al 2019 ). While modern research on SFSCs can be traced back to 2000 (Marsden et al 2000 ), there still has been no consensus on a unified definition of this concept, with more than 11 different definitions proposed in existing studies (Wang et al 2018 ). Nonetheless, it can be noted that SFSCs generally refers to any forms of re-joining farmers with consumers, with a minimized number of intermediaries (Ilberz and Maye 2005 ).…”

Consumers’ Perspectives on Alternative Short Food Supply Chains Based on Social Media: A Focus Group Study in Spain

“…The latter perceive that the reduced prices charged by producers at the farm level are not reflected in lower prices for the food products they purchase [7]. Apart from economic dissatisfaction, conventional agrifood supply chains have often been criticised for their adverse environmental and social effects [8]. Globalization and the development of international logistic networks increasingly facilitate the marketing of food from different countries and thus outside their traditional selling periods.…”