![]() A growing social movement rejects CFS values, practices, and characteristics across the board, in order to resolve negative impacts that are perceived to be a consequence of these variables. These values have in turn shaped the structural characteristics of the CFS, which include increasingly fewer and larger farms vertical and horizontal integration of input manufacturers, producers, processors, distributors, and retailers in the food supply chain increasingly globalized supply chains and increased physical and social distance between producers and consumers. These concerned individuals perceive the CFS to embody such processes and values as centralization, consumer dependence, competition, domination of nature, specialization, and exploitation. For a certain subset of concerned producers and consumers, these impacts arise from a set of values, practices, and characteristics that typify the dominant paradigm of agricultural production and exchange-here referred to as the conventional food system (CFS). Other impacts are more existential, including a sense of alienation from production, a lack of transparency and trust, and a yearning for more authentic foodways. Some of these impacts are tangible, including environmental damage, vanishing farmer livelihoods and rural communities, human health impacts, and social justice issues. There are numerous problems associated with agriculture and the food system today. Implications of this conclusion are discussed, and areas in need of further research are identified. These motivations can be aligned in pursuit of a common goal or can at times come into conflict. ![]() Finally, the paper concludes that formal and substantive rationality can both be playing a role in motivations to participate or not participate in certain SFSC markets. Third, the analytical framework is applied to three case studies. Second, the paper explains how the analytical framework for this study was developed from recent AFS literature. First, the paper briefly reviews the evolution of AFS theory. In doing so, this paper contributes to both the theoretical and practical literature on AFSs by confirming recent challenges to AFS alterity as well as providing practical insight into farmer motivations. In this study, this model is used to interpret the motivations that a sample of Vermont vegetable and diversified vegetable farmers have for participating in a type of AFS known as a short food supply chain (SFSC). These scholars posit a concomitant influence of formal and substantive rationality in economic decision making. This oppositional framing finds its roots in the theory of economic anthropologist Karl Polanyi, which has been subsequently critiqued and modified by Marc Granovetter, Fred Block, and Clare Hinrichs. This notion of fundamental difference stems from a perceived dominant role of formal and substantive rationality in the CFS and the AFS respectively. In part, this research gap is a consequence of assumptions that AFSs are fundamentally different and opposed to the dominant paradigm of food production and distribution-here referred to as the conventional food system (CFS). There is at present a lack of in-depth qualitative studies that examine the values, motivations, and practices of farmers participating in AFSs. ![]() The debate regarding the legitimacy of the theoretical underpinnings of alternative food systems (AFSs) and whether or not they live up to expectations continues to evolve. These findings challenge common assumptions about AFS alterity. The results demonstrate how formal and substantive rationality can both play a role in motivations to participate or not participate in certain SFSC markets. A qualitative coding framework based on the theoretical arc of Granovetter, Block, and Hinrichs was developed to parse out and organize these internal contradictions. Within individuals and between interviews, some farmers seemed to hold contradictory goals. To shed light on these motivations, nineteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with Vermont vegetable and diversified vegetable farmers. One area where these assumptions have cast a shadow is on the motivations that farmers have for participating in SFSC market venues. Recent scholarship has questioned assumptions of a causal relationship between participation in AFS structures and producer adherence to AFS value systems and broader food systems outcomes. Abstract | Short food supply chains (SFSCs) are a type of alternative food system (AFS) whose alterity is defined by socially proximal economic exchanges that are embedded in and regulated by social relationships. ![]()
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