Shorter Food Chains

Abstract

Supermarkets dominate the food market, offering farmers lower prices, driving out smaller shops and sacrificing local sourcing and quality. One of the authors (Paul Van Mele) shares his father’s experience, losing his own grocery store due to supermarket competition. Consumers and local governments have the power to support family businesses, farm shops and farmer markets from France to Ecuador. In Bolivia, Alicia García shows that a young, university-educated woman may choose to stay in agriculture, producing agroecological vegetables, while Olivier Clisson and Lisa O’Beirne are biodynamic ‘baker farmers’ in France who share their knowledge, passion and products with a steadily growing food-conscious consumer base. Time-honoured social constructs, such as allotment gardens, and more recent innovations, such as the Belgian ‘Juice Mobile’, also provide fresh food, social interaction, exercise and a connection to nature.