Public food procurement from family farming: A food system and social network perspective
Open accessAbstract
There is promising evidence that public food procurement from family farming (PFPF) can serve as a powerful policy instrument in transitions towards more sustainable food systems. Despite the evidence around PFPF, there is lack of systemic and actor-oriented approaches analysing the relational and interactional dynamics among the multiple and diverse sets of actors in PFPF programs. In this paper, we address this gap by presenting an integrative framework that brings together food systems research, innovation studies and social network analysis, to assess the role of actor networks in PFPF. To illustrate the usefulness of the framework, we present the case of public procurement from family farming in Uruguay. We show how the framework has potential to: highlight the composition and diversity of networks of actors in PFPF; unravel individual and network barriers faced by actors in food systems; and, identify how interactions and (intermediary and brokerage) roles of network actors stimulate innovation or block the changes that are needed for PFPF to catalyse the transition towards sustainable food systems.
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Including the degree of human agency that individual actors exhibit could significantly strengthen the relevance of the results.
“Including the degree of human agency that individual actors exhibit could significantly strengthen the relevance of the results (Gaitán-Cremaschi et al. 2022).”
From A heuristic framework to portray agroecological transition initiatives in reflexive arrangements, illustrated with a conservation agriculture network in Denmark (2025) · cites this paper as Gaitán-Cremaschi et al. 2022
Section 5.2 says social network analysis falls short of understanding human agency dynamics and suggests a more reflexive approach that may provide a more nuanced perspective on agency. It does not say that including a measure of each actor’s degree of agency would significantly strengthen the relevance of the results. No page number is available in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.79)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe capacity of a social network to support innovation is determined by its structure and by the position of individual actors.
“The capacity of a social network to support innovation is determined by its structure and by the position of individual actors (Gaitán-Cremaschi et al. 2022).”
From A heuristic framework to portray agroecological transition initiatives in reflexive arrangements, illustrated with a conservation agriculture network in Denmark (2025) · cites this paper as Gaitán-Cremaschi et al. 2022
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
Fonseca, C. V. C., Proença, Y., Luna, I., & Saes, M. S. M. (2025) · Food Policy · doi:10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102856 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
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Self-citation
- Authors
- Gaitán-Cremaschi, D., Klerkx, L., Aguilar-Gallegos, N., Duncan, J., Pizzolón, A., Dogliotti, S., & Rossing, W. A. H.
- Affiliations
- Wageningen University & Research (NL)
- Chapingo Autonomous University (MX)
- Universidad de la República de Uruguay (UY)
- Corresponding author
- Klerkx, Laurens
- Venue
- Food Policy
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2022-08
- Volume
- 111
- Pages
- 102325
- ISSN
- 0306-9192 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W4289688866
- Cited by
- 50
- References
- 65
- Citations by year
- 2026: 10 · 2025: 13 · 2024: 14 · 2023: 12 · 2022: 1
- FWCI
- 5.51
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Food Policy (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Socio-Environmental Systems Modeling (acceptedVersion, cc-by)
- Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Greater South Information System
- Funders
- Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (W 08.250.304)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Plant Science › Organic Food and Agriculture
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law › Rural Development and Agriculture
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › General Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development
- Keywords
- public food procurement, family farming, actor networks, social network analysis, sustainable food systems, food system transformation, innovation, brokerage roles, intermediary role, Uruguay
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