The DOI matches its Crossref record; 137 of the 145 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Competitiveness of Small Farms and Innovative Food Supply Chains: The Role of Food Hubs in Creating Sustainable Regional and Local Food Systems
Open accessAbstract
Over the last decades, the economic, social and environmental sustainability of the conventional agri-food system has and continues to be contested within both academic and public institutions. For small farms, the unsustainability of the food system is even more serious; farms’ declining share of profit and the cost-price squeeze of commodity production has increased barriers to market access with the inevitable effect of agricultural abandonment. One way forward to respond to the existing conventional agri-food systems and to create a competitive or survival strategy for small family farms is the re-construction of regional and local agri-food systems, aligning with Kramer and Porter’s concept of shared value strategy. Through a critical literature review, this paper presents “regional and local food hubs” as innovative organizational arrangements capable of bridging structural holes in the agri-food markets between small producers and the consumers—individuals and families as well as big buyers. Food hubs respond to a supply chain (or supply network) organizational strategy aiming at re-territorialising the agri-food systems through the construction of what in the economic literature are defined as values-based food supply chains.
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In the citing paper
“Food hubs, producer cooperatives, and hybrid intermediary organizations facilitate aggregation, standardization, and market negotiation, enabling small producers to access retail and institutional buyers [2,27,38].”
From Who Reaches the Consumer? A Network Analysis of Market Reach Factors of Slovakia's Short Food Supply Chains (2026) · cites this paper as [38]
In the citing paper
“Re-territorialization as a strategy leverages the fundamentally political nature of agroecology and emphasizes the need for communities to self-organize, exercise agency, and effect change through policies, networking, collaboration, and innovation from the ground up [16,17,28,36].”
From Agroecological Transition: A Territorial Examination of the Simultaneity of Limited Farmer Livelihoods and Food Insecurity (2022) · cites this paper as [28]
In the citing paper
“similar to previous studies [28,31,33,65], SB farmers lack the necessary resources and expertise to go alone in mounting a real challenge to the conventional food system.”
From Agroecological Transition: A Territorial Examination of the Simultaneity of Limited Farmer Livelihoods and Food Insecurity (2022) · cites this paper as [28]
Citations
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Research works printed but not linked: 10
- Lyson, T., Stevenson, G., and Welsh, R. (2008). Food and the Mid-Level Farm: Renewing an Agriculture of the Middle, The MIT Press.
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- Leman, T., Feenstra, G., and Visher, D. (2012). A Practitioner’s Guide to Resources and Publications on Food Hubs and Values-Based Supply Chains: A Literature Review, Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program; Agricultural Sustainability Institute.
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
Kamble, S. S., Gunasekaran, A., & Gawankar, S. A. (2020) · International Journal of Production Economics · doi:10.1016/j.ijpe.2019.05.022 · Cited by 1,015
Measuring the Economic, Environmental, and Social Sustainability of Short Food Supply Chains
Malak-Rawlikowska, A., Majewski, E., Wąs, A., Borgen, S. O., Csillag, P., Donati, M., Freeman, R., Hoàng, V., Lecoeur, J.-L., Mancini, M. C., et al. (2019) · Sustainability · doi:10.3390/su11154004 · Cited by 279
Agri-Food Markets towards Sustainable Patterns
Borsellino, V., Schimmenti, E., & Bilali, H. E. (2020) · Sustainability · doi:10.3390/su12062193 · Cited by 293
Sustainable Agri-Food Systems: Environment, Economy, Society, and Policy
Bilali, H. E., Strassner, C., & Hassen, T. B. (2021) · Sustainability · doi:10.3390/su13116260 · Cited by 262
Chiffoleau, Y., & Dourian, T. (2020) · Sustainability · doi:10.3390/su12239831 · Cited by 212
Metadata
- Authors
- Berti, G., & Mulligan, C.
- Affiliations
- Imperial College London (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Berti, Giaime
- Venue
- Sustainability
- Publisher
- MDPI AG
- Published
- 2016-07-01
- Volume
- 8
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- 616
- ISSN
- 2071-1050 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2468830860
- Cited by
- 403
- References
- 145
- Citations by year
- 2026: 35 · 2025: 48 · 2024: 49 · 2023: 56 · 2022: 47 · 2021: 57 · 2020: 50 · 2019: 31 · 2018: 14 · 2017: 13 · 2016: 2
- FWCI
- 23.38
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Sustainability (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Spiral (Imperial College London) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/J000604/2, EP/K003593/1)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Plant Science › Organic Food and Agriculture
- Social Sciences › Development › Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › General Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Agriculture and Agroindustry Studies
- Keywords
- food hubs, small farms, family farms, food supply chain, regional food systems, local food systems, agri-food system sustainability, market access, agricultural abandonment, reterritorialization, structural holes
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