Institutional innovations supporting local markets for sustainable agriculture

As Agroecology emerges on national and global agendas, there is a need to understand the institutionalchanges that are accompanying public, private and civil society efforts to create agroecology-based foodsystems. Institutional innovations are new rules and forms of interaction. They help redefine sustainablepractices for the local level and bring together food systems actors that have not traditionally workedtogether. Since 2013 INRA and FAO have been carrying out participatory action research study oninnovations that link sustainable practices with markets. Carried out in collaboration with innovators in 14countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America, we analyzed how the reorganization of relationshipsbetween actors in local food systems and the local revision of rules for sustainable agriculture have beenable to incentivize not only the adoption of sustainable practices by farmers, but also the creation of localmarkets for sustainably produced products in developing countries. These innovations are classified intothree types: participatory guarantee systems – innovations in certification; multi-actor innovationplatforms – innovations in knowledge creation; and community-supported agriculture – innovations incommunity investment. Each innovation kicks off processes of change in a local food system bymobilizing knowledge, resources, legitimacy, entrepreneurial skills and strategy, and creating spaces forexchange in different ways. Throughout years of continuous experimentation with aspects of these localsystems – and by shifting roles and responsibilities between actors in the systems – these innovators havegained significant ground in creating new rules for sustainable production and consumption of foodaround the world. Among numerous insights gain through this process, there are four key take homemessages: 1) A wide range of actors in developing countries are inventing new forms of interaction andorganization (called institutional innovations) to supply local markets with sustainable agriculturalproducts; 2) Social and institutional innovations are as essential as technological innovations in transitionsto sustainable food systems, and they require policy support; 3) Even when innovations are led by privateactors, partnerships with public actors and civil society have an important role in creating linkagesbetween farmers and markets; 4) Autonomy, reciprocity and the recognition of the diverse types ofknowledge that are fostered through institutional innovations all create incentives for the adoption ofsustainable practices