Exploring Constituents of Short Food Supply Chains

By deploying a systematic review approach, this chapter provides a holistic exploration of AFNs which contributes to further mobilization of locally produced products. This chapter explores the constituents of AFNs by studying food citizenship, sustainability and food democracy, food safety and quality, embeddedness and social capital, the relationship between the level of participation in AFNs and consumers’ demographics, consumers’ motivations to engage in buy-local activities, vendors’ perspective on selling products in farmers’ market, and the development of short food supply chains in the Canadian context. Specifically, the social interaction aspect of buying local, for example, engaging with vendors and other consumers, has been cited as a factor that motivates consumers to buy local food products from the farmers’ market; however, consumers had to deploy online ordering channels with door delivery option during COVID-19 pandemic to access locally produced products safely. To capture one aspect of the potential impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on AFNs, future research can explore whether social interaction is still an influential factor in consumers decision to buy local, or the importance of the social interaction aspect of buying local will be replaced by the convenience of receiving the fresh, locally produced food products at consumers’ doorstep via online ordering process