Agriculture is faced by permanent evolution and it is expected that this trend will continue in the next decennium. The question is what challenges lie ahead and which types of agricultural research can support the sector in order to retain its competitive power by the year 2020. To address this...

Together with the evolution from the agro-industrial model to the sustainable rural development model (Roep and Wiskerke 2004), a part of the agro-food market has evolved from an anonymous, mass food market to a quality-food market. This shift is driven by factors, such as the changing relations...

This paper focuses upon the case of alternative food supply chains (AFSCs) as a "laboratory" for the implementation of sustainability concepts on a larger scale. To realize this type of upscaling, two important conditions should be fulfilled: the initiatives have to combine a performing internal...

Collaboration between stakeholders in the agro-food sector is nowadays a common phenomenon. Despite the huge diversity observed, this paper argues that collective action always results in the establishment of a collective organization (whether formally organized or not), which is characterized...