Civic Markets: Alternative Value Chain Governance as Civic Engagement

Urban Farm DB summary

An essay arguing that today's agricultural markets have fragmented into diverse "niches," in contrast to the past commodity-based marketing system that offered farmers only a few stable outlets. It notes the organic market niche itself is splitting into sub-niches, and that the growth of large-scale industrial organic agriculture has left smaller organic farmers with diminishing access to mainstream buyers, since supermarkets prefer dealing with larger firms. As a result, some farmers are turning to alternative markets—direct marketing, farmers markets, Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs), and more recently localized or fair-trade markets—though the paper states the dynamics of these alternative markets remain poorly understood.