Abstract
Globalised corporate food systems operate on economies of scale. Between the field and the plate, there are long supply chains, huge infrastructures and powerful services. Consequently, there are no direct relationships between farmers and consumers, and among most of the other actors along the chain such as the people responsible for processing, packaging, transporting, distributing, selling or cooking food. To compensate for this lack of transparency, trust, identity and social/emotional bonds, big food corporations invest massively in branding and advertising. These high investment brand images and the emotional bonds they create for consumers suffer when scandals reveal the exploitative realities behind these production models and their destructive impacts.
In contrast, Alternative Food Networks (AFN) try to create more direct relations in the food chain which generate more transparency, trust and social/emotional bonds between actors and, ideally, create a sense of solidarity. Therefore, in AFNs there is less need for branding and advertisement, but for real reciprocal understanding of needs, capacities and abilities, and of the potentials and restrictions each actor has in its specific situation. This includes the environmental conditions farmers deal with and their interrelations with other living beings and ecosystems (soil fertility, biodiversity, animal welfare, etc.).
There are many forms of AFNs, and new variants are emerging. The spectrum ranges from projects oriented towards commoning to projects, which are more commercially inclined with space in between for other variants. Much has been done and published on this topic, also in fields, which are not typically tackling agri-food or agricultural issues, including design, arts and humanities. This article focuses on visualising the relations in diverse types of AFNs alongside a short fact sheet for each case study. This permits an understanding of differences and similarities, in particular regarding diffusion, underlying shared values, types of involved people and actors, ways of distributing, sharing of benefits and risks, questions of power and governance. Additionally, the accompanying images to the illustration of each AFN provide an idea of the aesthetic and emotional dimensions in play.