Knowledge exchange and social learning opportunities in direct agri-food chains

Abstract

In direct agri-food chains (DAFCs), farmers and consumers are brought together with the aim of shortening, localizing and synergizing an agri-food chain. As food moves from the farm to the fork, all the economic activities are performed by farmers/producers or consumers, and none intermediary is required to handle an agri-food product before it is consumed. Any DAFC form provide a sort of liminal space for social learning and for local lay knowledge exchange, through face-to-face interactions. In this paper, we investigate the relationship between face-to-face interaction attributes and the learning opportunity domain of DAFCs that exhibit a same basic form. Our study is mainly based on qualitative data obtained from case studies reported in literature, field observations and informal interviews to various DAFC actors. © 2012 International Federation for Information Processing.