Innovation systems and processes in the field of agricultural direct marketing: A cross-national analysis between France, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland

Abstract

Studying collective innovation in agriculture and in the rural area, identifying the main facilitating and hampering factors to their development are the main objectives of the In-Sight project (EU funded). This paper presents and compares innovations in France, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland on the field of Direct Marketing in agriculture. These new initiatives involve consumers and new profiles of farmers. They emerge from a few pioneers and develop by diversification, horizontal growth or up-scaling, but always remain at a novelty or a niche scale. The innovation dynamic, the actor systems and the evolution of the consumption models in different European countries, constitute the main key explanatory factors of our findings.