Practices of Food Sovereignty in Italy and England: Short Food Supply Chains and the Promise of De-Commodification

Alternative food networks are organisations of consumers and food producers that oversee and promote the functioning of short food supply chains, with the aim of fostering a direct and local exchange between producers and consumers. New short-chain economic infrastructures provide food producers – especially small-scale farmers – with a whole new set of commercial opportunities, directed towards the construction of an alternative food economy. But how does value circulate within these innovative economic platforms? And what values are debated, negotiated and exchanged through these circuits? Employing the analytical lenses of de-commodification and embeddedness, this article discusses the modalities and outcomes of the processes of value-creation and value-appropriation that spring out of the direct exchange occurring between consumers and food producers in the alternative food economy. Based on empirical data collected through extensive qualitative field research in Italy and England, the article exposes the dynamics and limits of the on-going processes of de-commodification, proposing an analysis centred on the concept of ‘partial’ de-commodification. This conceptual tool is used to assess the differences that emerged between the Italian and English fields, and to provide conclusive remarks about the potential of place- and culture-specific configurations of practices to advance a transformation of the food system.