Prioritizing people or acres? How intermediaries enact multiple sustainabilities in agri-food system transitions

Abstract

This article interrogates how intermediaries enact various visions of sustainable futures within the contingencies of entrenched regime structures in the present, through a cross-case comparison of actors working to advance 3 alternative agricultural production systems in the U.S. Midwest: winter annual oilseeds, the perennial grain Kernza®, and managed grazing systems. Intermediaries (e.g., renewable energy consultants, NGO policy advocates, agri-food supply chain coordinators) have been theorized as important agents of change in sustainability transitions. Here, they are reframed as useful entry points to understanding niche-regime interactions in realizing diverging interpretations of sustainable agri-food systems. Methodologies based in work calendar logging, ego-network mapping, and interviews revealed distinct time allocation patterns and unique network compositions across the 3 cropping systems, providing rich insight into the day-to-day practice of intermediary actors. Results showed that actors were pursuing multiple visions of agri-food sustainability, ranging from minimizing the harms of the incumbent regime while leaving it largely intact, to more transformative approaches based on organizing watershed-based learning hubs to support community-led transitions. Interestingly, some intermediaries worked across multiple crops and cropping systems, but were enacting different versions of sustainability simultaneously in those systems. For the perennial grain Kernza, its networks were overwhelmingly composed of intermediary actors. Broadly, findings suggest that intermediaries can maintain, reform, or transform systems, so tracking their activities can better illuminate whom, what, and where is being sustained in a given agri-food transition.