Alternative Food Networks in Food System Transition—Values, Motivation, and Capacity Building among Young Swedish Market Gardeners
Abstract
:1. Introduction
1.1. Transition of the Dominant Agri-Food Regime
1.2. Market Gardening, Co-Learning, and Capacity Building
1.3. Market Gardening in Sweden
2. Materials and Methods
3. Results
3.1. Description of Production Systems and Business Structure
3.1.1. Financial Situation
“We need to cut our costs so we don’t need to make as much money.”(Participant 6)
3.1.2. Business Models
“So far, we have sold at farmers’ markets and online and various forms of direct sales […] The largest amount is sold directly to the consumer. Otherwise, the whole idea fails, I think. I like this relationship sale where you can look the customer in the eye.”(Participant 11)
3.2. What Motivates Young Market Gardeners in Sweden?
“We started this farm partly because it is fun to work with the soil and grow vegetables, but also with an idea of transitioning in mind, that you can produce food in a different way and you can sell it in a different way.”(Participant 1)
3.2.1. Making a Living from Market Gardening
“We should be able to live off this and to put money aside, that is the goal of the business. It should be justifiable considering how much work one puts into it.”(Participant 11)
“The financial part, it permeates it all because we want to support ourselves. But we don’t feel the need to measure success financially, to put it that way.”(Participant 5)
3.2.2. Personal Interest and Wellbeing
“It is all about finding a balance in everything, the input/workload and the revenue, which provides for us […] so that you have the strength in a long-term way.”(Participant 10)
“It was also with a backdrop of a life crisis. […] I thought I needed to have my ‘fingers in the soil’. It’s about being able to feel good.”(Participant 6)
3.2.3. Sustainability Values and Leading the Sustainability Transition
“I am thinking of changing society […], but I also think that in order for it to be a real change, there must be some laws and rules about what to do.”(Participant 1)
“[…] it is something else that attracts people. There is this view that there is something fundamentally wrong in society, and then you try to change it yourself in an active way. You could get involved in politics too, but if you want to […] well, some of us are more attracted to try for ourselves, influencing from the inside so to speak.”(Participant 3)
3.3. Barriers and Opportunities for New Entrants in Market Gardening
3.3.1. Barriers and Opportunities Related to Knowledge and Learning
“We have tried, but we have not received help from anyone. Advice can be very theoretical and not so adaptable to our situation. People often think that it is bigger than it is. You only start from large-scale farms when you give advice, perhaps.”(Participant 3)
“Well, something I think we had in the beginning is some kind of openness to try new things, we experimented a lot with different crops and so on. I believe we need to maintain that openness, but maybe shift the focus to what we are already producing, instead of trying to produce even more strange things.”(Participant 1)
Lack of Skills in Business Management
Technical Skills Are Learnt along the Way
Pioneers Need to Be Good Communicators
Networking Is an Important Skill
3.3.2. Barriers and Opportunities Related to the Political Economy
“We haven’t been able to squeeze ourselves into a regular program or standard form of any kind. It can be everything from the fact that we don’t own our land so we can’t go to the bank […] or the Federation of Swedish Farmers or the Board of Agriculture think we are too small. And the municipality, they don’t understand what we are up to.”(Participant 8)
“The authorities, and maybe also [the university], need to understand that there is a new generation of farmers, and in this generation, there are those, like me, who need to start from scratch. If we really want to achieve all those goals, we need to support them too and realize that they have different problems than those on a multigenerational farm.”(Participant 4)
“A lot of young people come to us, they see the dream to contribute through farming. They really want to start up and they would do so in an instant if it were economically viable. Losing that resource is the saddest thing there is. There are thousands who want to participate, but we haven’t figured out how to enable them to start. It’s about access to land, it’s about start-up support, it’s about skills development—it’s about society starting to value all aspects of small-scale vegetable production.”(Participant 8)
4. Discussion
5. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
Appendix A
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Component | Description |
---|---|
Respondents | Owners of newly started market gardens |
Age | Ranging between 25 and 37 years |
Gender | 8 females and 6 males |
Location | Southern and central Sweden |
Settlement | 10 rural and 4 urban farms |
Educational background | University, business management, or other work experiences |
Production | Vegetables with 20–50 cultivars/unit in open field or polytunnels |
Farm size | Often less than 1 ha and ranging between 200 m2 and 4 ha |
Start of firm | 1–10 years ago |
Yearly revenue | Mean value €29,000, ranging between €1100 and €100,000 |
Business models | Alternative food networks; CSAs, farmers’ markets, online, on-farm shops |
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Drottberger, A.; Melin, M.; Lundgren, L. Alternative Food Networks in Food System Transition—Values, Motivation, and Capacity Building among Young Swedish Market Gardeners. Sustainability 2021, 13, 4502. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13084502
Drottberger A, Melin M, Lundgren L. Alternative Food Networks in Food System Transition—Values, Motivation, and Capacity Building among Young Swedish Market Gardeners. Sustainability. 2021; 13(8):4502. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13084502
Chicago/Turabian StyleDrottberger, Annie, Martin Melin, and Lotten Lundgren. 2021. "Alternative Food Networks in Food System Transition—Values, Motivation, and Capacity Building among Young Swedish Market Gardeners" Sustainability 13, no. 8: 4502. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13084502
APA StyleDrottberger, A., Melin, M., & Lundgren, L. (2021). Alternative Food Networks in Food System Transition—Values, Motivation, and Capacity Building among Young Swedish Market Gardeners. Sustainability, 13(8), 4502. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13084502