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Pathways to Transformation in Agri-Food Systems: From Consumer Choice to...
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Pathways to Transformation in Agri-Food Systems: From Consumer Choice to Producer Innovation

A Special Issue of Foods (ISSN 2304-8158) belonging to the section "Food Systems".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 September 2026 | Viewed by 962

Editors

Dr. Yaohua Feng

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Food Science, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA
Interests: human factors in food safety; innovative food safety education; consumer science; technology acceptance and adoption
Dr. Han Chen

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor Assistant
Department of Food Science, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA
Interests: food safety culture; risk communication and education; consumer science

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Transforming agri-food systems is essential to meeting global demands for safe, nutritious, and affordable food while strengthening sustainability and resilience. These systems are shaped by interconnected decisions made by diverse actors, from producers and processors to regulators, educators, and consumers. Meaningful transformation therefore requires coordinated innovation across the entire food system, linking producer innovation with consumer choice and behavior.

This Special Issue focuses on pathways to transformation in agri-food systems, highlighting how technological, behavioral, and institutional innovations drive change from farm to fork. We welcome research and review articles that examine innovative food production systems (e.g., aquaculture, hydroponic, and aquaponic systems); emerging approaches to food safety risk assessment, management, and control; and the perceptions, acceptance, and decision-making of both producers and consumers in response to new technologies and practices. Submissions addressing food safety communication and education, data-driven decision-making, and the application of digital and artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled tools across agri-food systems are particularly encouraged.

By integrating insights across production, risk management, communication, and consumer behavior, this Special Issue aims to advance a holistic understanding of how agri-food systems can be transformed to support safer, more sustainable, and more resilient food futures.

Dr. Yaohua Feng
Guest Editor

Dr. Han Chen
Guest Editor Assistant

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Foods is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • agri-food systems
  • innovations
  • controlled-environment agriculture
  • food safety risk management
  • food safety education
  • digital agriculture
  • consumer perceptions
  • data-driven decision-making

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

34 pages, 2730 KB  
Article
How Domestic Demand Drives Coffee Export-Basket Upgrading: Pathways to Agri-Food System Transformation
by Ying Hu and Yongle Xie
Foods 2026, 15(18), 3240; https://doi.org/10.3390/foods15183240 - 14 Sep 2026
Abstract
The coffee industry in developing countries has long been locked into the lower end of the global value chain, and external governance mechanisms such as fair trade have struggled to fundamentally reverse this situation. This study adopts a mixed-methods research design, using the [...] Read more.
The coffee industry in developing countries has long been locked into the lower end of the global value chain, and external governance mechanisms such as fair trade have struggled to fundamentally reverse this situation. This study adopts a mixed-methods research design, using the coffee industry in Yunnan, China, as a case study to reveal the micro-level mechanisms by which domestic demand drives industrial upgrading. Building on these case-derived mechanisms, it then uses panel data from 96 major coffee-producing and coffee-consuming economies from 2012 to 2024 to examine their macro-level implications, including national-level relationships, nonlinear patterns, and cross-country heterogeneity. The study shows that both factors generally drive export upgrading and exhibit a “promotion—inhibition—re-promotion” pattern characterized by a dual-threshold nonlinearity. The case study reveals that the inhibition phase stems from a mismatch between market expansion and demand structure upgrading, where homogeneous capacity growth temporarily offsets the effects of quality upgrading. Heterogeneity manifests in three distinct patterns: producing countries exhibit only a significant domestic market absorption effect; traditional consuming countries are primarily characterized by path dependence; and emerging consuming countries achieve dual-driven growth in both scale and quality. By bridging macroeconomic effects and microeconomic logic, this study clarifies the conditions under which domestic demand drives product-end upgrading along the value chain, providing a reference for different economies to formulate differentiated upgrading strategies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Pathways to Transformation in Agri-Food Systems: From Consumer Choice to Producer Innovation)
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18 pages, 957 KB  
Article
Perceptions of Produce Recall Responsibility and Compliance of FSMA Produce Safety Rule Among Small- and Medium-Sized Produce Growers
by Elma Kontor-Manu and Yaohua Feng
Foods 2026, 15(16), 2930; https://doi.org/10.3390/foods15162930 - 21 Aug 2026
Viewed by 319
Abstract
Ensuring the safety of produce is essential for protecting consumers and preventing foodborne illnesses. Regulatory frameworks, such as the Food Safety Modernization Act’s Produce Safety Rule (FSMA PSR), contribute to the decision-making process of produce growers in ensuring the production of safe foods. [...] Read more.
Ensuring the safety of produce is essential for protecting consumers and preventing foodborne illnesses. Regulatory frameworks, such as the Food Safety Modernization Act’s Produce Safety Rule (FSMA PSR), contribute to the decision-making process of produce growers in ensuring the production of safe foods. However, little research has explored the role of growers’ perceptions of responsibility for produce-associated outbreaks, and how these may influence their decisions. Using a cross-sectional online survey of 500 US small- or medium-sized produce growers, this study examined perceptions of stakeholder responsibility for two produce-related outbreaks involving jalapeños and a spinach–spring mix blend. The implications of the PSR exemptions were also investigated. Responsibility attribution differed among stakeholder groups for each produce commodity. Packing houses were identified as a common denominator responsible for both produce commodities. Medium-sized produce growers agreed that the PSR exemptions provide direct market access and reduced time commitment to exempted farms (p < 0.001). However, small-sized produce growers expressed concerns about the potential limitations of the exemptions for qualifying farms. The results provide insights to policymakers, educators, and industry stakeholders to incorporate programs that foster shared responsibility for produce safety across the food system. It also informs future evaluations of the implications of the PSR exemptions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Pathways to Transformation in Agri-Food Systems: From Consumer Choice to Producer Innovation)
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