442 Localized Food Systems
common occurrence and in many regions are by no means marginal to the conven-
tional system. In Northern Italy then we see a concentration of quality food net-
works, while in Germany and The Netherlands, new alliances are more associated
with agri-tourism ventures and nature and landscape management. Food, as a cultur-
ally hybrid entity, becomes unevenly embedded into the fabric of new rural develop-
ment practices; and new synergies become developed between food, agricultural
practice, consumption practices and associational and institutional arrangements.
Understanding the wealth and worth of these series of micro-social practices
and, still more, assessing what in more generalized terms they ‘add up to’ is a major
empirical and theoretical task, for which scholars have only recently embarked. It
is clear, however, that the volatilities in the consumption/production relations
associated with the conventional systems, will have pervasive effects and interac-
tions upon the competitive spaces that these alternative food supply chains operate
in. This is highly contingent, not just upon some vague notions of consumer cul-
ture or sovereignty. It is also centrally conditioned by the contested and institu-
tional ways in which the ‘consumer interest’ is continually constructed – and by
whom. Such analytical progress will not rely just upon a realization that nature and
society are hybridized in food. The issue is how, where and by which powerful/
non-powerful actors? Food as a realm of governance and social and political regula-
tion is not contradicted by more socially constructivist processes. These need to be
put together, not least because institutional actors and agencies are part of that
constructed and contested process. Somehow, we need to understand how alterna-
tive food networks not only get formed, but then get demarcated and maintained
as a socio-competitive dynamic. They are not static events.
Corporate responsibility and accountability
The past two decades have witnessed a significant growth in research work on the
globalization and regulation of agribusiness and the workings of multinationals (for
a review of the commodity systems approach, see Friedland, 2001). This has been a
major development of the discipline of rural sociology, and it has emerged as a clear
critique of industrial modernization in the agro-food sector. In postulating aspects of
ecological modernization, however, we also now need to consider and critically assess
how business relationships (with each other, with consumers and with local com-
munities) are changing as a result of a number of significant forces. These include:
changes in the regulatory frameworks; the globalization of supply chains and the
increasing mobility of capital and knowledge; the application of ICT to radically
restructure certain markets, industries and places; changing patterns of consumption
and falling consumer trust in existing forms of corporate and government commu-
nications; the emergence of civil society groups and global protest movements and
a realization that companies may be more vulnerable to pressure for change than
entrenched or undemocratic governments; the fragmentation of local communi-
ties and constructions of community; the pressure from the investment commu-
nity in the form of the growing ethical investment movement; and the pressure