VALUE CHAIN COORDINATION COLUMN: Adaptive by design: Flexibility and resilience in regional food systems

Abstract

First paragraphs:

Practitioners working in regional food systems know that volatility is the norm, not the exception. Market shifts, climate disruption, changing priorities of buyers and public agencies, and turbulent funding landscapes are defining fea­tures of operating in this space. Responding to these perennial fluctuations requires flexibility and adaptability, which is exactly where value chain coordination (VCC) shines. Coincidentally, those same attributes make VCC efforts much more complex to measure and study than conventional supply chain interventions.

Building and maintaining a value chain requires a complex set of actors, resources, and physical infrastructure that is coordinated to move identity-preserved food products from producers through intermediaries to final consumers. Appropriately sited and scaled built infrastructure (such as pro­cessing facilities, aggregation warehouses, and dis­tribution trucks) is essential, but on its own is a blunt tool that is built for anticipated conditions and difficult to change. While physical infrastruc­ture’s costs and timelines are fixed and legible to funders, investment in VCC is harder to pin down, and yet its long-term market impacts can be significant and far-reaching. . . .