Looking at sustainable innovation dynamically: The example of farm-to-fork systems

This article introduces farm-to-fork systems as a form of sustainable innovation that attempts to solve both the environmental and social failures of conventional farming. We show that the current socio-technical regime of conventional farming is being challenged by two linked alternative projects. The first of these is organic farming, which integrates environmental expectations into the farming process. However, since organic farming innovations have now been partially integrated into the main conventional farming model, the second project has turned toward the issue of farming autonomy, hence the rise of farm-to-fork systems. The analysis provided in this article is qualitative, and is based on the history of the development of French farm-to-fork systems, through the lens of the Multi-Level Perspective. Our approach is original in the way that it highlights the dynamics of sustainable innovation and its inherent interdependence with the socio-technical regime.