Based on circular economy readiness assessments of six value chain layers, 18 design strategies and five collaboration strategies for circular economy were identified. The design strategies have many applications, from the design of materials, products, and processes to business models, and while some are specific to determined layers, others can be addressed by companies in multiple layers. Furthermore, collaboration across the value chain was found to affect positively the employment of circular economy design strategies, contributing to the fulfilment of solutions’ circularity potential.

Commercial use of wildlife is booming. However, knowledge of trade, price structure and benefit distribution mechanisms remain limited for many endemic, threatened and economically valuable species, impeding efforts to develop conservation intervention schemes in line with sustainable objectives. We illustrate the nature of commercialization of the caterpillar fungus Ophiocordyceps sinensis, collected in a high-altitude Tibetan region. Using the value-chain approach, we document how caterpillar fungus is collected in a remote mountainous region and traded across a wide range of middlemen until it finally reaches high-end markets in urban centres. Mapping the caterpillar fungus value chain helps identify the actors involved and the social institutions (i.e. the rules, norms and arrangements that shape people's behaviours) facilitating access to markets and influencing profit distribution and price structure. We present the complex dynamics of this commercialization process, providing a holistic value-chain analysis that encompasses actors, profits and institutions.

Advocates of the Green Revolution for Africa (GR4A) argue that the best way to address malnutrition is to incorporate smallholders into the global food economy via value chains involving the use of improved inputs, production technologies, and access to markets. Moseley and Ouedraogo critically assess these tactics using a feminist political ecology lens to analyze GR4A efforts in southwestern Burkina Faso which target female rice farmers. They examine the nature of the GR4A rice value chain, the degree to which a GR4A project is impacting the nutrition of participating women, and the influence of gender roles on GR4A rice project outcomes.

Gengenbach, Comé, and Nhabinde historicize women’s responses to an agricultural “value chain” in Zavala, Mozambique. Inspired by the Green Revolution for Africa (GR4A), the initiative aims to reduce hunger by converting cassava to industrial use for SABMiller’s Impala beer. Women chafed at the proposed remaking of an agrarian foodway long anchored by this edible commodity. Cassava’s inseparable dietary and market value in precolonial times intensified under Portuguese rule even as colonizers disdained it as a feminine “subsistence” crop and then claimed its commercial potential. Weaponizing this gendered binary yet needing women’s support, the Impala scheme has struggled to achieve GR4A food security goals.

A business ecosystem is a community of multiple co-evolving actors with interdependent product offerings organized around a specific value proposition. While the extant literature focuses on these two structural elements of ecosystems that existed ex ante, we challenge this notion with our core discovery that ecosystem actors emerge in an ex post dynamic process. With a longitudinal qualitative study of the vertically disintegrated part of the Chinese mobile phone industry, we develop a two-dimensional process model of ecosystem emergence, namely the temporal dimension that delineates three processal stages of ecosystem emergence and the spatial dimension that highlights an architectural pattern of reciprocities between value chain and resource pool to enable the ecosystem emergence. We also offer inter-temporal enabling conditions during ecosystem evolution. These findings enable us to complement the ecosystem literature by elaborating the antecedents, outcomes, and enabling conditions of ecosystem emergence in relation to multiple types of ecosystem actors. We also shed light on the value chain (re-)configuring process which derives from the reciprocity between value chains and ecosystem resources.

Sea cucumbers play a critical role in maintaining healthy marine ecosystems. Sea cucumbers are also a key source of income for millions of small-scale fishers worldwide. The lucrative nature of this industry has led to severe reductions in sea cucumber populations in numerous regions globally. A large proportion of sea cucumber fisheries are located in developing countries, which present unique challenges to management, including addressing highly decentralized methods of extraction and processing, limited economic and technological resources for governance and, in many cases, a high dependency on sea cucumbers as a primary source of income for small-scale coastal fishers. In this review, we review the benefits and challenges of seven categories of sea cucumber management strategies used globally in developing countries, including gear restrictions, size and weight limits, effort and catch controls, temporal closures, area closures, value chain licensing and territorial use rights in fisheries. We conclude that sea cucumber management in developing countries could benefit from focusing regulatory solutions on narrowed parts of the value chain, coupling production-based management strategies with processing and export regulations and providing avenues for local fishers to inform policy at the local, regional and national levels.

This commentary argues for strengthening the dialogue between the social and natural sciences as part of a more comprehensive sustainable approach to ecological farming practices that go beyond a focus on specific labels and certifications. It nuances the approach provided by Home et al. in their study of Swiss farms converting to organic agriculture, in emphasizing the need to deepen the study of such farming practices by including a broad vision of global value chains and a pragmatic approach to innovation and the different stakeholders involved. Ultimately, it calls for a more complex approach to eco-agriculture in its widest sense, that goes beyond dichotomies about conversion, certification and labeling. This would provide alternatives for researchers and other actors to move forward in theory and practice.

Short food supply chains, such as those of fruit and vegetable farmers delivering fresh product directly to restaurants, promise potentially higher returns to primary producers by avoiding the expense of intermediary distributors. Direct farm-to-chef supply chains also present a lower barrier to entry for small and beginning farmers, who are often scaled-out of the restaurant market by the volume requirements of food service distributors. High transactions costs for direct exchange, however, impede growth in this type of market channel. This From the Field paper describes an ongoing initiative by a regional food service distributor to play an active and collaborative role in the farm to food service supply chain, acting as a value chain partner to identify produce items desired by chefs, supply this market intelligence to growers and to garner commitments from farmers to grow and chefs to buy these products in upcoming seasons. By the eighth month of the effort, the distributor had assigned one of its produce buyers to act as a local specialist, working directly with chefs and local growers; and had initiated a series of mini local food shows to provide chefs and growers opportunities for face-to-face communication. The ultimate objective—to garner product-specific commitments from chefs and from growers—remains a work in progress.

Globalization of food trade in agricultural commodities is in some senses the antithesis of key concepts of sustainable agriculture. Global trade in food products distances the depletion of resources and environmental impacts of food production from the economic and social processes that drive consumption and increases the global risks from introduction of species that become pests. However, both supply and market value chains have emerged as major sub-systems in the larger global agro-food trade system that exert enormous importance over the potential for change in agricultural production at the farm level. This special issue presents studies of seven value chains that exhibit the breadth of research about value chains and their potential contributions to sustainable agriculture. They address value chains at different scales and dealing in various products. These studies contribute to the body of knowledge with a focus on lesser researched regions and products. Most important, they demonstrate the potential for value chains to enhance agricultural sustainability for rural populations and reduce food insecurity and inequities.

Sharon Winsor was not intent on becoming one of Australia’s leading female Indigenous entrepreneurs, it was rather unexpected. In seeking to escape from an abusive relationship and provide for her family, she turned to her knowledge of native foods and love of ‘wild harvesting’ from her childhood, to develop a thriving business. Her traditional knowledge of harvesting native foods has now led to the creation of products such as lemon myrtle sweet chilli sauce, Davidson plum syrup and cosmetics using ingredients such as Kakadu plum, emu oil, lemon myrtle and wild berry. Sharon now finds herself in a position where increased opportunities for international expansion are demanding increased volume and scale from her rural operations, where she works with Indigenous communities. She faces three key challenges about the future of Indigiearth:

1. 1. How can Indigiearth achieve scale while maintaining profitability and social mission?

2. 2. How can Indigiearth protect its competitive advantage in the face of increased local agricultural competition, as Indigenous crops increase in value?

3. 3. How can traditional knowledge be both shared and protected for community development (jobs and wealth creation) and for future generations?

The New Year is close and Sharon already has received large orders coming in from Europe and there is much interest from China and Japan. These decisions will determine how Indigiearth is structured, with whom it needs to partner to develop the Indigenous food industry, and how it will need to work with stakeholders on the issue of traditional knowledge while meeting the growing needs of the company. Sharon has a passion for her native products and wants to preserve the knowledge and respect that goes into her products – the dilemmas she is facing are putting her under immense pressure. She may choose to expand while maintaining the integrity of her business – but how can this be done?

Governments and NGOs have enthusiastically promoted value chains for lesser-known indigenous fruits in the pursuit of poverty reduction and other development goals. This paper examines experiences in Peru in building the value chain for camu-camu—a fruit native to the Amazon that is in the process of being domesticated. We look at interventions to build the chain, the environment in which the chain operates, the implications of chain development on livelihoods, and prospects for future chain development. Information was collected from gray literature as well as from primary data from household and key informant interviews. The results of this study suggest that the emergence of the camu-camu chain has led to higher farm income without generating large trade-offs in livelihood activities or the environment. However, the results also demonstrate an unrealized potential to achieve greater impact at scale due to gaps in services and inputs, limited coordination among farmers and chain actors, and a risky business environment. Building value chains for lesser-known fruits will require more than a techo-managerial focus on smallholder production. Greater attention is required to build stronger public–private collaboration to expand and diversify markets, with particular attention on strengthening institutions and growing local markets for high-value products.

There is growing recognition that the direct marketing initiatives favored by many local food activists and proponents often lack the capacity to meet rapidly expanding consumer demand for local food. To address these needs, some food systems researchers have identified a role for ‘transitional’ food systems that piggyback on the pre-existing, conventional local food system infrastructure, while moving toward the social and economic benefits of direct marketing. This paper uses a value chain model (based on business management studies and adapted to the context of agrifood enterprises) as a framework for investigating how actors who are accustomed to working within the logic of the traditional produce industry incorporate local food into their overall operations. Using a qualitative comparative case study approach, the paper examines how features of the value chain structure and governance mechanisms operate in two food distribution networks that are transitioning toward localization in a rural and an urban region of Pennsylvania, respectively. Case study analysis focuses on conventional wholesale produce distributors as the link between local producers and local buyers. Interviews with the distributors, producers and buyers reveal the sources and outcomes of challenges affecting how the distributors organize their purchasing and selling of local produce. Network practices, in turn, have equity implications as distributors struggle to pay producers enough to maintain their economic viability, while still making local produce accessible to a wide range of consumers. Policy-makers and practitioners seeking to support the ‘scaling up’ of local and regional food systems should consider targeted development of technical infrastructure in processing and distribution, as well as outreach on appropriate shared ownership models. Future research should be longitudinal to determine the longer-term role and contribution of the conventional food system infrastructure in transitioning to more sustainable local and regional food systems.

The continuing outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in Southeast Asia have been disastrous to the poultry industry in the region and have raised serious global public health concerns. Risk for animal and human health exists along the whole poultry value chain. The Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations initiated a series of value chain studies in Asia and Africa during 2007 as a means to develop a better understanding of the trade flows, disease transmission mechanisms and possible entry points for intervention in various value chains. This paper outlines the methodology used to undertake these value chain studies, their use in developing policy and HPAI control measures that decrease animal and human health risks, and describes a value chain study in North Sumatra undertaken by FAO and the University of North Sumatra.