Performance and informality: the key to sustainability in small scale agrifood systems

Abstract

In small scale societies and developing nations, agrifood systems tend to be structurally less complex than in developed nations but have a complexity introduced in the form of strict social and cultural mores which both help to formulate decision making and create governance mechanisms. Informality in the economic underpinning of these agrifood systems has worked for these small-scale societies for thousands of years but the question is whether and how they can remain sustainable in the fast moving change situation of today’s global business. In this paper we discuss sustainability from a modified Triple Bottom Line perspective and analyse data from horticultural product chain studies in two Pacific Island countries to investigate the informal framework of sustainability in these systems. We use the theoretical paradigm of theatre performance (frontstage:backstage) to understand how a ‘habitus of informality’ is both a threat and an opportunity to sustainability in these small scale, yet complex, systems.