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Stakeholders show a growing interest for organic food and farming (OF&F), which becomes a societal component. Rather than questioning whether OF&F outperforms conventional agriculture or not, the main question addressed in this book is how, and in what conditions, OF&F may be considered as a prototype towards sustainable agricultures. The book gathers 25 papers introduced in a first chapter. The first section investigates OF&F production processes and its capacity to benefit from the systems functioning to achieve higher self-sufficiency. The second one proposes an overview of organic performances providing commodities and public goods. The third one focuses on organics development pathways within agri-food systems and territories. As well as?a strong theoretical component, this book provides an overview of the new challenges for research and development. It questions the benefits as well as knowledge gaps with a particular emphasis on bottlenecks and lock-in effects at various levels.

Sustainable agri-food system approaches are rooted both in the environmental movements and in the political-economic critique of the contemporary system. Organic food and farming (OF&F) as an alternative agri-food system among others encompasses multiple dimensions and performances, enabling the study of conversion as a prototype of transition. We use the multilevel pathways framework to describe the transition process. We first present OF&F as a heterogeneous entity and examine the consequences of acknowledging its diversity. We show that OF&F as an innovation influences the mainstream design of agri-food systems, and we explore the strategies of the actors in charge of its development. We then introduce how different levers can influence types and levels of conversion, with actors who have diverse expectations to articulate. This raises the issue of time frames with short-term adaptations and long-term transitions. Finally, we introduce the market itself as a composition of sectors and territories. We argue that this diversity has to be kept beyond consensus to build multiple strategies. We represent the initiatives of different networks in their spatial and social dimensions. This begs the question of the coexistence of these models. We conclude that the policy level has a prominent role to play in enabling this coexistence.