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Monitoring and tracing product and process qualities along global supply chains have become increasingly challenging tasks for companies at the downstream end of the chain. High levels of uncertainty in trade coordination arise among importing companies in the face of these developments. The conceptual aim of this paper is to show, by the example of organic food imports to Germany and Australia, how convention theory can contribute to the analysis of trade coordination in global value chains. Our empirical results affirm that industrial conventions such as standards and third-party certification have gained increasing significance over the past two decades. Simultaneously, however, we argue that industrial conventions are not enough to overcome uncertainties in trade. They do not necessarily lead to reduced differences in perceptions of product quality between suppliers and importers. Less tangible factors such as trust established through relationship management and reputation are likewise significant. Furthermore, not only companies with a certain ideological tradition, but also individual people with altruistic motives within other types of firms, can determine how 'dedicated' a firm is in pushing trade coordination according to civic and domestic conventions. Market conventions (ie, the importance of price and competitiveness) are stressed more by Australian firms reflecting the country's liberal market economy and low state subsidies especially in the area of agriculture. Finally, compromises between conventions are sometimes necessary to end a situation of conflict between buyer and supplier.

The ethics of ecological production, egalitarianism, and democratic control underpinning recent research directions in agri-environmental governance are common to many of the issues explored in the alternative economies literature. One way in which these ethics are put into practice in agri-environmental governance is through the concept of 'nested markets'. Using qualitative methods of interviews and a focus group discussion, we examine newly constructed markets for food at different spatial scales in West Bengal, India. We find that multifunctional farmers and other actors along the supply chain started to construct and/or strengthen their own outlets and channels to reach consumers and to sell their products. Some of these markets build on long, historically deeply-rooted experiences, such as local periodic markets; others are relatively new constructions, making use of internet marketing platforms or messaging services and direct home delivery. Although they are market segments that are nested in the wider commodity markets for food, they have a different nature, different dynamics, a different redistribution of value added, and different relations between producers and consumers. Surprisingly, environmental issues were considered to be less important motivations than the creation of solidarity between producers and consumers. A deeper examination of these markets suggests new possible answers to the question of how to improve the sustainability of agricultural systems within an alternative economies framework.