Abstract
New forms of governance for collective food distribution such as Solidarity Purchase Groups claim to be based on ethical and solidarity logics and motivations. Non-market logics shape these groups’ organization and their members’ participation. Volunteers supply the labour for the distribution activities, which is arguably a key element for the groups’ economic viability. The value of voluntary work is an unpaid cost item but can also be viewed as an alternative monetary measure of the value of participation for the members. Novelli and Corsi present the results of an empirical analysis of the balances of several SPGs, finding that unpaid volunteer work is an indicator of the strength of the participants’ motivations and is indeed a crucial factor for the groups’ long-term economic viability.
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Notes
- 1.
The estimates found in the literature usually include the costs of marketing-related activities, omitting possible changes in the structure of the production costs related to the adoption of alternative channels. In other words, production costs are considered to be independent of the choice of the marketing channel. The results of our qualitative survey conducted with a group of farmers engaged in direct selling (Corsi et al., 2018, Chap. 9) seem to confute this assumption and indicate that production costs may also arise when a direct market channel is adopted. Thus, omitting production costs when comparing profits in conventional and alternative channels may cause the latter to be overestimated.
- 2.
The approach is similar to that of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) in the direct contact established with farmers. However, SPGs differ from CSA in three major respects: they (1) do not share the production risks with farmers, since no payment is made at the beginning of the crop year; (2) do not apply systematic budgeting to the production process; and (3) emphasize the opportunity to practise citizenship, rather than the benefits for accessing the land or directly contributing to the establishment of a local food system (Martino et al., 2016).
- 3.
An alternative approach to estimating the value of members’ participation is based on their own statements, using stated preferences methods (Corsi & Novelli, 2018, Chap. 4).
- 4.
As an example, the major explicit cost item in SPGs is the cost of the goods to be distributed. This cost equals the revenue, since the goods are distributed without any mark-up.
- 5.
Output approaches, on the other hand, focus on how the outputs of voluntary work (e.g., social benefits) are valued by the beneficiaries or on the value of volunteering, that is, the value of the benefit that the volunteers receive in exchange for their time and effort (see Orlowski & Wicker, 2015; Salamon, Sokolowski, & Haddock, 2011 for a framework of voluntary labour monetization approaches).
- 6.
Other input approaches, such as the opportunity cost method, are individual-centred (i.e., they assess the value of an individual’s time) (Orlowski & Wicker, 2015).
- 7.
The revenue item includes membership fees, possible donations, and the revenue from ‘sale’ (the value) of the distributed goods (equal to the cost of buying them from farmers).
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Novelli, S., Corsi, A. (2018). The Economic Viability of Solidarity Purchase Groups (Gruppi di Acquisto Solidale). In: Corsi, A., Barbera, F., Dansero, E., Peano, C. (eds) Alternative Food Networks. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90409-2_10
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