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Paper short abstract:

In Latin America, agroecological alternatives have contributed to a solidaristic infrastructure. When the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted short supply chains, solidaristic adaptations helped continue and even expand them, while also accommodating anti-virus hygiene measures.

Paper long abstract:

In Latin America, agroecological alternatives have arisen from small-scale producers resisting capital-intensive neocolonial Northern models and their globalised markets. Developing a solidarity economy, these alternatives bring producers socially closer to consumers by various means such as farmers’ markets, weekly box schemes, Community Supported Agriculture and public procurement. Through their diálogo de saberes (knowledge-exchange), practitioners exchange their experiences with each other and with external experts including academic researchers. All these practices contribute to a solidaristic infrastructure for socio-economic justice.

Within those agendas, innovation is often called ‘social technology’, understood as technology-in-use, i.e. adaptable and adapted by specific actors for their solidaristic aims and contexts. By definition ‘social technology’ has a low-cost design using local capacities and materials, thus easily reproducible. Such agri-food innovations have encompassed the following: non-conventional food plants (PANCS), agrooecological agroforestry, rainwater-fed cisterns for irrigation; and digital platforms for ordering food baskets.

When the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted circuitos cortos, solidaristic adaptations helped continue them, while also accommodating anti-virus hygiene measures. Many initiatives began or extended digital platforms for food orders, especially cell-phone apps, thereby reaching more consumers than before. These efforts depended upon wider solidaristic expertise and networks –for designing the innovation, as well as for educating consumers about the many societal benefits of agroecological production. More recently, this solidaristic infrastructure has been conceptualised as socio-environmental and socio-territorial technologies, which help link nearby initiatives into a stronger territorial force. These networks have jointly asked public authorities for support measures that could strengthen their collective capacities for circuitos cortos.