Transformative Driving Forces in Organic Food Systems

The organic food and farming movement has lately been portrayed as a food system in its own right since it contains all necessary sub-systems, consisting of food environments, distribution networks, processing, as well as production and supply, all of which are bounded by an organic guarantee system. This dissertation critically reviews the discourse on driving forces in food systems and argues that mindset is the primary predictor for food system outcomes. While “yield per hectare” and “go big or go out” narratives are still driving the food system’s overall trajectory, transformative worldviews are beginning to transcend the Dominant Social Paradigm. This dissertation wants to showcase how mindset qualities such as those found in organic food systems (OFS) and their resulting driving forces are converging with the trajectories of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and other food system transformation agendas. The hypotheses that shall be valorized in this dissertation are the following: (1) Drivers in OFS convey narratives that appeal to the human need for self-determination, and transcendence, evoking sustainable happiness and personal responsibility; (2) OFS Drivers promote a paradigm shift that is conducive to achieving the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development, and (3) OFS Drivers around the world display specific sustainability patterns, irrespective of geographical-climatic, political-economic, and socio-cultural conditions. Through integrated fi ndings from actor-centered mixedmethods grounded theory (MM-GT) research involving the documentation of eleven case territories, this work identifi ed a pattern of global mindset attributes that drives OFS actors toward holistic human and sustainable development.