Assessing Transformative Change Potential of Multi-Stakeholder Platforms within Agricultural Commodity Systems

Abstract

Collaboration and innovation within supply chains are critical to improve their contributions to the socioeconomic and environmental sustainability of agricultural commodity systems.1 In particular, existing research suggests that multi-stakeholder platforms (MSPs) can foster both collaboration and innovation through knowledge-sharing and the exchange of ideas, information, services, and resources among participants while strengthening the capacity of stakeholders to address cross-cutting issues and challenges.2,3 Collaboration and innovation through agricultural sector MSPs, because it can engage multiple, diverse stakeholders along the agri-value food chains,2 has the potential for a novel form of governance for sustainable development. These possibilities exist for MSPs that exist in both virtual and/or physical spaces but how stakeholders use and organize these spaces shapes the potential of the MSPs for transformative change. Global food and agricultural commodity systems are complex, interconnected networks of political governance structures, ecological systems, energy grids, and changing consumer demand. Assembling an equitable and functional MSP within this context requires the participation of stakeholders who may vary in their willingness to maintain a partnership long enough for actions to be implemented and who hold differing motivations, perspectives, and experiences.