The goal of this research was to better understand how farm families adapt to global environmental and political-economic change to secure their livelihoods and to build more resilient food systems. The dissertation reports on five iterative cycles of participatory action research that resulted in a diversity of pragmatic, conceptual and theoretical outcomes. I first examined how farmers adapted to the BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) crisis in the Canadian Prairies, identifying three general adaptation types: ‘exiting’ from beef production or agriculture; ‘enduring’ through adaptations that seek stability; and ‘innovating’ to pursue new opportunities, including direct farm marketing and cooperatives as important forms of grassroots adaptation. Next, I reported on a five-year action research project that developed a “civic food network” in rural Manitoba, which emerged in large part as a response to the BSE crisis. This case study examined the tensions, politics and opportunities that arise through the intensely socially embedded relationships that underpin these grassroots innovations. I argue that CFNs must productively engage with difference if they are to reach their full potential for rural development and social change. Next, I examine the barriers that confront the local food movement, especially as they relate to food safety regulations. A series of short articles and videos are presented that were used to buttress the political efforts of our participatory action research team to advocate for scale-appropriate regulations in Manitoba. Next, I examined my PhD research as a whole to illustrate how participatory action research transgresses “academic” and “non-academic” knowledge and space to mobilize knowledge in intentional processes of social transformation. Through this research, we developed three Knowledge Mobilization strategies. These include: Using transmedia to exchange knowledge via multiple platforms and mediums; “setting hooks” to draw together diverse knowledge communities; and layering to deliver knowledge at varying levels of detail and complexity. Finally, through a performative autoethnographic script, I deconstruct graduate education, the dissertation and the professionalizing discourses that impede a vibrant “public scholarship” in Universities. As a whole, this participatory action research simultaneously argues for and also embodies democratic approaches to research and to agriculture and food practice and policy.

The Swedish alternative food networks landscape is underdeveloped compared to that of the US or the countries of Western Europe, however its development has sped up in recent years. The relationship between the farmer and the food hub is the first one to be built when an Alternative Food Network is being set up and therefore represents a valid starting point in the hitherto scarcely studied field of alternative food distribution in Sweden. The paper used a relationship-marketing framework with the addition of elements from Civic Food Networks conceptualization of Alternative Food Networks in order to explain the creation and maintenance, as a well as the quality and depth of supplier-distributor relationships in two cases of Swedish food hubs. Given the immaturity of the Swedish market, this paper tried to explore the possible variations existing in the landscape. In the case of student-led food cooperative Ultimat and its two studied suppliers, values and larger local food systems goals played the primary role in creating and maintaining the relationship, in spite of the poor economic performance of such a relationship in the eyes of the suppliers. The linkages forged between the two entities are strong due to shared values and common goals. In the case of Bygdens Saluhall, the values play a certain role, but the economic element remains crucial for the farmers. At the same time, the connection is closer and ownership of the project by the farmers more significant. Additionally, points of interest arose for future research, notably the diverging stance of Ultimat’s suppliers vs. Bygdens Saluhall’s suppliers in the question of pro-business food hubs and organization of alternative food networks in general.