Understanding Alternative Food Networks and What It Means For the Developing World

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Urban Infrastructure

Understanding Alternative Food Networks and What It Means For the Developing World

By SMU City Perspectives team

Published 26 February, 2026

Why our content is credible

POINT OF VIEW

“The easiest way to develop an Alternative Food Network is to find an institution that provides food for a large group of people, like schools, hospitals, and even prisons, to obtain their food directly from a rural community. So they don't need to go to a wholesaler to buy their food, they just go directly to a producer or a local rural community.”

Qian Forrest Zhang

Associate Professor of Sociology; Lee Kong Chian Fellow, Singapore Management University

In brief

Alternative Food Networks (AFNs) are surrogates to mainstream produce retailers.
There are two types of AFNs, Urban-initiated and Rural-initiated, with the latter being the most effective for rural revitalisation.
In order for AFNs to thrive, there must be active collaboration between local communities and institutions with the local producers.

Methodology & References

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0197397525000050

Inside the mind of

Dr Qian Forrest Zhang joined Singapore Management University in 2005. Currently, he is Associate Professor of Sociology and the Associate Dean for Research at the School of Social Sciences. He completed his undergraduate training at Fudan University in Shanghai and obtained a PhD in sociology from Yale University in 2004. His research focuses on China’s agrarian political economy and rural development but extends to a range of other issues in contemporary China, including self-employment, stratification and inequality, social mobility, and family relations. His recent works have investigated agricultural cooperatives, industrial pig farming, the agrarian capitalist class, and land politics. He is the recipient of the 2015 Bernstein & Byres Prize in agrarian change.