Research

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has encompassed almost all areas of human life, including health, the economy, culture, and politics. The pandemic is a complex, dynamic, unpredictable, and difficult-to-navigate socio-natural phenomenon. Individuals and societies formulate various responses to the disruptions it caused, finding ways to cope with its unknown and unpredictable dynamic. In this study we examine the grassroots, value-oriented actors of the urban food system in southern Poland: small-scale, local initiatives, which define their mission in accordance with ethical norms, social goals, and values beyond their own interest. We focus on local initiatives where financial capital is scarce, but which are still able to respond to the crisis effectively. Our main questions are therefore: how did grassroots, value-oriented food initiatives respond to the pandemic? What kinds of capital facilitate the resilience of these initiatives and how does this translate to the resilience capacities of local food systems?

VARIOUS RESILIENCES AND VARIOUS FACILITATING CAPITALS

The concept of resilience frames contemporary debates on the conditions, capacities, and processes of confronting unpredictable, complex threats to the functioning of societies. Since the 1970s, when the concept of resilience began to gain popularity (Holling 1973, Bollig 2014), its definitions based on a model of ecological systems have been complemented by social, economic, and political dimensions. Hence, resilience is defined as the capacity of the system “to resist, absorb, accommodate to and recover from the effects of a hazard in a timely and efficient manner, including through the preservation and restoration of its essential basic structures and functions” (United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction 2012; see also Walker et al. 2004, Worstell and Green 2017). Doorn and Copeland (2023:238) provide the following umbrella definition: “Resilience₃: = ability of the system S to maintain its functions F through the actions A of its components C in changing situations Sc.” In this article we focus on the patterns in which non-financial capitals manifest themselves, enabling local actors in Krakow (C) to formulate responses (A) to the COVID-19 pandemic crises (Sc). Following Doorn and Copeland’s understanding of a resilience model, we recognize the role of capital as one of the “supporting resources that enable or constrain the possible actions that people can take [in case of a crisis/changing situation]” (Doorn and Copeland 2023:239). Resilience of the system may translate into a scope of processes: from an absorptive capacity, resisting or buffering the impact of the crisis and keeping most of the structure intact, via adaptive ones, characterized by learning, experimentation, and flexibility, to transformation, where the change is more profound and involves the system’s key characteristics, structures, and values (Béné et al. 2014, Bollig 2014).

In this study we refer to resilience capacities to understand the diversity and complexity of the responses of local food system actors in a Polish city to the pandemic crisis in 2019–2020. Their narratives on how they acted during the pandemic are the main source of the empirical data for this study. Despite their niche and marginal position in the globalized market-based food system, these actors managed to maintain their activities and develop responses to the crisis. We aim to understand how the types of capital, manifesting in particular patterns, shaped and facilitated these responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and therefore impacted their resilience capacities. We define these capacities as specific, unique, and context-related combinations of capital, resources, assets, or characteristics accumulated by a given system or actor and activated when the system or actors’ essential characteristics are threatened (Béné et al. 2014, Béné 2020). Biggs et al. (2012) and Berbes-Blazquez et al. (2022) propose compiling them as a set of principles and mechanisms enhancing resilience. Béné et al. (2014) identify financial and physical assets, social and institutional resources, without which resilience capacities, especially adaptive ones, cannot be developed. We apply the concept of capital containing specific resources, both material and non-material (Béné 2020, Bruce et al. 2021), which are available for food system actors, enabling them to act in response to the disturbances of a pandemic and bypass the crisis. In an extensive review of the disaster studies literature, Gaisie et al. (2021) point to a number of studies grounded in the capital-based framework of resilience, in which capital is generally perceived as facilitating resilience capacities throughout the whole disaster cycle (before, during, and after a disturbance). It is, however, worth mentioning that in a specific context some capital may act as counterproductive and dysfunctional, negatively impacting an actor’s resilience capabilities (see, e.g., MacGillivray 2018, Gaisie et al. 2021). For example, Wolf et al.’s study (2010) indicate that elderly people’s strong bonding networks may exacerbate their vulnerability to negative effects of heat waves, and the results of Sadri et al.’s (2018) study of post-crisis resilience demonstrated the negative impact of household size on recovery after a tornado.

We recognize resilience of social systems as a normative concept (Walsh-Dilley et al. 2016, Allen et al. 2019). This normativity comes mainly from its explicit reference to the desired states of the system, key characteristics, and fundamental functions that need to be maintained. Different stakeholders may have different definitions of a desirable state of a system. The societal objectives that drive intentional responses to shocks are rooted in values and interests, which are sometimes commonly shared and sometimes the subject of disagreement of conflicted groups (Bisoffi et al. 2021, Tarra et al. 2021). The groups of actors we investigated agree on the general values of environmental, economic, and social sustainability (Purvis et al. 2019). They recognize climate risks, political conflicts, and rising social inequalities as undermining the key functions of food systems: food security, food justice, food sovereignty, planetary health, and well-being (Walsh-Dilley et al. 2016, Alkon 2018, Bellamy et al. 2021). The immersion in the value system typical of the local initiatives we studied is of key importance for the way they accumulate and use capital enhancing resilience, as will be illustrated in the analytical section.

THE COVID-19 CRISIS IN FOOD SYSTEMS

The COVID-19 pandemic led to crises that locally and periodically endangered the stability of the elementary structures of the food system (Klassen and Murphy 2020, Pereira et al. 2020, Bellamy et al. 2021, Bisoffi et al. 2021) and households’ food security (Béné 2020). During the crisis, the strongest economic regions, such as the European Union, the United States, and Canada, apart from local disruptions, maintained their economic structures and functions (Matthews 2020). Institutions with financial and other economic capital continued to operate unchanged globally, despite situations of momentary breakdowns in some sectors of the system. Some studies explain that having financial capital allows flexibility in manipulating other elements and structures in order to maintain an actor’s position in the food system and its key functions (Nordhagen et al. 2021). Additionally, particular forms of ownership, experience, and know-how (Neise et al. 2021), as well as marketing strategies permitting flexible business models (Coopmans et al. 2021), help business actors to keep their interests relatively undisturbed. On the other hand, many researchers of resilience in the pandemic have highlighted that small entities and less privileged actors have been particularly affected by food-related risks associated with the crisis (Jangjou 2021, Rao et al. 2022). Despite having limited access to financial resources, small entities formulate and implement measures in response to ongoing disturbances, and actively build resilience capital for potential future crises (Nordhagen et al. 2021). The differing impacts of the crises on various actors and regions as well as their contrasting response have dynamized the global debate on resilience processes (Trump et al. 2020, Chaigneau et al. 2022). This has included acknowledging the role of usually marginalized actors whose voices had previously scarcely been heard in the sustainability debate (Pereira et al. 2020, Bellamy et al. 2021).

Actors with limited financial capital respond to pandemic crises using combinations of other kinds of capital and building on material, natural, social, and cultural resources, e.g. organizational and legal forms, cultural values, traditions, social practices, and patterns of social networks (Bruce et al. 2021). For example, individual households responded to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis with new consumption trajectories and practices (Cavallo et al. 2020) as well as the material arrangements that go with them (Bender et al. 2022). Organizations dealing directly with ensuring the right to food, meanwhile, made modifications to entire administrative structures and practices, where legal and institutional frameworks in which they operate have been sufficiently flexible (Atalan-Helicke and Abiral 2021, Billiet et al. 2021, Capodistrias et al. 2022, Robinson et al. 2021). A study on food banks in the Netherlands revealed strategies of developing new channels, engaging new actors, and forming new alliances (Dekkinga et al. 2022). Zollet et al. (2021) describe many grassroots solutions introduced by alternative food networks, mitigating the pandemic’s negative impact, and similar to those we observed, e.g. fundraising, deliveries organized by producers, and various forms of self-organization and solidarity. The initiatives we studied reveal some of the above characteristics. On the one hand, short food chains, food aid organizations, small businesses, and citizens-based food networks operate on the margins of Krakow’s urban food system. On the other, they act as unique food production and distribution actors mitigating the weaknesses of the mainstream, globalized market-based food system in Poland.

METHODS

The materials analyzed in this article are the result of research conducted in 2019–2020 in Krakow, Poland. The main aim of the project was to understand how bottom-up initiatives define and face the weaknesses of contemporary food regimes: the threats, shortages, omissions, and failures of the globalized, industrialized food production and distribution system. The sample described below in the “Research sites” section comprises three networks of cooperation of various actors, organizing themselves around local alternatives for food production, distribution, and consumption. When defining food threats, actors refer to food security, food justice, democratization of the food system, animal rights, and sustainability, with actions that aim, sometimes innovatively, to implement these values.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020, the aim of the research was expanded to include resilience capacities (Béné et al. 2014, Béné 2020) and responses to pandemics as an additional dimension of the research questions. The empirical data comprised 47 individual in-depth, semi-structured interviews lasting between one and two hours; seven participant observations; and additional photographic materials. Table 1 presents a list of data sources: an interview reference containing brief characteristics, type of data (interview transcripts and notes, notes from the observations and photos), the source’s position within the network, and the method used. The sampling followed two complementary logics: the structure of the network and the snowball method. In order for the information collected to come from as diverse a range of actors as possible within the networks, the interlocutors were selected by moving around a map of each network, along food stream flows. At the same time, based on respondent-driven sampling, we followed the interviewees’ directions regarding further actors in the network. For both organizational and ethical reasons, we decided to suspend research during the strict lockdown in Poland (April–June 2020). However, even after the restrictions related to social distancing were eased, in order to ensure the highest possible level of comfort and security, each respondent was given a choice as to how the interview would be conducted. As a result, most took place in person, whereas some interviewees preferred online interviews. All respondents confirmed their informed consent to participate in the study, after being informed of its objectives and their role in it. Both researchers situated themselves in academic positions, and this was always communicated to the respondents. However, they were also occasionally involved in the networks’ activities: through membership in the food cooperative, or through voluntary work when conducting participant observations (e.g., packing and distributing food in the food bank, preparing meals in the shelter for homeless people, etc.).

The interview topics concentrated on the functioning of the networks, food practices, and the actors who form the network. The respondents were asked to describe what their initiative actually does, what their daily routines look like, whom they work with (in order to identify networks), what kind of actors (both human and non-human, such as institutions, technologies, living organisms) they cooperate with, and how their modes of operation had changed during the pandemic. A praxiological approach was applied, as the study was focused on the processes, practices, and characteristics of the networks rather than the identities and attitudes of respondents. When interviewing farmers, for example, the nature of the farm, produce, labor, and distribution channels were the main topics. When talking to food bank volunteers, we asked what the process of food parcels distribution looked like, what kind of products are usually available, and how food is transported, sorted, stored, and handed to consumers. The whole data set was then analyzed by using qualitative analysis methods supported by qualitative data analysis software (MAXQDA). The inductive, data-driven coding regarding responses to COVID-19 was complemented with a coding system aiming to identify the networks’ actors, structure, and processes along the food flows.

During the research, the ethical recommendations of the Polish Sociological Association’s Code of Ethics, consistent with International Sociological Association guidelines, were applied. The participants were informed about their rights and the aims, scope, potential risks, and exploitation of research data. Their consent was obtained and documented. The opinion of a research council was not obtained for the project, which is in line with funding agency, national, and university research procedures.

RESEARCH SITES

All three networks we studied share a community-oriented approach and determination in addressing the weaknesses of the globalized industrial agri-food system. They have continued to perform their mission before, during, and after the pandemic, despite their limited power and financial resources, and despite occupying a relatively niche position within the overall food system.

Food security is the central value of a food bank. The one we studied is an organization employing around a dozen people, with occasional support from volunteers, equipped with a professional logistical setup, specialist vehicles, and office and storage space. The food bank focuses on feeding people in need (Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived [FEAD] and the bank’s own programs) and limiting food waste. On average, it collects more than 1500 tons of food annually, mostly short-dated, from shops, wholesalers, restaurants, producers, and distributors. The food is supplied to consumers thanks to several hundred smaller aid organizations. Despite the complications caused by the pandemic, the network’s main objective (avoiding waste of surplus food and delivering it to consumers in need) continued to be fulfilled. During the lockdown, the amount of food in danger of being wasted increased as the flow of food in restaurants, cafeterias, school canteens, a closed airport shop, etc., was interrupted. In the very first weeks of the pandemic, the network quickly identified the channels that remained passable and rerouted food surpluses to them. Partner organizations reorganized their distribution modes as well. When referring to the food bank network’s activities we use the abbreviation “FB.”

The second network of actors engaged in improving food systems is woven around a food cooperative and local organic food market. This network’s challenge is lack of access to healthy and locally produced food that is sustainable in economic and social terms. The cooperative operates as an informal group based on the voluntary work of its members and close relations to a dozen or so food producers, local farmers, and small processors. They, together with some members, provide the cooperative’s members with fresh and local produce. Its main challenge following the introduction of pandemic restrictions was to develop a working model avoiding direct interpersonal contacts, especially during work on its premises and collection of orders. The changes included replacing group packing with individual shifts, the producers themselves portioning the food, and members delivering orders to each other instead of the in-person collection system. The local organic food market, when closed as a result of the pandemic regime, developed a box scheme that allowed clients to continue purchasing from local producers. Some of the producers organized their own deliveries, and some clients also visited farms in person. The abbreviation “LOC” is used for reference here.

The third network we studied is focused on promoting a plant-based diet and included a small shop offering substitutes for meat and dairy products, vegan bakes, sweets, and other plant-based products. The value system that is shared here is founded on criticism of exploitation of animals in the food production system. Despite the restrictions involving limits on customer numbers and opening hours reserved for senior citizens, the shop survived the pandemic period, although its turnover was temporarily decreased. Following consultation with suppliers, the rules for delivery of products to the shops changed, with those previously sold by weight or individually having to be sold in packages. The shop developed its own home delivery order system, as well as getting involved in supporting other vegan catering businesses, collaborating with new partners and promoting them on its social media channels. One such catering business was a vegan café which opened two weeks before the lockdown. Thanks to the grassroots mobilization of the local community, a promotion campaign, vouchers and takeaway sales were launched to keep it going. These actions led to building relationships and a community of consumers supporting the businesses, guaranteeing relative stability during the subsequent waves of the pandemic and associated restrictions. Both businesses, like many others in this network, intensified their activities conducted together with other actors, with which they had shared mixed market-activist objectives. We use “VEG” to mark their activities below.

ANALYSIS: RESILIENCE BUILT WITH SOCIAL CAPITAL

In our analysis we examined various responses employed by actors facing the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. Building on this, we identified characteristic modes of operation around which those responses were organized, enhancing networks’ resilience capacities. Subsequently, following Doorn and Copeland’s (2023) definition mentioned above, we searched for resources, assets, skills, and capital that enabled actors to formulate those responses. We observed that these resources and assets corresponded to what Béné summarized as “strong social fabric”: communities’ capacity to coordinate decision-making, act collectively, exploit new opportunities (2014:604). Finally, we identified three main types of capital widespread in the networks studied (relational, organizational, and knowledge) and the six sub-categories presenting practical application of capital. An important condition for the applicability of these kinds of capital also turns out to be the normative, mission-oriented value systems around which these networks are organized. This typology was driven from the data, by generating and gradually narrowing down categories of analysis. Each type of capital consists of two coherent patterns of manifestation, which can in fact be seen as capital praxis. The list proposed in this study is not complete or comprehensive and can be interestingly juxtaposed with other ways of theorizing the mechanisms of the system in response to a crisis (Biggs et al. 2012, Berbes-Blazquez et al. 2022). The capitals and their manifestations identified here refer to all studied cases, and we therefore argue that they play an important role in strengthening the resilience capacities of grassroots initiatives. However, we must clarify that in the course of our analyses, we were interested in those manifestations of capital that allowed us to formulate positive responses to the crisis and sustained the operation of the studied initiatives. In Table 2 we present an overview of the further analysis: types of capital and their manifestations with some examples from our study sample.

Relational capital manifestations: transacting trust and responsibility

Small-scale, local networks that rely on short supply chains expand the understanding of an exchange within a network. The transactions often go beyond purely economic calculations, being strongly embedded in relationships. Similarly to the findings of Atalan-Helicke and Abiral (2021), in the food networks we studied, food is always “somebody’s” or “from somebody/somewhere.” A relationship based on responsibility and trust is a setting in which exchange or other forms of distribution of food take place. A specific farm, local vegan shop, or café are places where it is easy to identify the producer, supplier, or other person taking responsibility for a product. This responsibility means food producers’ willingness to provide more information and accept criticism or praise. At the same time, these expressions of responsibility strengthen the attitude of trust on the part of the consumers.

Personal, direct relationships are visible, for example, in the familiar language used by cooperative members, the personal criteria for choice of producers, and anecdotes regarding the differences between kale grown by various farmers. Products are therefore unique, special, and characterized by their merits (e.g., a market customer keeps the “lovely carrots from A” separate in her fridge from “ordinary supermarket ones”). The introduction of the pandemic restrictions, disruption to the supply chain, and impediments to the usual distribution of food made it necessary to restore access to trusted farmers and products. Replacing them with other, analogous products would have been insufficient. One local farmer saw more benefits than losses in the closure of the market during lockdown. The relationships already formed with customers are so durable that they found their way to him themselves.

That’s the only good thing that happened because of coronavirus! They shut down the market on Saturday. (...) And some say they’re earning less. For me it’s the opposite! People came to me, to the farm, and on Saturday I have time for production - a whole easy day! (M30, local farmer supplying food to both the food cooperative and the local organic market, LOC)

Ensuring continuity of supplies at the food cooperative during the pandemic demanded both adherence to new sanitary requirements and consideration of the interests and well-being of all actors in the network. Each producer received time and attention to work out an individualized order delivery system that was safe for them as well as consumers. Meanwhile, the friendly and solidarity-based relations within the cooperative generated a neighborhood delivery system, which was very significant for people without their own car when restrictions on movement were in place.

In the food bank network, meanwhile, transacting trust and responsibility was pursued through a kind of self-regulation and delegation of trust to verified individuals based on established personal relations. One of the food bank’s partner organizations emphasized that for them to function during the pandemic, responsibility for health and safety also applied to the recipients of the food. Reorganization of activities in the sanitary regime conditions was based on delegating responsibility and trust to a specific group of people who had already previously enjoyed more familiar relations. As for the broad group of consumers who usually received food parcels, however, both trust and the activities they were invited to participate in were much smaller, and postponed until restrictions were loosened.

The community caring for homeless people also clearly singled out a certain narrow “elite” of regular visitors associated with the place who knew how to behave and ensured that others adhered to the rules. This made it possible to organize distribution of food in safe sanitary conditions.

They sort it out between themselves, we don’t interfere. They won’t just eat and drink coffee while the next one is freezing waiting to eat, for example. So they took it in turns in solidarity. (M60, member of the community that runs the shelter for homeless people, responsible for the kitchen, FB)

Thanks to certain communication practices and to explaining the seriousness of the situation, and on the basis of solidarity, a collective responsibility for the stable operation of the place was built. It became common practice to communicate the rule of responsibility to all participants, especially new people. Communication practices, spatial organization, and implementation of new procedures therefore resulted in sanitary responsibility affecting an increasingly wide group of people until it encompassed the entire networks.

Relational capital manifestations: networking care

Placing food exchange transactions in the context of economy of care is a characteristic feature of small, local alternative food networks (Forssell and Lankoski 2015). In the networks we studied, effective diagnosis followed by directing practices of care to weak links not only ensured material sustenance to individual actors but also channeled emotional support and allowed other needs blocked by the pandemic to be fulfilled.

In the food cooperative, in addition to the collectively developed alternative working methods taking individual needs into account, the concern of clients and recipients of food for the fortunes of suppliers and producers was also manifested in discussions on how “our farmers” were coping with the restrictions. During the interviews, the respondents were careful not to disclose sensitive information in order not to harm the suppliers (for example by double-checking the rules of anonymization). A fundraising campaign organized by the local community for a café that had opened just before the pandemic and was immediately forced to close had a similar supportive function.

I know people were moved. The most support was shown by those who wanted to support a vegan café and maybe hadn’t made it there yet. […] And that really saved us, in the context of the six weeks’ closure. (F30, owner of the vegan café, VEG)

A common theme in the interviews was the community taking care of important places or initiatives. This included financial, substantive, and emotional support. The account of the vicar running the shelter for homeless people reveals a network of connections of a community ready to mobilize in a crisis.

It first started with the daughter of one of our clients who phoned me to ask if we had masks. I said no, we didn’t, because we didn’t have a single one then. “I’ll sort it out then.” She got some organizations in the Silesia region involved, and women at home sewed masks and sent them to us. That was incredible, that within a few days we had masks for us and for people coming from outside. (M50, vicar managing the community that runs the shelter for homeless people, FB)

The care practices were also characterized by a reciprocity going beyond the client-service provider relationship. A regular customer of the local vegan café, for instance, emphasizes the sense of responsibility for it, manifested in participation in the collection, celebrating every important event there and bringing all her friends “to find out about this place.” Yet this care also comes from the impression that the place takes care of her, too: she feels special there and has a personal, friendly relationship with the staff, who are familiar with her preferences and individual dietary requirements.

Further elements of the principle of reciprocity are fair working conditions, care for environmental resources, and engagement in social initiatives. Networked, reciprocal care therefore forms a characteristic context that translates into practices of solidarity and support in a crisis situation. An example is the interactions between the members of the cooperative and one of its suppliers, a local farmer, when access to green spaces was closed during the lockdown.

Recently one co-op member was in my field, just to go for a walk with her children, because she couldn’t stand it in the city anymore. She called to ask if she could come, so I said sure [laughs] - I have a meadow, so you can go for a walk, because the parks, everything was closed. (M30, local farmer supplying food to both the food cooperative and the local organic market, LOC)

It is not just the food product, but also the farm as a physical space that may be shared and treated as a resource allowing the needs of those actors of the network whose well-being is threatened to be cared for. Likewise in the food cooperative: before the pandemic orders had been collected there at a specific time of the week; when that turned out to be impossible during the lockdown, it was decided that private cars would be “shared” and the ordered packages were also delivered to non–car-owning members. This widening of the scope of the potential objects of exchange and sharing within the food system makes it possible not only to better explore the flexibility of caring practices, but also to gain a deeper understanding of the flexibility of the networks and the diversity of the resources that can be mobilized if it enhances the capacity for resilience.

Organizational capital manifestations: building intersectoral alliances

Each of the food systems we analyzed is characterized by diversity within the network. This involves the close cooperation of the network’s main actors, while also having many weaker connections with the broader socioeconomic community that are more seldom employed but can also be mobilized.

An example illustrating the potential of intersectoral alliances as a resource for maintaining stability is provided by the food bank network. Its core is formed by a non-governmental organization with years of experience working with third-sector organizations, public administration, and churches and religious communities. In response to the deregulation and destabilization of food flows, this combination of allies allowed the bank to activate and utilize additional resources—human as well as equipment and logistical. When restrictions on movement were introduced, the army and fire brigade were exempt and therefore able to distribute food aid packages. After restrictions were relaxed, food banks worked with local representatives of business corporations to recruit volunteers from these companies as well as involving the scouting organization, and were thus able to distribute products obtained from closed shops and restaurants. Connections with diverse actors were also used in the vegan community, when products baked by a local café-bakery were sold by the vegan shop. The café had been forced to close by restrictions, while shops were allowed to remain open almost throughout the entire pandemic.

It therefore appears that the heterogeneity and hybridity of networks we studied, rooted in a general commitment to values related to cooperation and sustainability, enabled them to be more flexible, consequently increasing their ability to generate coping strategies in response to the pandemic. These aspects eventually enhanced their resilience capacity. When resources were lacking in the basic system, they were able to use those of affiliated actors that could be mobilized. These possibilities proved crucial, especially in a period of high variability and unpredictability of the environment, and particularly the dynamic of the pandemic and the associated restrictions.

Organizational capital manifestations: balancing informality

Another important characteristic of the networks we studied was their low level of formality and access to informal, private channels or resources that were not subject to centralized control and rigid regulations. The individual actors differed in terms of their level of formalization, which determined their possibilities in the context of the changing restrictions. For each of the networks, it was crucial to identify those places in the food system where the flow of food did not have to stop because it was not subject to legal control and strict regulations.

In the case of the food bank, the stoppage of the normal food distribution system and release of large amounts of food from closed entities made it necessary to put these resources to immediate use. To achieve the networks’ main objective, preventing food waste, it was necessary to activate alternative, intersectoral distribution solutions. This had to be preceded by identifying and intensifying collaboration with those entities that could sustain the flow of food, including through private or semi-private channels. After canteens and other official food distribution points were closed, the stream of food was redirected to a church community running a shelter for homeless people, which was able to harness its developed informal connections.

Many organizations withdrew from aid, many organizations stopped helping with food. The needs were still there. People needing help were still there. The food bank began to send food surpluses to us because they knew that we would distribute them further. We know people’s needs, and we also approached Krakow churches from our denomination to identify those in need for us. We received concrete data and information about these people with addresses and we distributed food to their homes. Our volunteer brothers prepared food packages, put them in the car and distributed them. (M50, vicar managing the community that runs the shelter for homeless people, FB)

By redirecting collaboration to informal channels and temporarily privatizing them, it was possible to clear the flows of food aid. The network was thus able to be flexible, escaping paralysis and inefficiency. This strategy was all the more effective because, according to the respondent from the food bank, its partner entities with a more formalized and centralized control system took much longer and had greater difficulties with returning to a normal mode of operation when restrictions were relaxed.

Now everything has more or less returned to normal, although of course it varies, and perhaps social welfare centers are the least flexible and most rigid, still, right? Look at the public and local authority administration, stuck with their work procedures and quarantine of documents and so on. (Food bank employee at the head of the organization, FB)

The networks’ access to informal channels protected the actors facing the biggest threat from the crisis. In the pandemic situation, many small, local food producers had to officially cease operations, as limited or suspended deliveries to the catering industry made them unviable. For some of them, a food cooperative functioning as an informal group therefore proved to be the only possible point of sales and source of income.

Knowledge capital manifestations: experimental approach

The materials we collected show, as with the research of Nordhagen et al. (2021), that in a crisis situation small, local food networks operating on the fringes of the global food system are geared toward actively seeking corrective actions and alternative solutions. The aforementioned capacities, such as flexibility, a high level of trust, and shared responsibility, as well as a lower level of formalization, created a safe basis for experimentation. The food networks we analyzed were therefore emboldened in the search for new opportunities. Each constituted a system of people and materials, a kind of micro-laboratory within which new forms of action were tested during the pandemic crisis.

Some actors, with values or objectives alternative to or opposing the dominant global supply chains, declared that this less regulated, more intuitive and spontaneous working method suited them (e.g., “we’re perhaps all the kind of people who are not really able to fit into that kind of framework…,” “it’s so chaotic here, but it works out somehow,” VEG). We suggest that being a niche or an alternative translates into greater tolerance for organizational disorder and acceptance of risk. This could mean that the status of marginality and a kind of alter-economy results in ease and courage in formulating new practices responding to a crisis. In the networks we analyzed, this capital was manifested in rapid reaction to the crisis, introduction of alternatives, and modification or development of what has previously been tested, but on a smaller scale.

There were rumors that shops would be closed completely, that there’d be such strict restrictions that one person could go out to the shop every two days. And we started making deliveries around Krakow about half a year before that situation [the pandemic]. […] We were distributing shopping by bike, but it was about five deliveries a week. And then at a certain point we decided maybe we should concentrate on the deliveries, and that turned out to be a great idea, and I think it saved us then. (F35, owner of the local vegan shop, VEG)

Motivations oriented toward the values of the right to food and food justice made it easier to generate solutions in a determined and unwavering (“until it works” and “against the odds”) way. The mission could not be abandoned even for a moment, especially in the food-aid system. The community members could not imagine leaving the people in their care without access to meals in any circumstances.

The essence of the shelter is to help. The basic goal is to feed the hungry. And we do that. (…) People eat, then they leave the dining room and others come. Kind of turns, simply depending on the available space, so as not to exceed these limits, so that it is legal and, above all, safe. (…) For those who come and for us. So help is continued all the time. We don’t stop, we don’t cease in our efforts. (M50, vicar managing the community that runs the shelter for homeless people, FB)

The food bank’s partner organizations also brainstormed to trigger a creative process for generating solutions, aiming to supply food safely but avoiding leaving recipients without deliveries. In some places, these new working methods developed in the pandemic were also seen as eliminating the inconveniences of the previous, pre-pandemic ways of distributing food. Recipients who had previously tended to generate conflicts by cramming into the distribution point were divided into smaller subgroups and collected parcels prepared earlier at set times. Similarly, in the food cooperative, the search for a new food distribution and delivery system during lockdown was repeatedly modified and improved from week to week.

The cases of the small-scale food networks confirm that the pandemic indeed “set the stage for new urgency in food experimentation” (Robinson et al. 2021:2), activating new layers of creativity and determination. This type of shift was possible in the informal setting of a social micro-laboratory that was flexible and open to the process of learning and change. The wide range of experiments and high innovativeness were made possible by activating resources characteristic of small networks: trust, informality and subsequent lack of barriers, short chains of food delivery and communication, tolerance for a certain “disorder” and acceptance of failures, and spontaneous actions. Stimulating such an environment within the network may activate adaptive processes (O’Connell et al. 2015, Zollet et al. 2021).

Knowledge capital manifestations: collective and reciprocal consulting

Specific communication resources were used to efficiently implement the new adaptive strategies responding to the pandemic crisis. The experimentation practices described earlier would be impossible without a specific communication environment. In the networks we studied, communication was characterized by a free, bilateral flow of information. The networks use several types of channels: social media, telephone contacts, email, and direct conversations. Their communication structures tend to be flat and collective; actors in various positions in the network send information and receive feedback quickly. As a result, the entire network is highly aware of its condition and able to react to critical situations.

Restrictions on movement and tightened sanitary standards paralyzed the food cooperative’s previous working methods. It was forced to determine, test, and implement new methods, which were discussed in quick online consultations called on an ad hoc basis and during the continual exchange of information in the closed group. Concerns arose that in the more rigorous sanitary regime it would be necessary to discontinue many products delivered without packaging and to suspend some deliveries. Relatively quickly, however, the cooperative managed to work out new solutions, with instant consultations taking place with recipients and suppliers. In practice, the solutions were gradually improved and optimized based on feedback from users.

Someone happened to ask about bread made by this one girl, so she asked whether it would be OK if she brought them packed. The co-op accepted. I immediately asked whether the mushroom producer would portion out the mushrooms. And it turned out that would be OK. So now he brings us portioned mushrooms. (F36, member of the food cooperative, who supervises the mushroom producer, LOC)

Continual internal consultation and checks on how the improvements were working in specific places in the network and for various actors were essential for sustaining deliveries and the stability of all elements of the network. Similar modifications and consultations took place in the vegan network, in which the local suppliers, working with the owner of the local vegan shop (open the whole time, unlike restaurants), developed ways of organizing deliveries, altering the range, or packaging products.

DISCUSSION

The relational, organizational, and knowledge types of social capital described in this article, enhancing the grassroots actors’ resilience capacities, are applied by those actors in the new conditions related to the pandemic crisis. Some of these processes are focused on coping with particular situations (e.g., mobility restrictions, limitations on conducting business activities, and new hygiene procedures). Some have a more adaptive or even transformative potential, where new operating scenarios are considered, new forms of organizations are applied, and new groups of actors are included. The networks’ resources are used in the processes of social innovation: while building new connections (e.g., reorganization of food chains), redefining the functions and values of resources (e.g., expanding the functions of farms to include recreational activity), far-reaching hybridization of networks (frequent inclusion of new, also non-market actors), and finally determination in maintaining the networks’ existing solutions and key allies.

When analyzing the actors’ activities, we observed that what often made appropriate responses to a crisis possible was mobilizing combinations of capital rather than individual factors determining specific solutions. In the food cooperative, for example, combination of knowledge capital (experimentation approach) and relational capital (networking care, transacting responsibility) translated into switching seamlessly to new communication channels and quickly implementing new ways of receiving and transporting food. Combining trust with intersectoral alliances helped the food bank to mobilize new actors and avoid breaks in providing food aid to vulnerable groups. Types of capital should not be perceived as isolated factors. Instead, it is through their combination and mutual reinforcement that a response to a crisis can be formulated, consequently building the resilience of the actor, network, or system. We observed in our research how the types of capital we identified strengthen and enhance each other for a desirable outcome. However, in some cases we may expect them to restrain resilience capacities: in other words, to enhance changes toward undesirable states of the system, destabilizing and disintegrating key system characteristics.

The fact that a combination of capitals makes the response effective engenders a potential limitation in applying them. We can expect limited resilience capacities in networks with scarce and homogeneous capital (e.g., organization with wide knowledge resources but with highly formalized, non-flexible mode of operation). This observation may provide guidance for resilience-building initiatives that need to promote a diversity of capital, actors, and procedures.

The typology of capital presented in this study corresponds to the typology of principles enhancing resilience initially introduced by Biggs et al. (2012) and subsequently developed by Berbés-Blázquez et al. (2022). The framework of resilience-enhancing principles, identified by scholars in the field (Berbés-Blázquez et al. 2022), enabled development of strategies and interventions in response to the COVID-19 crisis. The typology of capital provided in this study does not match the principles identified by these authors. However, the specific combinations of capitals translated into strategies implemented by local actors are largely a good fit to the mechanisms identified by Berbés-Blázquez et al. (2022) (including managing connectivity, a learning and experimentation approach, participation in decision-making, and managing feedback). Here, we see types of capital as fundamental reservoirs conditioning system functionality in line with specific mechanisms or principles. Consequently, it is interesting and worth exploring in future research how distinct types of capital, through their practical manifestations, facilitate or regulate the extent to which systems adhere to the resilience-enhancing principles developed by Berbés-Blázquez.

The three network initiatives examined in this study were value-oriented and determined in fulfilling their objectives to achieve their social missions. As demonstrated in this study, they possess well-developed non-financial capital, ultimately facilitating successful adaptation during the crisis. As our analysis indicates, all of the identified capital with their manifestations were genuinely rooted in and determined by their commitment to their social missions, understood as corrective for the challenges of the global food system as well as the strong identification with collective, network-shared values, such as solidarity, cooperation, care, or trust. The communities justified their determination in looking for solutions with the risk of negative consequences that the weakest members of the community would have to bear if food flows were interrupted.

Following Béné’s three dimensions of resilience capacity, we observed that most of the strategies we analyzed were rather absorptive (e.g., taking care of food delivery to all network actors or redirecting food flows through informal, private channels) or adaptive responses (e.g., exploring new distribution methods or developing alternative communication channels and experimenting with innovative food packaging). Although purely transformative capacity was not explicitly observed, considering that building resilience needs to reinforce all three components (Béné et al. 2014), this observation requires further commentary. We would suggest that transformative solutions, involving significant qualitative shifts in function or structure that challenge the status quo of an organization, could pose a potential threat (especially if the core values were questioned or negotiated), and would therefore be difficult to perform for the studied networks, because of their focus on fulfilling a particular mission within the food system. Their grassroots nature, together with value-oriented mobilization toward serving vulnerable groups’ interest or striving for a more sustainable and equitable food system, prevent them from launching more advanced transformations, if this would mean challenging their modes of operation. Given their limited financial resources, the networks we examined were particularly motivated to develop and accumulate adequate relational, organizational, and knowledge capital, enabling them to apply absorptive and adaptive strategies as long as it was possible without necessitating major transformations. Such steadfastness, resulting from the networks’ location in the global food system and their complementary, corrective function within it, does not mean, however, that transformative capacities are not there. It is worth considering to what extent those systems would be able to transform their structures, modes of operation, and even values if the input conditions and the whole framework (e.g., the setting for the global food system or the situation of vulnerable actors) were changed.

Nonetheless, as emphasized in the literature, the type of response (absorptive, adaptive, or transformative) may be linked to the intensity of the shock or change. The greater the intensity, the more challenging it becomes for the system to resist or adapt without transformative consequences affecting its functions, structure, core values, and premises (Béné et al. 2014). This demonstrates that it is critical to recognize the social capital of local grassroots actors facing the threats, shortages, omissions, and failures of the globalized, industrialized food production and distribution system. By remaining stable and avoiding transformation, paradoxically they contribute to the transformation of the global food system toward a more sustainable one.

CONCLUSIONS

Defining resilience as a property of a system rather than a process of responding to threats shifts the focus of our study from COVID-19 responses to the capital providing the means for these responses as well as the characteristics of a system actors before the crisis. The kinds of capital distinguished in this study can be interpreted as those parts of culture, social patterns of networking, informal economy, and dynamics of bottom-up mobilization that occur in a crisis. Some resources building capital are more time- and context-specific and are developed within particular networks, reaching out to the specifics of a local system. Grassroots actors and their local networks can be considered as pioneers or innovators creating social laboratories holding the space for experimenting in transforming capital into resilience capacities. They are locally embedded, relatively stable, and usually distanced and independent from state and local authorities, hence open to experiments and non-conventional activities. When a crisis hits, their capital is ready to be used, the structures are not petrified, the procedures are easy to change, and people are keen to engage. As we have also demonstrated, however, an important catalyst for activating the potential of the particular capitals and a source of perseverance in the face of crisis is the values and mission around which these alternative food networks are organized.

The diversity of grassroots initiatives, in terms of their legal form, modes of operation, aims, scale, and their members’ socioeconomic status, translates to a wider scope of possible solutions for those initiatives themselves, and more generally serves as an inspiration for more powerful system actors, hence building resilience on different levels (Biggs et al. 2012, O’Connell et al. 2015:50-51). A further hypothesis stemming from this study is that diversity of value-oriented initiatives, modes of operation, and capital may result in quicker and effective response to various crises. The Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2022, the collapse of the food system, and the refugee crisis could provide further examples for analyzing the role of capitals in the actions of grassroots initiatives.

The main limitation of this study comes from the small sample of cases analyzed. Despite the diversity of the actors included in the study, they operate in the same region. Where in-depth research techniques are applied, this usually leads to limits on the number of actors investigated, and this was also the case here. This can be partly mitigated by reference to the results of other studies, conducted within a similar framework and focused on small-scale, local, actors of food systems facing different sorts of crisis.

A follow-up to this study could lead to understanding the long-term processes of transition of food systems and the dynamics of grassroots stakeholders accumulating, developing, and applying non-financial capital. More research and comparative analyses are needed to understand the variables of the cultural, economic, and political context of resilience as well as the way the actors use capitals in the face of crisis. In order to systemically build resilient food systems and support the resilience of particular groups of actors, it is necessary to clarify the role of particular resilience capacities, principles, or capitals. Following the results of our study, we recognize the potential for application of non-financial capitals not only by grassroots initiatives but also by actors of other sectors and scales.

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