Collective platforms for the supply of local products - organizational performance and involvement of farmers.

Summary Summary: Agri-food systems are confronted with numerous socio-economic challenges. In this context, public policies support a transition towards more sustainable systems. They stimulate an increase in the volumes of local products in public catering. This demand from institutions and other professional clients faces several obstacles (e.g. volumes, diversity, quality consistency) that individual farmers do not necessarily have the capacity to meet. Recent initiatives such as collective platforms aim at structuring supply chains for local products. An interest in their governance is therefore becoming central to support a transition towards a more sustainable supply. This thesis aims to explore the modes of governance of collective platforms through the analysis of six case studies in the former Midi-Pyrénées region. In the wake of theoretical propositions from transaction cost economics and an analysis of the strategic positioning of platforms, the thesis proposes a new appreciation of organizational performance. In addition to explaining the organizational diversity of platforms, the analysis shows that organizational performance must be evaluated by the adequacy between governance structure and strategic positioning. The analysis shows that platforms offer weak economic incentives to member farmers. The second part of the thesis focuses on the determinants of their involvement and shows that these are mainly socio-economic and more subjective. Finally, this thesis offers recommendations to improve the organizational performance of collective platforms and provides elements for reflection for public policies that subsidize collective platforms.