Niche-innovations between breaks and continuities with the regime? A case study into the dairy sector in Belgium

Today, the absolute dichotomy between alternative food networks (AFNs) and the conventional agrofood system tends to be obsolete. Indeed, many AFNs are far from being radical and are more likely to maintain relations with the current socio-technical regime between breaks and continuities. This contribution is a complement to the Transition Theory and the Multi-Level Perspective by underlying the fragile borders between the two levels of the niche-innovations and the socio-technical regime: some imperfect projects, full of contradictions, are participating to the transition of the system. And this is particularly true in the case of highly locked in systems.
The dairy sector in Western European countries is one of those highly locked in systems. Our case study, the Belgian fair-trade milk “Fairebel”, is a project built by dairy farmers to react to the 2009 dairy crisis and to the increasingly neoliberal dairy sector; and to get a better price (or fair price) for their activity. However, the concretization of this project brought its share of contradictions regarding the common definition of fair trade milk. As a result, the “Fairebel” project maintains relations between breaks and continuities with the regime. This contribution suggests modes of governance for the stakeholders of these non-radical niches which are precious to engage change in highly locked in system without being picked up by the dominant regime and thus, keep this regime under pressure.