Agroecology, agency, and bottom-up governance are deemed essential for sustainable food security, yet alternative food initiatives face difficulties accessing decision-making spaces related to public policy and resources. During the pandemic, grassroots movements emerged in Spanish cities to tackle food insecurity through mutual aid, drawing inspiration from agroecological principles. How these initiatives engage with governmental actors and policies remains unexplored. The article uses semi-structured interviews and participant observations to examine two cases of Agroecology-oriented Food Redistribution Initiatives (AFRIs) in Seville and the Barcelona metropolitan areas. It aims to address three main research questions: 1) What kinds of actors and relations characterise the considered food initiatives? 2) How is sustainable food security understood and performed? 3) How do the initiatives relate with governmental actors and what problems emerge in this interaction? AFRIs emerge as assemblages uniting diverse social actors with a shared focus on food security, understanding it as the right to access sustainable, healthy food, intertwined with other basic needs and related social struggles. Sustainable practices are accompanied by the maintenance of conventional elements in the initiatives, which results in hybrid food networks. Relationships with local government institutions vary between the cases, revealing challenges and ambivalences regarding their role in supporting the provision of fresh and sustainable produce. While the study’s findings indicate that scaling up agroecology does not necessarily result in conventionalization and co-optation, such efforts also come with trade-offs. Despite collaborative endeavors, initiatives like the Barcelona AFRI may find themselves in a marginal role and fall short of fundamentally transforming the prevailing food aid model on a broader scale.

Concerning funding, we acknowledge that this work contributes to ICTA-UAB “María de Maeztu” Programme for Units of Excellence of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation [CEX2019–000940–M]. FF also acknowledges the financial support provided by the ‘Plan Estatal de I + D + I’ of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation [PRE2019–087557]. DLG acknowledges the financial support provided by [MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033] and by the European Union “NextGenerationEU”/PRTR funds, along the project [TED2021–129660A–I00]. European Commission Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación

Peer reviewed