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  • Publication | 2026
Territorial food networks under pressure: women, governance and low-carbon food infrastructures
Global Food and Nutrition Security

This study argues that territorial food networks should be understood as active governance structures. Women-led networks have the potential to play a role to set rules, norms and forms of authority from the ground up, even where formal institutions do not recognise their role. Women emerge as key governing actors through four channels: the transmission of knowledge, the regulation of production practices, the organisation of labour and the articulation of local networks. Female leadership coordinates territories through unwritten agreements that regulate production times, quality criteria, acceptable prices and access to inputs. The article also reframes the climate dimension of food systems. Many of the food activities these territoral networks sustain operate as structurally low-carbon practices because territorial governance internalises environmental and social costs, fostering resilience and reducing fossil-fuel dependence. The case of totopo and clayuda tortilla production networks in Oaxaca, Mexico illustrates these dynamics.