Small-scale food production and products of terroirs often evoke a traditional image, one of practices frozen in time, transmitted from generation to generation. The reality is however different: analyses show that localized agrifood systems (LAFS) have to innovate constantly in order to cope with internal changes (reduction in the capacity of coordination and collective action) and/or external ones (new constraints, or technical or commercial opportunities). Faced with this need to innovate, some systems are able to increase interactions between local and extra-local actors, leading to technical or organizational innovations. The LAFS concept makes it possible to shed more light on these collective and localized innovation processes than diffusionist schemes do, and to also show the way to support them.