The meaning of 'Alternatively'

the meaning of 'Alternatively'

The passage below comes from a book, Environmental Security: A Guide to the Issues By Elizabeth L. Chalecki.

https://books.google.co.kr/books?id=oA3TWNmTX_oC&pg=PA89&lpg=PA89&dq=%22exhortations+by+governments+at+war+to+avoid+food+wastage+as+a+means+of+contributing+to+the+war%22&source=bl&ots=oop2oseWZH&sig=_fR87KJydwdbdYpE8JEeuIuDDLU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CBsQ6AEwAGoVChMIv8XpltL6xwIV5h2mCh3WvA8j#v=onepage&q=%22exhortations%20by%20governments%20at%20war%20to%20avoid%20food%20wastage%20as%20a%20means%20of%20contributing%20to%20the%20war%22&f=false


The provision or withholding of food is viewed as a legitimate tactic of war, stemming from the traditional use of blockade or siege tactics during conflict. Food can be withheld by preventing it from being grown and harvested, destroying it after harvest, preventing its transportation, or by purposefully contaminating it or otherwise rendering it unfit for human consumption. However, since the adoption of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, sometimes informally referred to as the "rules of war," international humanitarian law has moved toward prohibiting deliberate starvation of civilian populations. Alternatively, exhortations by governments at war to avoid food wastage as a means of contributing to the war effort were commonplace by the mid-20th century.

I'd like to ask question regarding the underlined 'alternatively'.
Can this underlined word be replaced by 'instead'?
(Am I right?)

In fact, my question started in the line of thought as follows:
Even though Geneva Conventions prohibited 'deliberate starvation of civilian populations' the actual fact that's really happening by the mid-20th century was the warring governments' exhortations to avoid food wastage as a means to help the war effort; civilians don't starve, they just need not to waste their food consumption. So the sentence with 'alternatively' is in a contrasting relations with the preceding one with Geneva Conventions.

(Am I right?)

Regards.