Disruptive Food Supply Chains

2018 ◽  
pp. 826-841
Author(s):  
Tony Beck
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Hybrid Approach ◽  
Social Equity ◽  
Environmental Benefits ◽  
Alternative Food ◽  
Farmers Markets ◽  
Effect Change ◽  
Food Movements ◽  
Alternative Food Movements

Alternative food movements have, from their origins, espoused values of social justice and environmental stewardship in an attempt to challenge existing economic and social norms related to food and farming. Three alternative food movements in North America exemplify the trade-offs between the three pillars of sustainable development: social equity, environment, and economy. Organic food has brought environmental benefits, but has struggled to challenge the status quo and promote the social benefits of the original movement when it goes to scale. Farmers’ markets have brought social and environmental benefits, but only in some cases reduced costs when compared to mainstream market levels. Consequently, good-quality food is often out of reach of low-income groups, as highlighted in a case study of access by underserved people in British Columbia, Canada. Regional food movements are a hybrid approach that balance some of the gains and some of the challenges of these systems. The extraordinary concentration of power in North American food systems stands in contrast to notions of social equity and undermines efforts to effect change in pursuit of sustainable alternative food systems.

scholarly journals Unsettling Settler Food Movements: Food Sovereignty and Decolonization in Canada

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoe Matties
Keyword(s):  
Food Systems ◽  
Food Sovereignty ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Indigenous Populations ◽  
Alternative Food ◽  
Sustainable Food ◽  
Food Movements ◽  
Alternative Food Movements ◽  
Motivation For Change

This article examines the connections between agriculture, alternative food movements, and settler colonialism. In particular I examine how settler agriculture and control of food throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has been used as a tool of colonization, and how food sovereignty offers a corrective to the imposition of Western, colonial, gendered, and racialized foodways. I also explore Indigenous food sovereignty in North America as a model that honors and reclaims Indigenous foodways and self-determination, and addresses the alarming rates of food insecurity and diet-related health issues among Indigenous populations. Following in the footsteps of feminist and decolonial scholars, I seek to critically analyse the discourses of alternative food movements to discover how alternative food movements can transform the colonial system rather than unconsciously perpetuate it. I argue that as settlers working to create equitable and sustainable food systems we must recognize complicity in colonialism, engage Indigenous perspectives and narratives, and work to support Indigenous communities seeking Indigenous food sovereignty and self-determination. To do so requires creating alliances based on learning about our differences from and with each other, and embracing settler discomfort as a motivation for change.

scholarly journals Urban Gardening in the Crisis Conjuncture

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 167-172
Author(s):  
Christopher Maughan ◽  
Christopher Maughan
Keyword(s):  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Urban Community ◽  
Research Area ◽  
Current Theory ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Alternative Food ◽  
Critical Studies ◽  
Urban Gardening ◽  
Alternative Food Movements

Urban gardening finds itself at a juncture – not only are crises caused and exacerbated by the industrial food system urgently demonstrating the need for more localised, sustainable, and democratically-determined food systems, but alternative food movements are increasingly negotiating crises of their own. Critical Foodscapes was a one-day conference part-funded by Warwick’s Institute of Advanced Study (IAS) and the Food GRP. The conference was put together with the intention of bringing a ‘critical studies’ approach to the emerging research area of urban community food growing; namely, to put critical – but constructive – pressure on some of the assumptions which underlie current theory and practice of the various forms of urban food growing. This article offers some reflections on the conference itself as well as on the prospects for urban gardening more generally.

scholarly journals Diverse Citizenship? Food Sovereignty and the Power of Acting Otherwise

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (12) ◽  
pp. 331 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benno Fladvad
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Investigation ◽  
Food Sovereignty ◽  
Alternative Food ◽  
Liberal Tradition ◽  
Food Movements ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
Political Theories ◽  
Living Together ◽  
Alternative Food Movements ◽  
Theories Of Sovereignty

This contribution discusses two different but interlinked fields of research: political theories of sovereignty and citizenship, as well as conceptualizations of emerging alternative food movements. In drawing on James Tully’s practiced-based understanding of ‘diverse citizenship’, as well as on other selected theories of postmodern political thought, it focuses on the contested political nature of the food sovereignty movement, specifically with regard to the dynamics and actions that have brought it into being. In doing so, it conceives of citizenship as materializing on the basis of multi-faceted practices of ‘acting otherwise’, which stands in sharp contrast to a conceptualization of citizenship as an institutionalized status, as it is understood in the liberal tradition. In order to deepen and to sharpen this alternative approach, this contribution additionally draws on Theodore Schatzki’s practice theory, which, despite its rather apolitical character, makes it possible to conceive of political practices as emergent and situational phenomena that are closely connected to the quotidian practices of everyday life. The combination of these perspectives bears great potential for theoretical discussions on alternative food movements as well as for their empirical investigation, since it puts emphasis on the way how practitioners and advocates for food sovereignty disclose themselves in multifaceted struggles over the imposition and the challenging of the rules of social living together.

Indigenous Food Systems: Battling Whiteness through Decolonization

1969 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katie King
Keyword(s):  
Food Systems ◽  
Community Gardens ◽  
The United States ◽  
Alternative Food ◽  
Farmers Markets ◽  
Alternative Food Networks ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Alternative Food Systems ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
The North

Shaw (2006) argues that “the rubrics of difference against which Whiteness is commonly juxtaposed rarely includes Indigeneity, or the experiences of Indigenous peoples regardless of the North American domination of the field, and its settler context” (853). Viewing Canada and the United States as post-colonial nations, this paper seeks to broaden understandings of Indigenous food production, distribution, and consumption practices and/or projects and how they work to resist colonial histories of oppression. hooks (1992) defines decolonization as “a process of cultural and historical liberation; an act of confrontation with a dominant system of thought” (1). Using the concept of “Whiteness”, this research attempts to prove how small-scale Indigenous food systems located in North America decolonize dominant ways of seeing alternative food systems as white food spaces. To present this research to an interdisciplinary audience I will first attend to defining key concepts informing this research including: post-colonial nation, decolonization, Whiteness, and Indigeneity. I will then spend some time exploring what Sarah Whatmore describes as “Alternative Food Networks” (AFNs) and claims as “white food spaces”. Finally, in an attempt to decolonize alternative food systems as white spaces, I will share various forms of present-day, small-scale Indigenous food systems such as Wild Rice production by The White Earth Anishinaabe, the ‘Food from the Land’ program in the O-pipon-Na-Piwin Cree Nation, and various Indigenous farmers markets and community gardens.  

Prohibitive property practices: The impact of restrictive covenants on the built food environment

2018 ◽  
pp. 141-156
Author(s):  
Sugandhi del Canto ◽  
Rachel Engler-Stringer
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Healthy Food ◽  
Government Support ◽  
Alternative Food ◽  
Alternative Food Systems ◽  
Restrictive Covenants ◽  
Food Stores ◽  
Shopping Area ◽  
Built Food Environment

This chapter presents an overview of restrictive covenants as a corporate real estate practice that places conditions on land use, such as prohibiting the sale of food or prohibiting the development of grocery stores. Restrictive covenants are a significant barrier to establishing a new store in older neighbourhoods and the consequences are interconnected: when food stores act as anchors in a community shopping area, their closure can lead to a loss of neighbourhood-level identity and history. Rectifying existing nutrition deserts is much harder than preventing new ones. Alternative food systems are needed and should support urban agriculture, urban greenhouses and cooperative food store models, incentivise the development of mobile healthy food vending, and offer tax abatements or subsidies for healthy food retail in low-income nutrition desert neighbourhoods. Government support is needed to limit restrictive covenants and develop alternative food channels through various creative means.

scholarly journals Indigenous Meanings of Provenance in the Context of Alternative Food Movements and Supply-Chain Traceability: A Review

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 255
Author(s):  
Chetan Sharma ◽  
Damir D. Torrico ◽  
Lloyd Carpenter ◽  
Roland Harrison
Keyword(s):  
Food Systems ◽  
Holistic Approach ◽  
Alternative Food ◽  
Local Context ◽  
Alternative Food Systems ◽  
Consumer Activism ◽  
Comprehensive Collection ◽  
Indigenous Knowledge Systems ◽  
Alternative Food Movements ◽  
Gradual Transformation

This article reviews the concept of provenance from both contemporary and traditional aspects. The incorporation of indigenous meanings and conceptualizations of belonging into provenance are explored. First, we consider how the gradual transformation of marketplaces into market and consumer activism catalyzed the need for provenance. Guided by this, we discuss the meaning of provenance from an indigenous and non-indigenous rationale. Driven by the need for a qualitative understanding of food, the scholarship has utilized different epistemologies to demonstrate how authentic connections are cultivated and protected by animistic approaches. As a tool to mobilize place, we suggest that provenance should be embedded in the immediate local context. Historic place-based indigenous knowledge systems, values, and lifeways should be seen as a model for new projects. This review offers a comprehensive collection of research material with emphasis on a variety of fields including anthropology, economic geography, sociology, and biology, which clarifies the meaning of provenance in alternative food systems. It questions the current practices of spatial confinement by stakeholders and governments that are currently applied to the concepts of provenance in foods, and instead proposes a holistic approach to understand both indigenous and non-indigenous ideologies but with an emphasis on Maori culture and its perspectives.

scholarly journals Re-examining the Contested Good: Proceedings from a Postgraduate Workshop on Good Food

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katharina Graf ◽  
Anna Cohen ◽  
Brandi Simpson Miller ◽  
Francesca Vaghi
Keyword(s):  
Food Studies ◽  
Previous Literature ◽  
Alternative Food ◽  
Food Movements ◽  
Political Ritual ◽  
Research Workshop ◽  
Alternative Food Movements ◽  
Postgraduate Research ◽  
Good Food

Following the 2017 postgraduate research workshop hosted by the SOAS Food Studies Centre, in collaboration with University of Warwick Food GRP, this article brings together nine research briefs written by various participants. Inspired by the workshop's provocative theme, “What Is Good Food?”, each author explores how food categories are shaped and negotiated in different contexts and across scales. In this multi-authored article, the question of “good” food is first presented as contingent upon nutritional, economic, political, ritual, or moral conditions. Each author then reveals how globally defined notions of food's goodness are often resisted on the ground by producers and consumers, beyond the notions of ethics or “alternative” food movements that have often been the emphasis of previous literature dealing with the topic of good food. Taken together, this article scrutinizes the effects of various hierarchies of power and invites readers to reassess why and how good food continues to be a contested category.

scholarly journals From Schnitzel to Sustainability: Shifting Values at Vienna’s Urban Farmers Markets

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 8327
Author(s):  
Milena Klimek ◽  
Jim Bingen ◽  
Bernhard Freyer ◽  
Rebecca Paxton
Keyword(s):  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Alternative Food ◽  
Farmers Markets ◽  
Urban Resilience ◽  
System A ◽  
Urban Rural

This paper presents an empirically grounded investigation of the values and practices of farmers markets (FM) in Vienna, Austria and their linkages to wider alternative food practices of ecological, social and economic sustainability. If the FMs are to play a vibrant role in the Viennese alternative food system, enhancing urban–rural connections and urban resilience, they must re–align their values to this system. A values-based conceptual framework is used to examine the structures and functions of six Viennese FMs and the alignment of values and practices among FM managers, farmers/vendors and consumers. Data from qualitative interviews, participant observation and dot surveys were collected at each FM. Value alignment is discovered as necessary to support and perpetuate alternative values. Governance is found to be significant for aligning values related to FM sustainability. Current structures and functions of Viennese FMs cannot be easily aligned with participant values and practices. As one of the first examinations of Viennese FMs, this work illustrates concrete challenges, priorities and emphasizes the role that governance and social organizing plays in successful markets as contributors towards sustainable urban food systems. Lessons learned can be applied to municipal FMs and other food system actors that face similar challenges.

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