From Food Justice to a Tool of the Status Quo: Three Sub-movements Within Local Food (original) (raw)

Abstract

The local food movement has been touted by some as a profoundly effective way to make our food system become more healthy, just, and sustainable. Others have criticized the movement as being less a challenge to the status quo and more an easily co-opted support offering just another set of choices for affluent consumers. In this paper, we analyze three distinct sub-movements within the local food movement, the individual-focused sub-movement, the systems-focused sub-movement, and the community-focused sub-movement. These movements can be combined within any particular campaign or within the goals of any particular organization or individual activist, but they are nevertheless quite different from each other, and come out of different conceptualizations of what food, people, and locality are. We argue that most of the critiques leveled against local food are actually directed against the individual-focused sub-movement, which is most compatible with the current industrial food system, and perhaps not surprisingly receives the most mainstream attention. Further, we argue that while each movement has its own strengths and weaknesses, it is the community-focused sub-movement that has the most potential to radically transform the global food system.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

• Starting from 10 chapters or articles per month
• Access and download chapters and articles from more than 300k books and 2,500 journals
• Cancel anytime View plans

Buy Now

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

1. For more information on the development of this trend, see DeLind's (2011) article “Are local food and the local food movement taking us where we want to go? Or are we hitching our wagons to the wrong stars?” published in Agriculture and Human Values. In addition, see works by Michael Pollan (2009), such as A Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, and other works by popular local food writers.
2. Neoliberalism is, roughly, a form of liberalism that promotes the distribution of goods via an unregulated market system. For more information, see Mirowski and Plehwe's (2009).

References

• Anderson, J. V., Bybee, D. I., Brown, R. M., McLean, D. F., Garcia, E. M., Breer, M. L., et al. (2001). 5 a day fruit and vegetable intervention improves consumption in a low income population. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 101, 195–202.
  Article Google Scholar
• Campesina, V. (2009). Nyéléni declaration. Journal of Peasant Studies, 36(3), 673–676.
  Google Scholar
• Chicagoist. (2009). Walmart hosts a ‘‘farmer’s market,’’ avoids most farmers. http://chicagoist.com/2009/07/22walmart_hosts_a_farmers_market_avoi.php. Accessed 22 July 2012.
• Collier, P. (2008). The bottom billion. New York: Oxford University Press.
  Google Scholar
• Crib, J. (2010). The coming famine: The global food crisis and what we can do to avoid it. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  Google Scholar
• Dahlberg, K. A. (1993). Regenerative food systems: Broadening the scope and agenda of sustainability. In P. Allen (Ed.), Food for the future: Conditions and contradictions of sustainability. New York: Wiley.
  Google Scholar
• DeLind, L. B. (2002). Place, work, and civic agriculture: Common fields for cultivation. Agriculture and Human Values, 19(3), 217–224.
  Article Google Scholar
• DeLind, L. B. (2011). Are local food and the local food movement taking us where we want to go? Or are we hitching our wagons to the wrong stars? Agriculture and Human Values, 28, 273–283.
  Article Google Scholar
• DeLind, L. B., & Bingen, J. (2008). Place and civic culture: Re-thinking the context for local agriculture. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 21, 127–151.
  Article Google Scholar
• Desmarais, A. A. (2008). The power of peasants: Reflections on the meanings of La Vía Campesina. Journal of Rural Studies, 24, 138–149.
  Article Google Scholar
• DuPuis, E. M., & Goodman, D. (2005). Should we go “Home” to eat? Toward a reflexive politics of localism. Journal of Rural Studies, 21(3), 359–371.
  Article Google Scholar
• Feyerabend, P. (2010). Against method. New York: Verso.
  Google Scholar
• Flora, C. B. (2011). Review: Schanbacher, William D.: The politics of food: The global conflict between food security and food sovereignty. Journal of Agriculture and Environment Ethics, 24, 545–547.
  Article Google Scholar
• Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (2003). Trade reforms and food security: Conceptualizing the linkages. http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/y4671e/y4671e00.htm. Accessed 22 Dec 2012.
• Gottlieb, R., & Joshi, A. (2010). Food justice. Cambridge, MA: MIT.
  Google Scholar
• Guthman, J. (2004). Agrarian dreams: The paradox of organic farming in California. Berkeley: UC.
  Google Scholar
• Guthman, J. (2008). Bringing good food to others: Investigating the subjects of alternative food practice. Cultural Geographies, 15(4), 431–447.
  Article Google Scholar
• Horgen, K. B. (2001). Promoting healthy food choices: A health message and economic incentive intervention. Dissertation, Yale University.
• Kingsolver, B., Kingsolver, C., & Hopp, S. (2008). Animal, vegetable, miracle: A year of food life. New York: Harper Inc.
  Google Scholar
• Lyson, T. A. (2004). Civic agriculture: Reconnecting farm, food, and community. Medford: Tufts University Press.
  Google Scholar
• McCormack, L. A., Laska, M. N., Larson, N. I., & Story, M. (2010). Review of the nutritional implications of farmers’ markets and community gardens: A call for evaluation and research efforts. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 110(3), 399.
  Article Google Scholar
• Mirowski, P., & Plehwe, D. (2009). The road from Mont Pèlerin: The making of the neoliberal thought collective. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
  Google Scholar
• Mitchell, S. (2009). The corporate co-opt of local. The Wire. 7 August. http://www.ilsr.org/corporate-coopt-local/. Accessed 22 Dec 2012.
• Mount, P. (2012). Growing local food: Scale and local food systems governance. Agriculture and Human Values, 29(1), 107–121.
  Article Google Scholar
• Pollan, M. (2009). A Defense of food: An eater’s manifesto. New York: Penguin Press.
  Google Scholar
• Pollan, M. (2010). The food movement, rising. The New York Review of Books, June.
• Sbicca, J. (2012). Growing food justice by planting an anti-oppression foundation: Opportunities and obstacles for a budding social movement. Agriculture and Human Values, 29(4), 455–466.
  Article Google Scholar
• Schanbacher, W. (2010). The politics of food: The global conflict between food security and food sovereignty. Santa Barbara: Praeger.
  Google Scholar
• Sen, A. (1983). Poverty and famines: An essay on entitlement and deprivation. New York: Oxford University Press.
  Book Google Scholar
• Turner, N. J., & Turner, K. (2008). “Where our women used to get the food”: Cumulative effects and loss of ethnobotanical knowledge and practice; case study from coastal British Columbia. Botany, 86(2), 103.
  Article Google Scholar
• Vandermeer, J., & Perfecto, I. (2005). Breakfast of biodiversity: The political ecology of rainforest destruction. Berkeley: Food First Books.
  Google Scholar
• Whittman, H. (2010). Food sovereignty: Reconnecting food, nature, and community (p. 2010). Oakland: Food First Books.
  Google Scholar

Download references

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Dr. Kyle Whyte for his invaluable help with early drafts of this paper.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

1. Department of Philosophy, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA
   Ian Werkheiser & Samantha Noll

Authors

1. Ian Werkheiser
2. Samantha Noll

Corresponding author

Correspondence toIan Werkheiser.

Rights and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Werkheiser, I., Noll, S. From Food Justice to a Tool of the Status Quo: Three Sub-movements Within Local Food.J Agric Environ Ethics 27, 201–210 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-013-9459-6

Download citation

• Accepted: 09 July 2013
• Published: 15 August 2013
• Issue date: April 2014
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-013-9459-6

Keywords