The illusion of control: industrialized agriculture,nature, and food safety

I explore the role of nature in the agrifood system and how attempts to fit food production into a large-scale manufacturing model has lead to widespread outbreaks of food borne illness. I illustrate how industrial processing of leafy greens is related to the outbreak of E. coli 0157:H7 associated with spinach in the fall of 2006. I also use this example to show how industry attempts to create the illusion of control while failing to address weaknesses in current processing systems. The leafy greens industry has focused efforts on sterilizing the growing environment and adopting new technologies, while neglecting to change the concentrated structure of processing systems. Repeated breakdowns in these systems illustrate a widening fault line between attempted and failed control of nature in industrial food production.

Agricultural biotechnology research: Practices,consequences, and policy recommendations

This paper reviews current trends in the development of agricultural biotechnology, including (1) the recent and potential biotechnology products and processes in the plant, animal and food sciences, and (2) the enormous increase in Federal and State government and industrial investments in biotechnology research. Next we analyze the impacts and possible consequences of agricultural biotechnology for public and private agricultural research and for the structure and nature of the food system in this country and around the world. We conclude with a range of proposals for agricultural research policies. Among the possible consequences we discuss are: (1) a shift in disciplinary emphasis in the research community to molecular biology, (2) reduction of research on systems, ecology, and the social sciences, (3) increased concentration of research funds at a small number of institutions, (4) reduction of long-term research in the public sector, (5) increased collaboration between industry, government and universities with a restriction of scientific communication, and a potential for conflict of interest, favoritism and increased scientific misconduct, (6) a change of the primary goals and agenda of the public sector research community, and (7) increased concentration in the agribusiness sector and the industrialization of the food system. Our policy suggestions include: (1) maintaining and strengthening an independent public research and teaching system, (2) striking a balance between short-term proprietary biotechnology and long-term nonproprietary research, (3) maintaining an extension system that delivers biotechnology information and products to all potential users, (4) developing a regulatory system that adequately protects the public and provides clear guidelines to industry. (5) assisting developing nations to reap the benefits of the biotechnology revolution, and (6) establishing mechanisms to foster broad-based understanding of the social and ethical issues relating to agricultural biotechnology and to promote research on the social and ethical impacts.     

Neoliberal restructuring, neoregulation, and the Mexican poultry industry

The US poultry industry based on flexible accumulation has been advanced as the model of agro-industrial development for agrifood globalization. Similarly, Mexico has been presented as a noteworthy example of the negative effects of neoliberal restructuring associated with the globalization project. In this paper we use both of these assertions as points of departure to guide an investigation of the case of the restructuring of the Mexican poultry industry. Informed by a commodity systems analysis, archival data and key informant interviews are used to generate an overview of the history of the poultry industry in Mexico. A sociology of agrifood theoretical framework informed by regimes theory is employed to analyze the events of the case. We conclude that neoregulation related to the IMF and NAFTA restructuring in Mexico facilitated the diffusion of the US model of poultry production.     

Mining for justice in the food system: perceptions,practices, and possibilities

Despite much popular interest in food issues, there remains a lack of social justice in the American agrifood system, as evidenced by prevalent hunger and obesity in low-income populations and exploitation of farmworkers. While many consumers and alternative agrifood organizations express interest in and support social justice goals, the incorporation of these goals into on-the-ground alternatives is often tenuous. Academics have an important role in calling out social justice issues and developing the critical thinking skills that can redress inequality in the agrifood system. Academics can challenge ideological categories of inquiry and problem definition, include justice factors in defining research problems, and develop participatory, problem-solving research within social justice movements. In addition, scholars can educate students about the power of epistemologies, discourse, and ideology, thereby expanding the limits and boundaries of what is possible in transforming the agrifood system. In these ways, the academy can be a key player in the creation of a diverse agrifood movement that embraces the discourse of social justice.

Adventurous food futures: knowing about alternatives is not enough,we need to feel them

This paper investigates how we can enact, collectively, affording food systems. Yet rather than asking simply what those assemblages might look like the author enquires as to how they might also feel. Building on existing literature that speaks to the radically relational, and deeply affective, nature of food the aims of this paper are multiple: to learn more about how moments of difference come about in otherwise seemingly banal encounters; to understand some of the processes by which novelty ripples out, up, and through social bodies; to speak to, and suggest ways to resolve, ontological asymmetries within the agrifood literature pertaining to Cartesian dualisms; and to offer ways forward that allow agrifood scholars to talk about phenomena such as feelings and structures/barriers in the same sentence. The empirical flesh of the paper comes from an admittedly unconventional case study. On December 10, 2012, Amendment 64 was added to Colorado’s constitution making it legal for adults to consume marijuana for recreational purposes. The case examined is not about pot, however. The paper, rather, is about hopeful, hydroponic-inspired, agrifood futures; novel doings, feelings, and thinkings sparked by, among other things, food grown in basements and spare bedrooms.     

Cooperative extension and food system change: goals,strategies and resources

Recent attention to communities “localizing” food systems has increased the need to understand the perspectives of people working to foster collaboration and the eventual transformation of the food system. University Cooperative Extension Educators (EEs) increasingly play a critical role in communities’ food systems across the United States, providing various resources to address local needs. A better understanding of EEs’ perspectives on food systems is therefore important. Inspired by the work of Stevenson, Ruhf, Lezberg, and Clancy on the social food movement, we conducted national virtual focus groups to examine EEs’ attitudes about how food system change should happen, for what reasons, and who has the resources, power, and influence to effect change. The institutions within which EEs are embedded shape their perceptions of available resources in the community, including authority and power (and who holds them). These resources, in turn, structure EEs’ goals and strategies for food system change. We find that EEs envision working within the current food system: building market-centric alternatives that address inequity for vulnerable consumers and producers. EEs bring many resources to the table but do not believe they can influence those who have the authority to change policy. While these findings could suggest EEs’ limited ability to be transformative change agents, EEs can potentially connect their efforts with new partners that share perceptions of food system problems and solutions. As EEs increasingly engage in food system work and with increasingly diverse stakeholders, they can access alternative, transformational frames within which to set goals and organize their work.     

Including growers in the “food safety” conversation: enhancing the design and implementation of food safety programming based on farm and marketing needs of fresh fruit and vegetable producers

Experts identified water quality, manure, good handling practices (including personal hygiene and equipment sanitation), and traceability as critical farm problem areas that, if addressed, are likely to decrease risk associated with microbial contamination of fresh produce from all scales of agriculture. However, the diverse nature of production strategies used by produce farmers presents multiple options for addressing foodborne illness issues while simultaneously creating potential complications. We use a mental models methodology to enhance our understanding of the underlying factors and assumptions of small, medium, and large produce growers that influence their decision-making processes for contamination prevention and control. This empirical evidence demonstrates how challenges and opportunities to food safety are related to the scale of production and marketing strategies. We believe that refining the development of standards and existing extension and outreach food safety programs are important to both consumer protection and supporting agricultural communities. Additionally, this approach will help develop and refine food safety programs that will result in empirically grounded recommendations based on identified grower information needs.     

Social and environmental attributes of food products in an emerging mass market: Challenges of signaling and consumer perception, with European illustrations

This paper focuses on the environmental and ethical attributes of food products and their production processes. These two aspects have been recently recognized and are becoming increasingly important in terms of signaling and of consumer perception. There are two relevant thematic domains: environmental and social. Within each domain there are two movements. Hence the paper first presents the four movements that have brought to the fore new aspects of food product quality, to wit: (1) aspects of environmental ethics (organic agriculture and integrated agriculture), and (2) social ethics (fair trade and ethical trade). Next, it describes how the actors in the movements (producers, retailers, NGOs, and governments) are organized and how consumers perceive each of the movements. From the perspective of the actors in the movements themselves, the movements are grouped into two “actors’ philosophies.” The first is a “radical” philosophy (the organic production and fair trade movements that arose in radical opposition to conventional agriculture or unfair trade relations), and the second is a “reformist” philosophy (the integrated agriculture and ethical trade movements that arose as efforts to modify but not radically change conventional agriculture). From the point of view of consumers, the classification of the movements is based on perceptions of the “domain” of the movements. That is, consumers tend to perceive the organic production movement and the integrated agricultural movement as a single group because they both deal with the environment. By contrast, consumers tend to group the fair trade movement and the ethical trade movement together because they both deal essentially with social ethics. Recently, key players such as large retailers and agribusinesses have adopted as part of their overall quality assurance programs both environmental and ethical attributes. Their involvement in and adoption of the goals of the movements have, however, generated tensions and conflicts. This is particularly true within the radical movements, because of concerns of cooptation. Finally, the paper identifies challenges faced by those promoting food products with environmental and social/ethical attributes as they attempt to communicate coherent signals to consumers at this crucial moment in the emergence of a mass market for these products. Jean -Marie Codron is a Senior Researcher at INRA and co-director of MOISA, a public joint research laboratory involved in the social sciences. His research interests focus on three main lines of research: economics of contracts, economics of the firm, and economics of market institutions, with applications to “complex” food sectors, where product quality is difficult to measure and/or to signal to the consumer. Lucie Sirieix is Professor of Marketing and Consumer Behaviour at SupAgro Montpellier, France, a national higher education establishment under the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. Within the MOISA research unit, her main research topics are variety seeking, risk and trust, environmental and ethical consumer concerns, and sustainable consumption. Her specific research areas include organic products, fair trade, and regional products. Thomas Reardon is Professor of Agricultural Economics at Michigan State University. His work focuses on globalization, consolidation in the retail and processing sectors, and their effects on agrifood systems and trade as well as on the economics of private quality and safety standards.     

Growing food justice by planting an anti-oppression foundation: opportunities and obstacles for a budding social movement

The food justice movement is a budding social movement premised on ideologies that critique the structural oppression responsible for many injustices throughout the agrifood system. Tensions often arise however when a radical ideology in various versions from multiple previous movements is woven into mobilization efforts by organizations seeking to build the activist base needed to transform the agrifood system. I provide a detailed case study of the People’s Grocery, a food justice organization in West Oakland, California, to show how anti-oppression ideology provides the foundation upon which food justice activists mobilize. People’s Grocery builds off of previous social justice movements within West Oakland, reflected in activist meaning making around ideas of social justice and autonomy. However, the ongoing mobilization process also faces complications stemming from diverse individual interpretations of food justice—that may not be reflected in the stated goals of food justice organizations—as well as structural constraints. Consequently, building a social movement premised on food justice opens up social spaces for new activism, but may not be a panacea for solving food-related racial and economic inequality. The findings have implications for newly forming food justice organizations, future research on the food justice movement, as well as for theories on social movement mobilization.     

Farm to school programs: exploring the role of regionally-based food distributors in alternative agrifood networks

Farm to school programs are at the vanguard of efforts to create an alternative agrifood system in the United States. Regionally-based, mid-tier food distributors may play an important role in harnessing the potential of farm to school programs to create viable market opportunities for small- and mid-size family farmers, while bringing more locally grown fresh food to school cafeterias. This paper focuses on the perspectives of food distributors. Our findings suggest that the food distributors profiled have the potential to help institutionalize farm to school programs. Notably, their relationships with farmers may be a critical element in expanding the scale and scope of local school food procurement. Their ability to catalyze local school food procurement however, is limited by the structural context in which farm to school programs operate. Specifically, the oppositional school year and agriculture production cycle, and tight food service budget constraints disembed and limit the potential of farm to school programs to decrease the “marketness” of school food procurement and to shift it from a process based largely on price to one that is more territorially embedded. As farm to school programs continue to gain support, regionally-based food distributors that have the meaningful relationships necessary to re-embed the school food service market back into the larger society may be critical to enabling advocates to achieve their goals.     

No alternative? The politics and history of non-GMO certification

Third-party certification is an increasingly prevalent tactic which agrifood activists use to “help” consumers shop ethically, and also to reorganize commodity markets. While consumers embrace the chance to “vote with their dollar,” academics question the potential for labels to foster widespread political, economic, and agroecological change. Yet, despite widespread critique, a mounting body of work appears resigned to accept that certification may be the only option available to activist groups in the context of neoliberal socio-economic orders. At the extreme, Guthman (Antipode 39(3): 457, 2007) posits that “at this political juncture… ‘there is no alternative.” This paper offers a different assessment of third-party certification, and points to interventions that are potentially more influential that are currently available to activist groups. Exploring the evolution of the Non-GMO Project—a novel certification for foods that are reasonably free of genetically engineered (GE) material—I make two arguments. First, I echo the literature’s critical perspective by illustrating how certification projects become vulnerable to industry capture. Reviewing its history and current context, I suggest that the Non-GMO Project would be better suited to helping companies avoid mounting public criticism than to substantially reorient agrifood production. Second, I explore the “politics of the possible” in the current political economy and argue that while neoliberalization and organizers’ places within the food system initially oriented the group towards the private sector, the choice to pursue certification arose directly from two industry partnerships. Consequently, current trends might favor market mechanisms, but certification is only one possible intervention that has emerged as a result of particular, and perhaps avoidable, circumstances. The article offers tentative delineation of alternatives ways that activists might intervene in agrifood and political economic systems given present constraints.     

BUILDING CLIMATE-RESILIENT FOOD SYSTEMS IN EAST AND SOUTHEAST ASIA: VULNERABILITIES,RESPONSES AND FINANCING

Food system resilience to climate change is uniquely imperative for bringing Sustainable Development Goals within reach and leaving no one behind. Food systems in East and Southeast Asia are interacting with planetary boundaries and are adversely affected by extreme weather-related events. A practical question for East and Southeast Asian stakeholders is how to foster climateresilient food systems in the face of lingering food system vulnerabilities and policy gaps. This paper reviews food syste...     

论中国粮食安全的观念、制度与技术创新

针对当前中国粮食安全形势和未来发展趋势,提出中国粮食安全的观念、制度与技术创新思路。在粮食安全观念创新上,要树立“大粮食”观念,逐步实现粮食的数量安全、经济安全和营养安全三级目标,确保粮食增产与增收同步,并重点保障口粮安全,开放非口粮市场。在粮食安全的制度创新上,要推进土地股份合作制,强化耕地评审管理制度,建立和健全粮食安全监测预警体系、粮食市场购销体系、农产品质量标准体系,强化粮食产购中的调控与管理力度。在粮食安全的技术创新上,着重调整粮食产销的区域布局,推行多熟超高产生产技术,构建“大粮食”生产结构。     

In the long run,will we be fed?

This Symposium provides an important opportunity to reflect on the current state of scholarship positioning alternative foods against mainstream agri-food systems. Symposia of this kind have a long tradition as marking particular turning points in agrifood debates. This collection provides an opportunity to examine the current positioning of scholarship around the theoretical and methodological fracture line between successor theories to classical political economy and more post-structuralist approaches to alternative economic activities around food and agriculture. In the current collection, despite clear evidence of theoretical positioning around the structural: post-structural divide, I argue that both aspects of agri-food theorizing share similar political intent and are positioned within the same wider political project of agrifood critique. Therefore, despite theoretical fracture, there is a unity of political intention that continues to bind together this particular field of research and practice.     

Consumer attitudes to different pig production systems: a study from mainland China

In many countries consumers have shown an increasing interest to the way in which food products are being produced. This study investigates Chinese consumers’ attitudes towards different pig production systems by means of a conjoint analysis. While there has been a range of studies on Western consumers’ attitudes to various forms of food production, little is known about the level of Chinese consumers’ attitudes. A cross-sectional survey was carried out with 472 participants in 6 Chinese cities. Results indicate that Chinese consumers prefer industrial pig production systems, where traditional pig breeds are raised, over large-scale and small family farms. Farms with maximum attention to food safety, which furthermore can provide lean meat with consistent quality, are also preferred. Imported pig breeds and tasty but variable meat were rejected. A 3-cluster solution found that consumers from cluster 1 focus almost exclusively on the food safety aspect (food safety focused). Consumers from cluster 2 (indifferent) show weak overall attitudes to pig production systems in general. Cluster 3 (industrial production oriented) stands out by being very positive about industrial, large-size farms and consistent quality. From a Chinese consumer’s perspective, the industrial approach seems to represent values such as achievement and evolution, as well as quality and safety, since pig production is moving away from low-cost, low-quality, and low-safety family-scale systems. A complex set of rural and environmental development, quality aspects, and food safety measures are challenges that must be met by the stakeholders of pig production systems in China.     

Food safety risks,disruptive events and alternative beef production: a case study of agricultural transition in Alberta

A key focus for agri-food scholars today pertains to emerging “alternative food movements,” particularly their long-term viability, and their potential to induce transitions in our prevailing conventional global agri-food systems. One under-studied element in recent research on sustainability transitions more broadly is the role of disruptive events in the emergence or expansion of these movements. We present the findings of a case study of the effect of a sudden acute food safety crisis—bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease—on alternative beef production in the Province of Alberta, Canada. Employing the conceptual lens of Sustainability Transition Theory, we explore the perspectives of conventional and alternative beef producers, treating alternative beef production as a niche operating within the dominant regime of global industrial agri-business. Three key findings are presented here. First, food safety risks and disruptive events can emerge as a direct consequence of the socio-ecological contradictions embedded in industrial agriculture, representing an opportunity for expansion of agricultural niches. Second, certain features of socio-economic regimes can also contribute to niche emergence, such as an economic system that disenfranchises beef-producing families. Finally, our study highlights the high level of diversity among niche agents and the complex and nuanced nature of their support for the niche.     

Lessons learned from pesticide drift: a call to bring production agriculture, farm labor, and social justice back into agrifood research and activism

I use the case of pesticide drift to discuss the neoliberal shift in agrifood activism and its implications for public health and social justice. I argue that the benefits of this shift have been achieved at the cost of privileging certain bodies and spaces over others and absolving the state of its responsibility to ensure the conditions of social justice. I use this critical intervention as a means of introducing several opportunities for strengthening agrifood research and advocacy. First, I call for increased critical attention to production agriculture and the regulatory arena. Second, I call for increased attention to ‘social justice’ within the food system, emphasizing the need to rekindle research on the immigrant farm labor force.

SUSTAINABLE NITROGEN MANAGEMENT IN AUSTRALIAN AGROECOSYSTEMS: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

● There is huge potential for improvement of nitrogen management in Australia. ● N management should incorporate environmental, social and economic sustainability. ● Agronomic, ecological and socioeconomic approaches and efforts are needed. Nitrogen is an essential nutrient that supports life, but excess N in the human-environment system causes multiple adverse effects from the local to the global scale. Sustainable N management in agroecosystems, therefore, has become more and more critical to address the increasing concern over food security, environmental quality and climate change. Australia is facing a serious challenge for sustainable N management due to its emission-intensive lifestyle (high level of animal-source foods and fossil fuels consumption) and its diversity of agricultural production systems, from extensive rainfed grain systems with mining of soil N to intensive crop and animal production systems with excessive use of N. This paper reviews the major challenges and future opportunities for making Australian agrifood systems more sustainable, less polluting and more profitable.     

Corporate cooptation of organic and fair trade standards

Recent years have seen a substantial increase in alternative agrifood initiatives that attempt to use the market to curtail the negative social and environmental effects of production and trade in a globalized food system. These alternatives pose a challenge to capital accumulation and the externalization of environmental costs by large agribusiness, trading and retail firms. Yet the success of these alternatives also makes them an inviting target for corporate participation. This article examines these dynamics through a case study of the two most significant such food system alternatives—organics and fair trade—focusing on corporate involvement in establishing and renegotiating the standards undergirding these initiatives. We compare the development of and contestation over the standards for both certified organic and certified fair trade, with particular attention to the U.S. context. We provide a brief history of their parallel processes of rapid growth and market mainstreaming. We examine claims of cooptation by movement participants, as well as the divergences and similarities between the organic and fair trade cases. Analyzing these two cases provides useful insights into the strategic approaches that corporate firms have deployed to further capital accumulation and to defuse threats to their profit margins and to status quo production, pricing, labor, trading and retailing practices. It can also offer valuable lessons regarding the most effective means of responding to such counter-reforms and of protecting or reasserting the more transformative elements at the heart of these alternative systems.     

Agrifood systems for competent, ordinary people. Presidential address: Joint Meetings of the Agricultural, Food and Human Values Society and the Association for the Study of Food and Society, Madison, Wisconsin, June 5–8, 1997

Focusing on the notion of competencies, the address explores important dimensions of human infrastructure for negotiating alternative agrifood systems. The analytical competencies emphasized are those of making connections and evaluating contradictions. Farm structure and food system connections with human health and consumer culture are chosen as examples. Examined in the context of social change strategies, relational competencies focus on new forms of food citizenship involving alternative organizational relationships between farmers, retailers, and customers. Ethical competencies are framed in relationship to the entire food system, to the valuing of non-market goods, and to linkages between ethics and emotions. Finally, aesthetic and spiritual competencies are considered as human capacities to connect agriculture and food with beauty and with sacramental living.