Is HACCP Nothing? A Disjoint Constitution between Inspectors, Processors, and Consumers and the Cider Industry in Michigan

The transmission of a product or idea from one culture or point of origin to another and the maintenance of control outside the new locality has been referred to as the distribution and maintenance of “nothing.” This perspective has been used to describe the global marketplace and the influence of large multinational corporations on the politics and cultures of host countries. This paper uses this concept, but within a much smaller context. Using the sensitizing concept of a “disjoint constitution,” we interviewed health inspectors and apple cider producers in Michigan to determine if the implementation of the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) program designed to ensure food safety was characterized by a power differential that would favor the inspectors. In addition, a larger survey of processors and an internet survey of apple cider consumers was conducted to supplement this data. It was found that HACCP had characteristics of both “nothing” and “something” and that better communication is needed between these groups to move it further along toward the something end of the continuum. Toby A. Ten Eyck is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and affiliated with the National Food Safety and Toxicology Center at Michigan State University. His work focuses on the development, dissemination, and interpretation of mass media risk messages. Donna J. Thede completed her Ph.D in Food Science partially through this research project and is now a Senior Scientist in Nutrition & Regulatory Affairs with the Kellogg Company.  Gerd Bobe conducts research on nutrition and cancer as a fellow in the Cancer Prevention Fellowship Program, Division of Cancer Prevention, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health (Bethesda, Maryland). Previously, he evaluated food safety policies for the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition and the National Food Safety and Toxicology Center at Michigan State University. Leslie D. Bourquin is an Associate Professor in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition and is affiliated with the National Food Safety and Toxicology Center and Food Safety Policy Center at Michigan State University. His research examines factors influencing the effective implementation of food safety standards and the ultimate impacts of these standards on public health.     

Explaining disparities in food safety compliance by food stores: does community matter?

This paper provides a conceptual framework to explain why disparities may exist in food safety code compliance by food stores in different neighborhoods. Explanations include market dynamics, community characteristics, retailer attributes, inspector characteristics, and enforcement approaches, and interactions among the factors. A preliminary and limited empirical test of some of these relationships in Detroit, Michigan shows a higher rate of food safety violations by stores in poorer neighborhoods and in neighborhoods with higher concentrations of African-American residents. Stores inspected by female inspectors also scored higher numbers of critical violations, suggesting a need for greater examination of the social relations associated with enforcement interactions in food safety studies.

Nanotechnologies,food, and agriculture: next big thing or flash in the pan?

The advent of the new nanotechnologies has been heralded by government, media, and many in the scientific community as the next big thing. Within the agricultural sector research is underway on a wide variety of products ranging from distributed intelligence in orchards, to radio frequency identification devices, to animal diagnostics, to nanofiltered food products. But the nano-revolution (if indeed there is a revolution at all) appears to be taking a turn quite different from the biotechnology revolution of two decades ago. Grappling with these issues will require abandoning both the exuberance of diffusion theory and ex post facto criticism of new technologies as well in favor of a more nuanced and proactive view that cross the fault line between the social and natural sciences.

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.

Engagement for transformation: Value webs for local food system development

Engagement happens when academics and non-academics form partnerships to create mutual understanding, and then take action together. An example is the “value web” work associated with W. K. Kellogg Foundation’s Food Systems Higher Education–Community Partnership. Partners nationally work on local food systems development by building value webs. “Value chains,” a concept with considerable currency in the private sector, involves creating non-hierarchical relationships among otherwise disparate actors and entities to achieve collective common goals. The value web concept is extended herein by separating the values of the web itself, such as the value of collaboration, from values “in” the web, such as credence values associated with a product or service. By sharing and discussing case examples of work underway around the United States, the authors make a case for employing the value webs concept to represent a strategy for local food systems development, specifically, and for higher education–community partnerships, generally.

The emancipatory question: the next step in the sociology of agrifood systems?

I provide an historical overview of the development of the Sociology of Agriculture as a critical response to perceived inadequacies of conservative theories of social change regarding rural society in general, and agriculture in particular. I do this by focusing on the three questions that have dominated the discourse on agrifood studies: “The Agrarian Question,” “The Environment Question,” and “The Food Question.” I analyze the success and constraints of selected alternative agrifood initiatives in relation to the three questions and introduce a fourth, the Emancipatory Question. I conclude that agrifood social scientists need to embrace a praxis orientation to agrifood studies and participate in social movements designed to create a more socially just alternative agrifood system.

Restaurants,chefs and local foods: insights drawn from application of a diffusion of innovation framework

Chefs have been recognized as potentially important partners in efforts to promote local food systems. Drawing on the diffusion of innovation framework we (a) examine the characteristics of chefs and restaurants that have adopted local foods; (b) identified local food attributes valued by restaurants; (c) examine how restaurants function as opinion leaders promoting local foods; (d) explored network linkages between culinary and production organizations; and (e) finally, we consider some of the barriers to more widespread adoption of local foods in the culinary community. Analyzing quantitative and qualitative data collected from interviews with individuals from 71 restaurants, we compare and contrast restaurants that utilize relatively large amounts of locally-produced ingredients with restaurants using few, if any, local products. Results reveal that chefs are most interested in intrinsic food qualities, such as taste and freshness, and less interested in production standards. As opinion leaders, chefs utilize signage, wait staff, and cooking classes to promote local foods; however, the diffusion process across restaurants, and between restaurants and producers, is limited by network associations. Structural barriers such as distribution problems and lack of convenience were identified as limiting more widespread use of locally-grown foods. We offer several implications of this research for further work that seeks to engage chefs as opinion leaders who are important to building greater support for local food systems.

“<Emphasis Type="Italic">Chasms</Emphasis>” in agrifood systems: rethinking how we can contribute

The reaction to conventional agriculture and food systems has generated a host of alternative social movements in the past several decades. Many progressive agrifood researchers have researched these movements, exploring their strengths, weaknesses, and failures. Most such research is abstracted from the movements themselves. This paper proposes a new way of self-organization that, while fulfilling traditional university demands on researchers, will provide research support for progressive agrifood movements by transcending the boundaries of disciplines and individual universities.

Rights-based food systems and the goals of food systems reform

Food security, health, decent livelihoods, gender equity, safe working conditions, cultural identity and participation in cultural life are basic human rights that can be achieved at least in part through the food system. But current trends in the US prevent full realization of these economic, social, and cultural rights (ESCR) for residents, farmers, and wageworkers in the food system. Supply chains that strive to meet the goals of social justice, economic equity, and environmental quality better than the dominant globalized food value networks are gaining popularity in the US. However, achieving important human rights has become conflated with other goals of food system reform over the past decade, such as being “community-based,” local, and sustainable. This conflation confuses means, ends, and complementary goals; and it may lead activists trying to help communities to regain control of their food system choices into less productive strategies. This paper introduces a new concept, rights-based food systems (RBFS), and explores its connection with localization and sustainability. The core criteria of RBFS are democratic participation in food system choices affecting more than one sector; fair, transparent access by producers to all necessary resources for food production and marketing; multiple independent buyers; absence of human exploitation; absence of resource exploitation; and no impingement on the ability of people in other locales to meet this set of criteria. Localization and a community base can help achieve RBFS by facilitating food democracy and reducing environmental exploitation, primarily by lowering environmental costs due to long-distance transportation. Sustainability per se is an empty goal for food system reform, unless what will be sustained and for whom are specified. The RBFS concept helps to clarify what is worth sustaining and who is most susceptible to neglect in attempts to reform food systems. Localization can be a means toward sustainability if local food systems are also RBFS.

Visual communication to children in the supermarket context: Health protective or exploitive?

In light of growing concerns about obesity, Winson (2004, Agriculture and Human Values 21(4): 299–312) calls for more research into the supermarket foodscape as a point of connection between consumers and food choice. In this study, we systematically examine the marketing of ready-to-eat breakfast cereals to children in Toronto, Ontario supermarkets. The supermarket cereal aisle is a relatively unstudied visual collage of competing brands, colors, spokes-characters, and incentives aimed at influencing consumer choice. We found that breakfast cereal products with higher-than-average levels of sugar, refined grains, and trans-fats are more likely to feature child-oriented marketing in the form of spokes-characters, themed cereal shapes/colors, and child incentives on cereal boxes. These forms of visual communication are consistent with a “health exploitive” pattern of targeted marketing to children in the supermarket setting. Only one aspect of visual communication is consistent with a “health protective” pattern of marketing to children—cereals shelved within reach of children aged 4–8 had less sugar per serving and were less likely to contain trans-fats than less reachable products. We discuss the implications of our findings for the measurement and regulation of marketing to children in North American supermarkets.

Institutionalizing agroecology: successes and challenges in Cuba

Over the past two decades, Cuba has become a recognized global leader in sustainable agriculture. This paper explores how this process of agricultural transition has taken place, and argues that it has largely been led by research institutes, non-state organizations and the Cuban government, which have all contributed to the institutionalization of agroecology in both policy and practice. This process has been highly effective in terms of the numbers of people using agroecological techniques. However, although these techniques have been widely adopted by farmers across the country, this paper suggests that many still perceive maximizing production to be a higher priority than maintaining a commitment to agroecological ideals. For these farmers, agroecological farming is viewed primarily as a pragmatic decision rather than an ideological or moral one, and they may thus be susceptible to shifting back to conventional production if this option became politically and economically feasible

Governance in the Global Agro-food System: Backlighting the Role of Transnational Supermarket Chains

With the proliferation of private standards many significant decisions regarding public health risks, food safety, and environmental impacts are increasingly taking place in the backstage of the global agro-food system. Using an analytical framework grounded in political economy, we explain the rise of private standards and specific actors – notably supermarkets – in the restructuring of agro-food networks. We argue that the global, political-economic, capitalist transformation – globalization – is a transition from a Fordist regime to a regime of flexible accumulation (Harvey, 1989). We also argue that the standard making process of this new regulatory regime is increasingly moving from the front stage – where it is open to public debate and democratic decision-making bodies – to the backstage – where it is dominated by large supermarket procurement offices. We assert that transnational supermarket chains are increasingly controlling what food is grown where, how, and by whom. We also contend that the decision-making processes of transnational supermarket chains are typically “black-boxed.” The Euro-Retailer Produce Working Group (EUREP) is presented as a case of private governance by transnational supermarket chains. We conclude by examining the limitations and long-term efficacy of a system of private governance in the global agro-food system. Jason Konefal is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at Michigan State University. His interests include environmental sociology, food and agriculture, social movements, and science and technology studies. His dissertation research examines the political economic restructuring of the global agrifood system and the implications for social and environmental movements. Michael Mascarenhas is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at Michigan State University. His interests include political economy, the sociology of science and technology, environmental and rural sociology, and globalization and development. His current research involves a critical analysis of neoliberal water policy reform and indigenous inequalities. As of September 2005, Michael has taken a position in the Department of Sociology at Kwantlen University College in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada. Maki Hatanaka is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at Michigan State University. Her interests include food and agriculture, development, and gender. Much of her recent research focuses on standards and thirdparty certification and their social and environmental implications.     

Agricultural transitions in the context of growing environmental pressure over water

Conventional agriculture, while nested in nature, has expanded production at the expense of water in the Midwest and through the diversion of water resources in the western United States. With the growth of population pressure and concern about water quality and quantity, demands are growing to alter the relationship of agriculture to water in both these locations. To illuminate the process of change in this relationship, the author builds on Buttel’s (Research in Rural Sociology and Development 6: 1–21, 1995) assertion that agriculture is transitioning to a post “green revolution” period where farmers are paid for conservation, and employs actor network theory (Latour and Woolgar Laboratory life: The construction of scientific facts. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986) and the advocacy coalition framework (Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith, Policy change and learning: An advocacy coalition approach, 1–56. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993) to frame discussions of water and agriculture in the upper Mississippi River watershed, particularly Iowa. The author concludes that contested views of agriculture and countryside, as well as differing views of how agriculture must change to adapt to growing water concerns, will shape coalitions that will ultimately play a significant role in shaping the future of agriculture.

Regulating sustainability in the coffee sector: A comparative analysis of third-party environmental and social certification initiatives

Certification and labeling initiatives that seek to enhance environmental and social sustainability are growing rapidly. This article analyzes the expansion of these private regulatory efforts in the coffee sector. We compare the five major third-party certifications – the Organic, Fair Trade, Rainforest Alliance, Utz Kapeh, and Shade/Bird Friendly initiatives – outlining and contrasting their governance structures, environmental and social standards, and market positions. We argue that certifications that seek to raise ecological and social expectations are likely to be increasingly challenged by those that seek to simply uphold current standards. The vulnerability of these initiatives to market pressures highlights the need for private regulation to work in tandem with public regulation in enhancing social and environmental sustainability. Laura T. Raynolds is Professor of Sociology and Co-Director of the Center for Fair & Alternative Trade Studies (http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/Sociology/cfats/index.html) at Colorado State University. She has published extensively on organic and Fair Trade certification and globalization and has an edited volume forthcoming, Raynolds, L. T., D. Murray, and J. Wilkinson (eds.) (2007) Fair Trade: The Challenges of Transforming Globalization. London: Routledge Press. Douglas Murray is Professor of Sociology and Co-Director of the Center for Fair & Alternative Trade Studies at Colorado State University. His research and publications focus on global certification and regulatory initiatives, development, environment, and pesticide issues particularly in Latin America. Andrew Heller is PhD Candidate in Sociology and student affiliate of the Center for Fair & Alternative Trade Studies at Colorado State University. He is researching the impacts of certification on Guatemalan small scale coffee producers for his dissertation.     

Responsibility and agency within alternative food networks: assembling the “citizen consumer”

With “consumer demand” credited with driving major changes in the food industry related to food quality, safety, environmental, and social concerns, the contemporary politics of food has become characterized by a variety of attempts to redefine food consumption as an expression of citizenship that speaks of collective rights and responsibilities. Neoliberal political orthodoxy constructs such citizenship in terms of the ability of individuals to monitor and regulate their own behavior as entrepreneurs and as consumers. By contrast, many proponents of alternative food networks promote the idea that food citizenship is expressed through participation in social arrangements based on solidarity and coordinated action rather than on contractual and commoditized relationships between so-called “producers” and “consumers.” This paper thus focuses its analysis on the strategies used to mobilize people as consumers of particular products and the ways, in turn, in which people use their consumption choices as expressions of social agency or citizenship. In particular, the paper examines how the marketing, pricing, and distribution of foods interact with food standards to enable and constrain specific expressions of food citizenship. It is argued that narrow and stereotypical constructions of the “ethical consumer” help to limit the access of particular people and environmental values, such as biodiversity, to the ethical marketplace.

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.

Antagonistic Synergy: Process and Paradox in the Development of New Agricultural Antimicrobial Regulations

There is currently great controversy over the contribution antimicrobial use in animal agriculture has made to antimicrobial resistance in pathogenic bacteria with negative consequences for human health. In light of this, the approval process for antimicrobials used in US animal agriculture, known as New Animal Drug Application or NADA, is currently being revised by the federal government. We explore the public deliberations over the development of these new policies focusing our attention on the interaction between pharmaceutical companies and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. What appears to be an antagonistic public discourse is examined in terms of its ability to simultaneously legitimate the roles of the Food and Drug Administration as the official arbiter of policy on antimicrobial use in animal agriculture and as a protector of the public welfare, as well as the role of pharmaceutical companies as the producers of safe and effective products necessary for the protection of public well-being. Wesley R. Dean is an Assistant Research Scientist in the Institute for Science, Technology and Public Policy at Texas A & M University. His PhD is in Sociology from the University of Alberta where he wrote a dissertation on the Canadian HIV-tainted blood scandal. He is currently engaged in research on USDA-CSREES National Integrated Food Safety Initiative, a project to systematically characterize antimicrobial decision-making in US animal agriculture. H. Morgan Scott earned a DVM from the University of Saskatchewan and a Ph.D. in Epidemiology from the University of Guelph. He is an assistant professor at Texas A&M University in the Department of Veterinary Integrative Biosciences. He is currently conducting epidemiological research on the transference of resistant genes from swine to human host populations and he is the principal investigator on the USDA-CSREES National Integrated Food Safety Initiative.     

Resilience and vulnerability in US farm policy: parsing the payment limitation debate

Since the New Deal era, the commodity title has been the major farm support program in US farm bills. Commodity programs have encouraged farmers to pursue specialized, monocultural, and input intensive production strategies that are increasingly viewed as unsustainable. Yet commodity programs remain politically resilient. As revealed in the farm payment limitation debate in the 2007 farm bill reauthorization process, political support for commodity programs is maintained through policy elasticity adaptations that combine new with old policy rationales. The recent extension of farm program support to producers of commodities that have not received benefits in the past poses a potential threat to existing commodity programs, as this legislation has institutionalized competition within production agriculture over the allocation and design of subsidies. This paper argues for renewed attention to the policy support mechanisms that undergird the conventional agrifood system in order to better understand alternative agrifood system possibilities and constraints.

Book reviews

Conner Bailey is Associate Professor of Rural Sociology at Auburn University. Mike Skladany is a doctoral student in Sociology at Michigan State University. Both have extensive field experience in Southeast Asia with fisheries and other common property natural resource systems.     

Interdisciplinarity and boundary work: challenges and opportunities for agrifood studies

Despite its vigor, agrifood studies research faces two fault lines: the durability of disciplines, and challenges in engaging non-academic stakeholders. In this essay, I use the concept of boundary work from social studies of science and technology to reflect on the challenges and opportunities for more engaged interdisciplinary research in agrifood studies. I draw on recent field visits to several “sustainable food chain” research projects funded through the Rural Economy and Land Use Programme (RELU), an innovative interdisciplinary research initiative of the UK Research Councils, to highlight the contradictory nature of boundary work in interdisciplinary research. Involving efforts both to bridge interfaces and to separate, exclude and manage other disciplines or stakeholders, boundary work is inherent to interdisciplinarity. Innovations in the organizational culture of projects and in the larger structural context for research can multiply the more generative potential of boundary work, and also yield more and better interdisciplinary research in agrifood studies.