Abstract
Current studies on data sharing via data commons or shared vocabularies using ontologies mainly focus on developing the infrastructure for data sharing yet little attention has been paid to the role of power in data sharing among food system stakeholders. Stakeholders within food systems have different interpretations of the types and magnitudes of their own and other’s level of power to solve food system challenges. Politically neutral, yet scientifically/socioeconomically accurate power classification systems are yet to be developed, and must be capable of enumerating and characterizing what power means to each stakeholder, existing power dynamics within the food system, as well as alternative forms of power not currently utilized to their full capacity. This study describes the design and implementation of a workshop, which used methods from community-based participatory modeling, to examine the role of power relative to data sharing and equitable health outcomes. Workshop participants co-created several boundary objects that described the power relationships among food system stakeholders and the changes needed to current power relationships. Our results highlight current imbalances in power relationships among food system stakeholders. The information we collected on specific relationships among broad categories of stakeholders highlighted needs for initiatives and activities to increase the types and varieties of power especially across consumers, farmers, and labor stakeholder groups. Furthermore, by utilizing this workshop methodology, food system stakeholders may be able to envision new power relationships and bring about a fundamental re-orienting of current power relationships capable of valorizing food system sustainability/resiliency, especially the health of its workers and consumers.
Highlights
The term foodshed [1], like the term watershed, is used to describe a geographic area, in this case, one within which food flows from sources to consumers
A major takeaway was that the current imbalances in power relationships among food system stakeholders point toward a path for re-orienting current power relationships (Figure 4) in a manner that could lead to sustainable solutions to food systems challenges
Our methodology was a novel contribution to ontology development, which largely remains an academic exercise rather than one that involves community stakeholders from the beginning of the ontology development process
Summary
The term foodshed [1], like the term watershed, is used to describe a geographic area, in this case, one within which food flows from sources to consumers. Other writings use power to refer more pointedly to an individual’s or organization’s ability to influence policy change and provide control over some aspect of the food system [3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]. This influence may come from control over the built environment [6], having an economic advantage [8], and/or the ability of those with influence to maintain the standing they have in a situation [9]. The term agency, which has a long history in institutional and development economics (viz, Cheung’s framing of sharecropping contracts as principal-agent problems [12]), connotes an individual’s ability to advocate [4] for themselves and to act as a semi-autonomous agent within social-constructed systems of economic and political constraints
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