Abstract
The article explores and discusses, both conceptually and empirically, the exercise of food democracy in the context of three alternative food networks (AFNs) in Brussels, Belgium. It demonstrates that food democracy can be described as a “vector of sustainability transition”. The argumentation is built on the results of a 3.5-year participatory-action research project that configured and applied a sustainability assessment framework with the three local AFNs under study. Firstly, the article presents a localized understanding of food democracy. Food democracy is defined as a process aiming to transform the current food system to a more sustainable one. This transformation process starts from a specific point: the people. Indeed, the three AFNs define and implement concrete processes of power-configuration to alter the political, economic, and social relationships between consumers and producers as well as between retailers and producers. Secondly, the article assesses and discusses how the three AFNs perform these practices of food democracy and what effects these have on the actors concerned. The assessment shows that the three AFNs distinguish themselves along a gradient of their transformative potential in terms of practices. However, this variation in their interpretation of food democracy does not translate into a gradient of performance.
Highlights
Alternative food networks (AFNs) are under deep scrutiny since they emerged as concrete attempts to counter the negative externalities of the dominant global and industrial food system (Deverre & Lamine, 2010; Le Velly, 2016; Maye & Kirwan, 2010; Tregear, 2011)
The results reveal that when the stakeholders involved were asked if they were satisfied with their political power, the average satisfaction score (Indicator A4) is very similar for each of the three alternative food networks (AFNs)
If we look at the broader situation for the sustainability of the Brussels food system/regime, the results tend to show that the three AFNs participate in the transformation of the current food system, despite different transformative potentials and despite their having different scales of activity
Summary
Alternative Food Networks, Sustainability, and DemocracyAlternative food networks (AFNs) are under deep scrutiny since they emerged as concrete attempts to counter the negative externalities of the dominant global and industrial food system (Deverre & Lamine, 2010; Le Velly, 2016; Maye & Kirwan, 2010; Tregear, 2011). AFNs experiment with new types of food chain configuration reducing the spatial and social distance between producers and consumers involving minimal geographical transport distances, minimal value chain length (number of intermediaries) and minimal informational distance. While the first two sets of innovative practices target ecological and socio-economic impacts, the third dimension directly addresses the issue of food democracy. AFNs could only choose one of these three archetypal sets of innovative activities, they generally combine two or all of them, with different intensities. This means that AFNs hold a core set of sustainability promises with which food democracy is intrinsically associated
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