The relational agency of plants in produce supply chains during COVID-19: “Mother nature takes her course”

Abstract

The Ontario Food Terminal is a central node in the North American food system, the third largest wholesale produce market on the continent. During the first 20 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, qualitative research was conducted with food system actors to understand the impact of the public health crisis on produce supply chains. This paper contributes to the study of nonhumans in agri-food networks and rural spaces, specifically human-plant relations. Employing a posthumanist lens to investigate why produce supply chains continued to flow during the pandemic, it is argued that plants helped to keep supply chains moving at the Terminal in the face of crisis. Plant agency in this case is found to be the product of relationships with humans as well as nonhuman systems. This agency is collective in nature and is rooted in the plants’ relationships with humans as perishable foods and commodities as well as ecosystem relationships. Further, the paper demonstrates how plant agency, that had political effects during the pandemic, is normalizing. This underlines the importance of considering the nature of the relationship in the context of relational agency, and highlights that it cannot be assumed that plants are allies in food system change.