Food Democracy Research Articles

Opportunities and challenges of food policy councils in pursuit of food system sustainability and food democracy–a comparative case study from the Upper-Rhine region

Conventional food systems continue to jeopardize the health and well-being of people and the environment, with a number of related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) still far from being reached. Food Policy Councils (FPCs)—since several decades in North America, and more recently in Europe—have begun to facilitate sustainable food system governance activities among various stakeholders as an explicit alternative to the shaping of food systems by multinational food corporations and their governmental allies. In contrast to the former, FPCs pursue the goals of food system sustainability through broad democratic processes. Yet, at least in Europe, the agenda of FPCs is more an open promise than a firm reality (yet); and thus, it is widely unknown to what extent FPCs actually contribute to food system sustainability and do so with democratic processes. At this early stage, we offer a comparative case study across four FPCs from the Upper-Rhine Region (Freiburg, Basel, Mulhouse, Strasbourg)—all formed and founded within the past 5 years—to explore how successful different types of FPCs are in terms of contributing to food system sustainability and adhering to democratic and good governance principles. Our findings indicate mixed results, with the FPCs mostly preparing the ground for more significant efforts at later stages and struggling with a number of challenges in adhering to principles of democracy and good governance. Our study contributes to the theory of sustainable food systems and food democracy with the focus on the role of FPCs, and offers procedural insights on how to evaluate them regarding sustainable outcomes and democratic processes. The study also offers practical insights relevant to these four and other FPCs in Europe, supporting their efforts to achieve food system sustainability with democratic processes.

Covid-19 as a chance for more food democracy in European cities? The responses of actors within Vienna's urban food system to the pandemic

Actors within European cities had to respond to the Covid-19 crisis to maintain their urban food systems' basic functions. In this article, we ask whether these responses merely remedied the immediate challenges and maintained the status quo or the window of opportunity created by Covid-19 was used to transform urban food systems towards food democracy. We combine the food democracy framework and multi-level perspective to examine how actors of an urban food system – from niche and regime levels – reacted to the Covid-19 crisis and to explore the meaning of those responses for food democracy. Using Vienna as a case study, we conducted a media analysis (198 articles) and 11 interviews with niche actors to identify the impacts of the first Covid-19 wave and connected actors' responses. Results show that regime and niche actors responded differently to Covid-19 and that not all responses proved conducive to a transition to more food democracy. Although some responses can contribute to a more just and sustainable urban food system, many actors focused on short-term crisis management and maintaining the status quo. If Covid-19 is to become an opportunity for a transformation towards food democracy, coordinated actions by regime and niche actors are needed.

Sustainable transition and food democracy: The role of decision making process in Solidarity Purchasing Groups

This study investigates how the decision making process in Solidarity Purchasing Groups (SPGs), intended as hybrid organizations, supports the sustainability transition in food systems. The process of sustainability transition in food systems involves many kinds of tensions, especially in the process of pursuing a multiplicity of economic, social and environmental objectives. This study focuses on the SPGs in Italy and study how they organize their internal decision-making process and their search for the group objectives. This paper argues that the decentralization of the decision rights in SPGs sustains the integration of such different objectives and coordinates efficiently the multifaceted values of their members. The empirical analysis shows that the decision rights are decentralized and that the decentralized decision rights positions in solidarity purchasing groups are associated with the pursuing of different objectives. Our findings indicate that SPGs contributes to the transitions toward sustainability in food systems by using organizational democracy mechanisms to coordinate tensions among social, market and environmental values.

Food democracy and sustainability in France and Chile: Community gardens promote ecological citizenship

This study explored cases of sustainable food production in urban and non-urban areas, including the development of urban gardens, and particularly the social relations involved in these community projects. A qualitative approach was used to compare four case studies in Chile and France: shared gardens in Lyon, family and workers' gardens in Santiago in Chile, an indigenous agricultural project in Lonquimay in the southern Andes, and the work of the NGO Cultivos Urbanos. The data was collected through surveys, participant observation and semi-structured in-depth interviews. The results show that tending gardens in these settings (worker, family, collective, or shared gardens) promotes social values that can lead to more sustainable forms of community living. As opposed to intensive agriculture, small-scale gardening practices, specifically in urban and peri-urban gardens, encourage human/non-human relationships, and the transmission of caring for nature and for others, which promotes ecological citizenship.

Action theatre to explain and debate food democracy injustice

Alternative food structures, despite their core sociocultural justice values, experience difficulties in attracting members from diverse backgrounds. This article attempts to gain insight into the reasons for this paradox by assessing the findings of a specific survey conducted among inhabitants and members of a cooperative supermarket in Brussels, as part of a participatory research project on the sociocultural inclusion capacities of this cooperative structure. The survey method was based on a unique approach involving theatre workshops, which led to: (i) clarification of the representations and affects that the neighbourhood inhabitants associated with the cooperative supermarket, particularly regarding its accessibility and the food sold there; (ii) formalization of inhabitants’ critical narrative; and (iii) debate on the structure’s sociocultural justice principles. The findings above all highlighted the importance of taking experiential and affective dimensions into account in the definition of sociocultural justice principles to ensure that they will be shared by all actors concerned. We thus aimed to jointly address the analytical and methodological challenges of clarifying these dimensions so as to take them into account in food democracy projects.

Enhancing cultural tourism through the development of memorable experiences: the “Food Democracy Museum” as a phygital project

Enhancing cultural tourism through the development of memorable experiences: the “Food Democracy Museum” as a phygital project

Transforming the Food System through Sustainable Gastronomy - How Chefs Engage with Food Democracy

ABSTRACT The global food system contributes significantly to climate change and environmental degradation. New dynamics are needed to sustainably transform the system. Using the theoretical frames of food democracy and a food systems approach, interviews were conducted with ten chefs practicing sustainable gastronomy with the aim of determining their contribution to the system transition and their practices in this process. Results show that the chefs use the principles of food democracy to engage and motivate people, find new forms of collaboration and ways to promote sustainable food practices, and improve food values and sustainable food behaviors.

Enhancing cultural tourism through the development of memorable experiences: the “Food Democracy Museum” as a phygital project

Enhancing cultural tourism through the development of memorable experiences: the “Food Democracy Museum” as a phygital project

A field of alternative food organizations: a study of discourses, actions and goals toward food system change in Geneva, Switzerland

Abstract While there is an abundant literature on alternative food organizations (AFOs), this research mostly consists of studies focusing on single types of food organizations. Hence, we lack a more encompassing understanding of how different types of AFOs are connected and what their collective transformative potential is within the food regime. In this article, we analyze how AFOs build a field, bring about social change collectively, and examine toward what type of change they work. Building on original survey data, network analyses and frames analyses, we propose an innovative quantitative operationalization of strategic action fields. We show that AFOs engaged in an information exchange network are more likely to hold systemic goals such as anticapitalism and food democracy than isolated AFOs. They also use more contentious action repertoires. We argue that a field of AFOs has more transformative potential than isolated organizations because they collectively challenge the status quo.

Legal Instruments to Support Short Food Supply Chains and Local Food Systems in France

The aim of the study is to identify legal instruments, implemented in France, supporting short food supply chains and, more generally, local food systems. The research has identified these tools from a variety of domains and levels, including national laws, government policies, and local government initiatives, and analysed them in relation to various forms of short supply chains present in French territory, which are the key components of local food systems, such as direct marketing, producers’ stores, basket systems, urban agriculture, and deliveries to public catering. Overall, the French instruments are multiple, diverse, mostly innovative, take into account social, environmental, and solidarity values, and can be good examples to follow. Most of them are established at the local level, being thus an expression of new models of local food governance, corresponding to the values of a participative economy and food democracy.

A tale of two labs: Rethinking urban living labs for advancing citizen engagement in food system transformations

Citizen engagement is heralded as essential for food democracy and equality, yet the implementation of inclusive citizen engagement mechanisms in urban food systems governance has lagged behind. This paper aims to further the agenda of citizen engagement in the transformation towards healthy and sustainable urban food systems by offering a conceptual reflection on urban living labs (ULLs) as a methodological platform. Over the past decades, ULLs have become increasingly popular to actively engage citizens in methodological testbeds for innovations within real-world settings. The paper proposes that ULLs as a tool for inclusive citizen engagement can be utilized in two ways: (i) the ULL as the daily life of which citizens are the experts, aimed at uncovering the unreflexive agency of a highly diverse population in co-shaping the food system and (ii) the ULL as a break with daily life aimed at facilitating reflexive agency in (re)shaping food futures. We argue that both ULL approaches have the potential to facilitate inclusive citizen engagement in different ways by strengthening the breadth and the depth of citizen engagement respectively. The paper concludes by proposing a sequential implementation of the two types of ULL, paying attention to spatial configurations and the short-termed nature of ULLs.

The Contribution of Community Kitchens to Food Democracy: A Systematic Review

The Contribution of Community Kitchens to Food Democracy: A Systematic Review

Food Activism and Language in a Slow Food Italy Restaurant Menu

This essay explores how food activists in Italy purposely shape food and language to construct meaning and value. It is grounded in years of ethnographic fieldwork on food and culture in Italy and looks specifically at the Slow Food Movement. The essay explores language and food activism through a detailed unpacking of the text of a menu prepared for a restaurant dinner for delegates to the Slow Food National Chapter Assembly in 2009. The menu uses descriptive poetic language to construct an idealized folk cuisine steeped in local products, poverty, history, and peasant culinary traditions. As I explore the language of the menu and the messages communicated by the food, I ask if they intensify people’s activism, advance Slow Food’s goals of “good, clean and fair food,” and promote food democracy.

Advancing food democracy: The potential and limits of food policy positions in local government

For several decades, food policy councils (FPCs) have led the effort to place food on local govern­ment policy agendas. While FPCs are making pro­gress in supporting local food systems, they also face institutional and organizational challenges. In recent years, a handful of cities and counties have endeavored to further food system reform with the establishment of full-time government staff posi­tions focused on food policy. As of spring 2020, there were 19 confirmed food policy positions housed in local governments across the United States. While there is considerable literature on FPCs, little research has been published regarding food policy staffing in local governments. Accordingly, this study uses original in-depth inter­views with 11 individuals in municipal or county food policy positions to understand the purpose and function of governmental food policy staff positions and their impact on local food systems. Our findings suggest that these positions help to coordinate and nurture local food programs and policies and have the potential to facilitate mean­ingful participation of individuals and groups in the community in food system reform. We discuss the potential benefits and challenges for governmental food policy positions to support food democracy, and provide the following recom­mendations for communities interested in estab­lishing or strengthening similar positions: (1) iden­tify and coordinate existing opportunities and assets, (2) foster and maintain leadership support, (3) root the work in community, (4) connect with other food policy professionals, and (5) develop a food system vision.

Resisting the vineyard invasion: Anti-pesticide movements as a vehicle for territorial food democracy and just sustainability transitions

Academic literature has so far explored food democracy and citizen participation in agri-food system governance mainly in relation to the ‘food’ end of agri-food systems, and primarily in urban contexts. We argue that this focus can be usefully extended to agricultural production and to wider territorial processes occurring in rural areas. In this study, we examine the development of a grassroots movement demanding stricter municipal regulation of agricultural pesticide use and support for a more sustainable and localised agri-food system. The study site, located in the north-eastern Italian Alps, has in recent years been characterized by the spread of intensive agriculture, particularly due to the expansion of vineyards. Our conceptual framework brings together the literature on food democracy and just sustainability transitions, seen from a territorial perspective. We use this framework to examine the role played by civil society organisations and alternative food networks in municipal and territorial agri-food system governance. The results show how the grassroots anti-pesticide mobilisation played a key role in reforming municipal pesticide regulations and in slowing down the spread of intensive agriculture in the province. We also draw attention to the framings used by activists to gain the support of public opinion and local administrators. Finally, we discuss the role played by different forms of food democracy processes in facilitating the emergence of a territorial vision of just sustainability transitions.

Food democracy: possibilities under the frame of the current food system

Food democracy is a concept with growing influence in food research. Food democracy deals with how actors may regain democratic control over the food system enabling its sustainable transformation. Following multi-level perspective framework's connotations, food democracy research has so far mainly focused on the niche level of the food system. An integrative approach that includes the perspectives of both the regime and the niche is still missing. This study addresses this research gap and proposes a new conceptual framework for food democracy that includes actors from the niche and the regime level. Furthermore, we apply our conceptual framework to the urban food system of Vienna (Austria) to explore the deeper meaning and practice of food democracy. Finally, we have conducted semi-structured interviews with actors at niche level (10) and regime level (25) within Vienna’s urban food system. Findings from this research broaden the perspective on food democracy and illustrate actors’ contributions at niche and regime level such as promoting organic food, re-localizing food provision, and procuring environmentally sustainable public food. Barriers to food democracy were also identified, e.g.: actors’ self-enhancement values, market-orientation, and capitalist alignment or lack of transparency. We conclude that actors at the niche and, to some extent, at the regime level may contribute to a process of on-going changes that fosters a transformation of established structures within the food system.

Fostering communities of practice for improved food democracy: Experiences and learning from South Africa

AbstractThe highly concentrated formal agri‐food sector holds enormous power in the governance of the food system in South Africa. Yet the concept of food democracy holds that all people should have an equal opportunity to participate in (re)shaping their food system. To contribute to decision making, however, stakeholders not only need access to knowledge about the food system, but should also be able to inform what is considered relevant knowledge. Communities of practice—groups of people who share a common interest or concern and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis—provide novel spaces for stakeholder involvement in food governance. This article sets out the process of establishing and maintaining a community of (food) practice in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Through participant observation, analysis of unpublished documents, as well as in depth interviews, the core elements of the community of practice are charted over its 3 yr history. The article demonstrates the informal and evolving nature of communities of practice as social learning structures that can gain credibility and potentially develop into more formal democratic institutions over.

Social justice-oriented narratives in European urban food strategies: Bringing forward redistribution, recognition and representation

More and more cities develop urban food strategies (UFSs) to guide their efforts and practices towards more sustainable food systems. An emerging theme shaping these food policy endeavours, especially prominent in North and South America, concerns the enhancement of social justice within food systems. To operationalise this theme in a European urban food governance context we adopt Nancy Fraser’s three-dimensional theory of justice: economic redistribution, cultural recognition and political representation. In this paper, we discuss the findings of an exploratory document analysis of the social justice-oriented ambitions, motivations, current practices and policy trajectories articulated in sixteen European UFSs. We reflect on the food-related resource allocations, value patterns and decision rules these cities propose to alter and the target groups they propose to support, empower or include. Overall, we find that UFSs make little explicit reference to social justice and justice-oriented food concepts, such as food security, food justice, food democracy and food sovereignty. Nevertheless, the identified resources, services and target groups indicate that the three dimensions of Fraser are at the heart of many of the measures described. We argue that implicit, fragmentary and unspecified adoption of social justice in European UFSs is problematic, as it may hold back public consciousness, debate and collective action regarding food system inequalities and may be easily disregarded in policy budgeting, implementation and evaluation trajectories. As a path forward, we present our plans for the RE-ADJUSTool that would enable UFS stakeholders to reflect on how their UFS can incorporate social justice and who to involve in this pursuit.

Augmenting agroecological urbanism: the intersection of food sovereignty and food democracy

ABSTRACT Food sovereignty has emerged as a leading sense-making framework for the nascent conceptualization of an agroecological urbanism – a radically new paradigm for urbanization, grounded in political agroecology. At present, discourses like food democracy are often isolated from food sovereignty and agroecology in the urban context, potentially resulting in missed opportunities for creating holistic, inclusive, and scalable transformation in the urban food system. This study used data from existing municipal food policy in Seattle, U.S.A. and interviews with Seattle community gardeners to probe resident practices and policy recommendations in relation to the conceptual frameworks of food sovereignty and food democracy. The findings identify two key dimensions of food democracy as notably absent from the food sovereignty framework within this contextualized landscape, including mechanisms that enable vertical deliberation between food system stakeholders and opportunities for strengthened self and community efficacy – thus, exposing a potential gap in the ongoing development of an actionable agroecological urbanism. Working in tandem within the frame of agroecological urbanism, the food sovereignty and food democracy frameworks may support transition from unsustainable growth patterns and enable agroecological massification in an urban Global North context.

Review: Food Democracy: Critical Lessons in Food, Communication, Design and Art, Edited by Oliver Vodeb

Book Review| August 01 2020 Review: Food Democracy: Critical Lessons in Food, Communication, Design and Art, Edited by Oliver Vodeb Food Democracy: Critical Lessons in Food, Communication, Design and Art Edited by Oliver Vodeb Bristol: Intellect Ltd (distributed by University of Chicago Press), 2017 500 pp. Illustrations. $40.00 (paper) Pamela Tudge Pamela Tudge Concordia University Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Gastronomica (2020) 20 (3): 119–120. https://doi.org/10.1525/gfc.2020.20.3.119 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Pamela Tudge; Review: Food Democracy: Critical Lessons in Food, Communication, Design and Art, Edited by Oliver Vodeb. Gastronomica 1 August 2020; 20 (3): 119–120. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/gfc.2020.20.3.119 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentGastronomica Search This content is only available via PDF. © 2020 by the Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press's Reprints and Permissions web page, https://www.ucpress.edu/journals/reprints-permissions.2020The Regents of the University of California Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.