JOSE LUIS VIVERO POL PhD Research Fellow in Food GovernanceCentre for Philosophy of Law/Earth & Life Institute

Valuation of food dimensions & policy beliefs in transitional

food systems Food as a commons

or a commodity?

UNDISCIPLINED ENVIRONMENTSInternational Conference of the European Network of Political

Ecology, 20-24 March 206, Stockholm

What do we want to know?

Is the consideration of food (normative value)

correlated to food policy beliefs and political

attitudes in the transition food landscape?

Tradable Good(Commodity)

Commons

Culture

How is food regarded/valued? Mono VS Multi-dimensional Food

Human Need

Human Right

Natural resource

Food valuations to be explored

• MONO-DIMENSIONAL: economic dimensions prevail over non-economic ones.

• Value-in-exchange over value-in-use • This food concept can be regarded as a commodity.

• MULTI-DIMENSIONAL: the economic dimension, however important it may be, is not dominant over the non-economic ones.

• This food concept can be considered as a commons

Multi-level Perspective on socio-technological transitions Geels (2002)

Exploring narratives in the landscape Food-related professionals as agents of change (N=95)

Global food system: crisis & transition • Rising Obesity / Steady Hunger (2.3 billion): We eat badly• Inefficient (wasting one third, yields stagnated, few crops)• Food system is main driver of climate change & moving

beyond planetary boundaries (soil, water, phosphorus, biodiversity)

• Population as a threat but world produces enough food for all• Diet transition towards more meat (less efficient, less healthy)

Food kills peopleOBESITY: 3.4 million deaths annually (Ng et al. 2014), 1120 million people by 2030 (Kelly et al. 2008), HUNGER: largest contributor to maternal-child mortality worldwide, 3.1 million children (Black et al. 2013).

Commodification (C) of food as major driver

• (C) dominant force since XIX (Polanyi, 1944; Sandel, 2013; Sraffa, 1960)

• (C): development of traits that fit with mechanized processes• Human-induced social construct that denies non-economic

attributes of food in favour of its tradable features (durability, external beauty, standardisation, cheap calories, food miles)

• (C) crowds out non-market values and the idea of food as something worth caring about (Sandel, 2012).

• (C) root cause of crisis (Magdoff, 2010; Zerbe, 2009; Kloppenburg, 2004).

• Food speculation as ultimate alienation of food from its primary value-in-use (feeding people)

• Metabolic rift between consumers and distant producers• Food agency restricted “sovereign act of consuming”.

Describing the sample • 725 questionnaires (104 responses, July 2014-

January 2015)• Food-related professionals active in social

networks (21 countries, 85 different institutions, aware food consumers and committed food activists)

• Public sector (33.7%), Not-for profit third sector (48.4%).

• Weakness: low representation of for-profit Sector (only 17.9%). No agri-food companies

THREE variables of “individual agency in food system transitions”

(a) Position in the food system transition landscape (REGIME – NICHES)

(b) Political stance vis a vis the (existing) food system (REFORMERS – TRANSFORMERS)

(c) Valuation of different food dimensions (MONO- & MULTI-DIMENSIONAL)

Reformers improve gradually imbalances without questioning moral/structural causes. Transformers seek profound-disruptive change in the way we produce, process and consume food and they may adopt two attitudinal stances (Holt-Gimenez & Shattuck, 2011; Akram-Lodhi, 2013).

a) Counter-hegemonic (radical): struggling against dominant food regime, denouncing the flaws and trying to change radically the way it works.

b) Alter-hegemonic (progressive): being aware of major faultlines but recognising the impossibility to change the dominant regime. Therefore, detached attitude to confront AND rather building a different food system that satisfies their aspirational goals.

Mono-dimensional respondents that opted for market-minded or for-profit sentences when forced to choose (economic dimensions of food are dominant over non-economic). Multi-dimensional respondents preferred public-minded or not-for-profit sentences and hence we assume that non-economic dimensions of food are dominant.

Regime/niches not significantly correlated to political stance or valuation food

• Valuation of food is significantly correlated with the political stance vis a vis the food system.

• Gradual reformers are positively correlated to the mono-dimensional valuation of food

• Transformers are significantly correlated to the multi-dimensional valuation of food

• Strongly mono-dimensionals (not mildly) are significantly correlated to gradual reformers

• Multi-dimensionals are positively correlated to counter-hegemonic transformers but not to alter-hegemonic

NO CAUSAL RELATIONSHIP

Differences in preferred food policy beliefs (17) are significant (different levels) in JUST:

Two beliefs among the three groups that value food dimensions differently

SO…no significant differences in food policy beliefs between normative food valuations

REGRESSION

Food valuation + policy beliefs

explain political attitude

Age, gender, food-related experience or personal

involvement in food activities

NO explanatory power to determine political attitude vis a vis the

existing food system and the valuation of food

dimensions

Valuation of food is correlated to political attitudes in food transitions

• The way food activists value food is related to the political attitude with regard to the existing food system and its transition trajectories (gradual reformers or transformers) regardless the position in the transition landscape of the global food system (regime or niches)

Multiples “loci of resistance” with shared food valuations

• The institutional diversity of this research shows there is a multiplicity of “loci of resistance” with counter-hegemonic attitudes to challenge the existing food system, and they have a convergent regard of food as a multi-dimensional resource (life-sustaining element, human right, natural resource, cultural determinant and tradable good), a multi-dimensionality that prevails over the mono-dimensionality of gradual reformers

PROPOSAL: An action-research network on

food commons ???

Possible topics

• Enclosure of food-producing commons• Commodification traits (financialisation, ultra-processed

food, nutrition impoverishment, loss of diversity, homogeneization)

• Moral Economy, Ethics of needs• Open-source Agriculture• Civic collective actions for Food• Proprietary regimes (IPRs, Licenses, self-regulation• Universal Food Coverage-Right to Food• Food Security/Sovereignty as Global Public Good• Multiple valuations of food & Transitions

More topics…

• Different schools to study the food commons: economic, political, historical, legal, grassroots activists

• Food-related elements considered as commons (traditional agric knowledge, public research, gastronomy, wild edible food, genetic resources, food safety, water, land)

• Links between food commons & food sovereignty, transition movement, de-growth, Southern epistemologies (Buen Vivir, Ubuntu)