Exploring the ‘localisation’ dimension of food sovereignty

Abstract

The ‘localisation’ narrative is at the heart of food sovereignty in theory and practice, in reaction to the ‘distance’ dimension in the dominant industrial food system. But while it is a central element in food sovereignty, it is under-theorised and largely unproblematised. Using the theoretical concepts of food regime analysis, uneven geographical development and metabolic rift, the author presents an exploratory discussion on the localisation dimension of food sovereignty, arguing that not all local food systems are a manifestation of food sovereignty nor do they all help build the alternative model that food sovereignty proposes. The paper differentiates local food systems by examining character, method and scale and illustrates how local food systems rarely meet the ideal type of either food sovereignty or the capitalist industrial model. In order to address five forms of distance inherent in the global industrial food system, localisation is a necessary but not sufficient condition for food sovereignty. A more comprehensive food sovereignty needs to be constructed and may still be constrained by the context of capitalism and mediated by the social movements whence it comes.

Keywords:

• food sovereignty
• localisation
• La Via Campesina
• metabolic rift
• uneven geographical development
• food regime

Notes

1. Bernstein, Class Dynamics, 79, 82–83; Holt-Gimenez and Shattuck, “Food Crisis,” 111; and Borras, “Agrarian Change,” 6–9.

2. The concept of distancing has roots in Kneen, From Land to Mouth, 27, who defines it as a separation between human nutrition and food production via industrial processes. Princen, “Distancing,” 116, somewhat similarly defines it as ‘the separation between primary resource extraction decisions and ultimate consumption decisions’.

3. Clapp, “Financialization,” 798.

4. Martinez et al., Local Food Systems, 3; and Feagan, “The Place of Food,” 24 (emphasis in the original).

5. Desmarais, La Via Campesina, 34.

6. Wittman et al., “The Origins and Potential,” 2.

7. “Declaration of Nyéléni.”

8. Holt-Gimenez and Shattuck, “Food Crisis,” 132.

9. Friedmann and McMichael “Agriculture and the State System,” 93–117.

10. McMichael, “A Food Regime Analysis,” 281.

11. McMichael, “A Food Regime Genealogy,” 141–148.

12. Ibid., 146–147.

13. Ibid., 148; and Holt-Gimenez and Shattuck, “Food Crisis,” 109–144.

14. The concept of uneven development was first posited by Neil Smith, Uneven Development, in 1984.

15. Harvey, Spaces of Global Capitalism, 76.

16. Ibid, 78.

17. Ibid, 92.

18. Foster, “Marx’s Theory,” 383.

19. Ibid; Clark and Foster, “The Dialectic,” 127; and Wittman, “Reworking the Metabolic Rift,” 808.

20. This position is not new. It appears in Harvey, Spaces of Global Capitalism, and earlier in Smith, Uneven Development.

21. Moore, “Transcending the Metabolic Rift,” 2.

22. Ibid., 32 (emphasis in the original).

23. “Declaration of Nyéléni”; and Nyéléni 2007 Forum for Food Sovereignty Synthesis Report.

24. Patel, “Grassroots Voices.”

25. Borras et al., “Transnational Agrarian Movements,” 186.

26. Ibid., 182–186.

27. Borras, “The Politics of Agrarian Movements,” 779, 783.

28. In the past decade LVC has been placing more emphasis on a wider variety of food producers, such as fisherfolk and pastoralists, in addition to peasants. Nyéléni 2007 Food Forum for Food Sovereignty Synthesis Report.

29. Ibid., 1.

30. Harvey, Spaces of Global Capitalism, 76.

31. Wittman et al., “The Origins,” 4–5.

32. Desmarais, La Via Campesina, 39; and Patel, “Grassroots Voices,” 670–671.

33. Patel, “Grassroots Voices,” 670–671.

34. Bernstein, Class Dynamics, 25.

35. See Bernstein, “Food Sovereignty,” for a contemporary version of this debate.

36. Berry, “The Whole Horse,” 42.

37. Bernstein, “Food Sovereignty,” 1041.

38. Harvey, Spaces of Global Capitalism, 92.

39. Campbell, “Breaking New Ground,” 316.

40. Ibid., 318.

41. Friedmann, “Distance and Durability.”

42. Guthman, “Raising Organic.”

43. Altieri and Nicholls, “Agroecology,” 34–36.

44. Altieri and Nicholls, “Scaling up Agroecological Approaches,” 476.

45. Rosset et al., “The Campesino-to-Campesino Agroecology Movement,” 163.

46. Bernstein, “Food Sovereignty,” 1051–1053. Jansen, “The Debate on Food Sovereignty,” provides a useful discussion on the productivity debate, particularly the claim that agro-ecology can be productive enough to feed the world.

47. Neumann, “Political Ecology,” 405–406.

48. Iles and Montenegro, “Sovereignty at what Scale?,” 2.

49. Neumann, “Political Ecology,” 404.

50. Bernstein, Class Dynamics, 93.

51. Van der Ploeg, “The Food Crisis,” 100.

52. Ibid.

53. Scaling up or insertion into chains can also be used to mean more integration of peasants into global markets and input and technology circuits, as is evidenced by the World Bank, World Development Report 2008.

54. Friedmann, “Scaling Up,” 389.

55. Iles and Montenegro, “Sovereignty at what Scale?,” 7.

56. Imagine the diagram as a set of boxes.

57. Moore, “Transcending the Metabolic Rift,” 32.

58. Jacobsen, “The Rhetoric of Food,” 67.

59. Ibid; and Campbell, “Breaking New Ground,” 310.

60. Campbell, “Breaking New Ground,” 311.

61. Friedmann, “Distance and Durability,” 379.

62. Ibid., 380.

63. Hinrichs, “Embeddedness,” 297; and Hinrichs, “The Practice,” 36.

64. Guthman, “‘If They only Knew’,” 395.

65. Allen and Wilson, “Agrifood Inequalities,” 537.

66. Holt-Gimenez and Shattuck, “Food Crisis,” 115, 131–132.

67. Harvey, Spaces of Global Capitalism, 97.

68. Clapp, “Financialisation,” 800.

69. Edelman, “Bringing the Moral Economy Back In,” 332.

70. Harvey, Spaces of Global Capitalism, 78; and Iles and Montenegro, “Sovereignty at what Scale?,” 7.

71. Clapp, “Financialization,” 801.

72. “Declaration of Nyéléni.”

73. Allen and Wilson, “Agrifood Inequalities,” 537.

74. Feagan, “Direct Marketing,” 161–162.

75. Hinrichs, “Embeddedness,” 295 (emphasis in the original).

76. Burnett and Murphy, “What Place for International Trade?”

77. Araghi, “The Invisible Hand,” 120.

78. Harvey, Spaces of Global Capitalism, 91.

79. Du Toit, “‘Social Exclusion’,” 1002–1004.

80. Statistics Canada, 2011 Farm; and NFU, “‘Free Trade.’”

81. Edelman, “Transnational Organizing,” 249.

82. Borras et al., “Transnational Agrarian Movements,” 185.

83. LVC website, accessed May 31, 2014. http://viacampesina.org/en/; and Bernstein, Class Dynamics.

84. Von Braun, “Rural–Urban Linkages,” 1–3; and Kay, “Development Strategies,” 122.

85. Kay, “Development Strategies,” 115.

86. Bernstein, Class Dynamics, 122–123.

87. DESA, World Urbanization Prospects, 1.

88. LVC, Sustainable Peasant and Family Farm Agriculture; ETC Group, “‘Who Will Feed Us?’”; and LVC, Small Scale Sustainable Farmers.

89. Rosset et al., “The Campesino-to-Campesino Agroecology Movement,” 185.

90. “Food and Cities.”

91. Foster, “Marx’s Theory”; Moore, “Transcending the Metabolic Rift”; Clark and Foster, “Ecological Imperialism”; and Wittman, “Reworking the Metabolic Rift.”

92. Clark and Foster, “Ecological Imperialism,” 312; and Friedmann and McMichael, “Agriculture and the State System,” 101.

93. Weis, “The Accelerating Biophysical Contradictions,” 317.

94. Van der Ploeg, “The Food Crisis,” 100.

95. Harvey, Spaces of Global Capitalism, 100; and Moore, “Transcending the Metabolic Rift.”

96. Moore, “Transcending the Metabolic Rift,” 14.

97. McMichael, “Peasants make their own History,” 505.

98. Schneider and McMichael, “Deepening,” 477.

99. Altieri and Nicholls, “Scaling up Agroecological Approaches,” 476.