The “local food” movement has been growing since at least the mid- twentieth century with the founding of the Rodale Institute. Since then, local food has increasingly become a goal of food systems. Today, books and articles on local food have become commonplace, with popular authors such as Barbara Kingsolver1 and Michael Pollan2 espousing the virtues of eating locally. Additionally, local food initiatives, such as the “farm- tofork,” “Buying Local,” and “Slow Food” have gained a (...) strong international following with clearly visible impacts on the food industry and policy. The numbers of local farmers’ markets, community- supported agriculture projects, and community gardens have been on the rise steadily since 1994. (shrink)

Much is being made of local food. It is at once a social movement, a diet, and an economic strategy—a popular solution—to a global food system in great distress. Yet, despite its popularity or perhaps because of it, local food (especially in the US) is also something of a chimera if not a tool of the status quo. This paper reflects on and contrasts aspects of current local food rhetoric with Dalhberg’s notion of a regenerative food system. (...) It identifies three problematic emphases—the locavore emphasis, the Wal-Mart emphasis, and the Pollan emphasis—and argues that they are shifting local food (as a concept and a social movement) away from the deeper concerns of equity, citizenship, place-building, and sustainability. It is suggested that local food activists and advocates might consider the use of multiple methodologies and forms of expression to explore the integration and reintegration of local food into diverse and redundant place-based practice. A short case study of a low-income, urban neighborhood in Lansing, Michigan, illustrates the value of contextual analysis for more fully enabling the local food movement and a regenerative food system. (shrink)

Abstract“Scaling-up” is the next hurdle facing the local food movement. In order to effect broader systemic impacts, local food systems (LFS) will have to grow, and engage either more or larger consumers and producers. Encouraging the involvement of mid-sized farms looks to be an elegant solution, by broadening the accessibility of local food while providing alternative revenue streams for troubled family farms. Logistical, structural and regulatory barriers to increased scale in LFS are well known. Less is understood (...) about the way in which scale developments affect the perception and legitimacy of LFS. This value-added opportunity begs the question: Is the value that adheres to local food scalable? Many familiar with local food discourse might suggest that important pieces of added value within LFS are generated by the reconnection of producer and consumer, the direct exchange through which this occurs, and the shared goals and values that provide the basis for reconnection. However, these assertions are based on tenuous assumptions about how interactions within the direct exchange produce value, and how LFS are governed. Examination shows that existing assumptions do not properly acknowledge the hybridity, diversity, and flexibility inherent in LFS. A clear analysis of the potential of scale in LFS will depend on understanding both how value is determined within LFS, and the processes through which these systems are governed. Such an analysis shows that, while scaled-up LFS will be challenged to maintain legitimacy and an identity as “alternative”, the establishment of an open governance process—based on a “negotiation of accommodations”—is likely to enhance their viability. (shrink)

Many advocate practices of ‘local food’ or ‘locavorism’ as a partial solution to the injustices and unsustainability of contemporary food systems. I think that there is much to be said in favor of local food movements, but these virtues are insufficient to immunize locavorism from criticism. In particular, three duties of international ethics—beneficence, repair and fairness—may provide reasons for constraining the developed world’s permissible pursuit of local food. A complete account of why (and how) the fulfillment of (...) these duties constrains locavorism will require extensive empirical evidence about the relationship between agricultural demand-led industrialization, international trade (rules), and local food practices. In this paper I can only gesture at some of this evidence and, for that reason, my policy prescriptions are merely provisional. Instead, the upshot of this paper is that advocates of locavorism ought to be attentive to the empirical-dependence of the moral permissibility of their projects. As local food ‘scales up’—and comes to be embraced as a goal of political communities—these concerns should receive even greater attention. (shrink)

Local food projects are steadily becoming a part of contemporary food systems and take on many forms. They are typically analyzed using an ethical, or sociopolitical, lens. Food focused initiatives can be understood as strategies to achieve ethical change in food systems and, as such, ethics play a guiding role. But local food is also a social movement and, thus social and political theories provide unique insights during analysis. This paper begins with the position that ontology should play (...) a more prominent part in the analysis of local food movements, as this lens could provide unique insights into basic commitments guiding such initiatives. The paper presents the argument that ontological analyses are imperative for fully understanding local food movements. It then provides an overview of the justice frameworks and ontological orientations that guide two dominant types of initiatives: Those committed to increasing food security and those committed to food sovereignty. The paper ends with the argument that food sovereignty projects are revolutionary, not only because they challenge us to change industrial food practices, but also because they are built on a radical new political ontology, and co-constitutive food-focused orientation, that forms the foundation for alternative social and political structures. (shrink)

Since 1984, the AHV journal has provided a key forum for a community of interdisciplinary, international researchers, educators, and policy makers to analyze and debate core issues, values and hopes facing the nation and the world, and to recommend strategies and actions for addressing them. This agenda includes the more specific challenges and opportunities confronting agriculture, food systems, science, and communities, as well as broader contextual issues and grand challenges. This paper draws extensively on 40 years of AHV journal articles (...) and reviews and begins with a focus on a limited number of key grand challenges (climate change and global warming; threats to democracy and the growing neo-nationalism, populism, and authoritarianism; and increasing national and international inequality). With these challenges as the underlining context, the remainder of the paper addresses core journal themes of sustainable agriculture and local food systems, citizen and public science, and empowered communities. Highlighted are numerous important journal contributions to the analyses and recommendations to address these hopes and themes. I conclude that these themes and hopes not only deserve to live but are essential for changing and redirecting an unsustainable and destructive environmental, economic, political and social agenda to a viable, livable and just democratic society. (shrink)

Spatial localization, often demarcated by food miles, has emerged as the dominant theme in movements for more socially just and environmentally benign alternative food systems, especially in industrialized countries such as the United States. We analyze how an emphasis on spatial localization, combined with the difficulty of defining and measuring adequate indicators for alternative food systems, can challenge efforts by food system researchers, environmental writers, the engaged public, and advocacy groups wanting to contribute to alternative food systems, and facilitates exploitation (...) by the mainstream players using “localwash” to maintain the status quo. New indicators are urgently needed because research shows that spatial localization in general and minimized food miles in particular are not adequate or even required for most of the goals of alternative food systems. Creating indicators to operationalize goals for alternative, local food systems requires asking the right questions to make sure indicators are not misleading us: What are the goals of alternative food systems? What actions and policies will most effectively achieve those goals? What is the potential of reducing food miles as an action and a policy for achieving goals? What are the best indicators for measuring progress toward goals? We discuss how these questions can be answered for a wide range of alternative food system goals via four categories according to the role of food miles reduction as an action and policy in promoting them: necessary and sufficient, necessary but not sufficient, potentially important, and potentially supportive. (shrink)

Local food systems are growing, and little is known about how the constellation of farms and markets change over time. We trace the evolution of two local food systems over six years, including a dataset of over 2690 market connections between 1520 locations. Longitudinal social network analysis reveals how the architecture, actor network centrality, magnitude, and spatiality of these supply chains shifted during the 2012–2018 time period. Our findings demonstrate that, despite growth in the number of farmers’ markets, (...) grocery stores, farms and restaurants in both counties, each local food system also experienced high turnover rates. Over 80% of the market connections changed during the study period. Farms, farmers’ markets, and grocery stores showed a 40–50% ‘survival’ rate, indicating their role in sustaining local food systems over longer time periods. Other actors, such as restaurants, had a much higher turnover rate within the network. Both food systems became more close-knit and consolidated as the center of gravity for both local food systems pulled away from urban areas toward rural farmland. Evidence of both growth and decay within local food systems provides a new understanding of the social networks behind local food markets. (shrink)

Local food is often defended on environmental grounds. However, environmental defenses of local food are flawed, and all environmental defenses are limited as they at most establish that local food is instrumentally valuable. These deficiencies motivate a different approach. By drawing on the aesthetics of engagement, a theory of environmental aesthetics, I argue that local food has an overlooked intrinsic value; it can allow people to become engaged with—and thereby aesthetically appreciate—the environment. My argument charts a (...) comparatively neglected area of aesthetics: the aesthetics of taste and smell and, more specifically, the role that these senses play in the aesthetic appreciation of the environment. (shrink)

Food is becoming an increasingly important issue in the urban context. Urban food policies are a new phenomenon in Czechia, where urban food alternatives to the current food regime are promoted by food movements or take the form of traditional self-provisioning. This paper examines how urban food governance in Prague and Brno is constituted based on the municipalities’ relations with actors engaged in urban food alternatives. We argue that prioritizing aspects of local food system transformation compliant with the status (...) quo is non-systemic and implies a fragmentation of urban food alternatives based on different levels of social capital and radicality. We conceptualize urban food alternatives as values-based modes of production and consumption and focus on values that guide urban food governance in its participatory and territorial interplay with the actors of urban food alternatives. Our analysis reveals that the values underpinning the two cities’ progressive food policies do not match reality on the ground. We propose four types of relations between the two examined cities and aspects of the local food system transformation. Aspects compliant with the status quo, such as food waste reduction and community gardening are embraced, whereas those requiring more public intervention, such as public procurement, short supply chains, or the protection of cultivable land are disregarded, degraded, or, at most, subject to experimentation as part of biodiversity protection. Chances for a successful transformation of the local food system under such governance are low but can be increased by strengthening social capital and coalition work among urban food alternatives. (shrink)

Reconnection between producers and consumers is often presented as an integral part of the local food narrative. However, questions can arise as to whether local food producers and their food purchasers align in mindset and the value proposition that underpins their involvement. This paper draws on interview data collected from producers and consumers participating in direct-sell meat operations to explore so-called value propositions between these two actors in local food initiatives in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. We suggest that (...) because producers and consumers value their participation and associated ‘reconnection’ for different reasons and experience practical limitations in satisfying diverse expectations, the ‘reconnection’ metaphor is complex and contingent—especially at the level of the individual. The findings suggest that new roles, realities and beliefs for each party in regard to marketing, customer relations, distribution, and convenience might predispose participants to be in favor of other arrangements if they became more readily available and were capable of guaranteeing both profitability for the producer and healthy foods for the consumer. (shrink)

Local food is a popular subject among consumers, as well as food producers, distributors, policymakers and researchers in many countries. Previous research has identified that the definition of local food varies by context, and from country to country. The literature also suggested that environmental sustainability is one of the goals for many of the local food movements. While there is a substantial body of literature on local food internationally, limited research has been undertaken in New Zealand. (...) This paper aims to understand how consumers define local food, what attributes they associate with local food, and the extent to which life cycle-based environmental aspects are represented in these attributes. Primary research employed quantitative methodology. This study identified that a majority of the respondents considered that local food may be defined as food that was produced in New Zealand and that support for community was the most important attribute associated with local food. Reduced GHG emission, conserving the landscape, and organic production were the life cycle-based environmental attributes that were associated with local food. This study provides a basis for further research into understandings of local food in New Zealand and how to improve communication among different social actors with respect to demand and supply of local food. (shrink)

The local food movement has been touted by some as a profoundly effective way to make our food system become more healthy, just, and sustainable. Others have criticized the movement as being less a challenge to the status quo and more an easily co-opted support offering just another set of choices for affluent consumers. In this paper, we analyze three distinct sub-movements within the local food movement, the individual-focused sub-movement, the systems-focused sub-movement, and the community-focused sub-movement. These movements (...) can be combined within any particular campaign or within the goals of any particular organization or individual activist, but they are nevertheless quite different from each other, and come out of different conceptualizations of what food, people, and locality are. We argue that most of the critiques leveled against local food are actually directed against the individual-focused sub-movement, which is most compatible with the current industrial food system, and perhaps not surprisingly receives the most mainstream attention. Further, we argue that while each movement has its own strengths and weaknesses, it is the community-focused sub-movement that has the most potential to radically transform the global food system. (shrink)

Several different evaluation issuesare perceived as important by people involved withinnovative projects intended to improve local food andnutrition systems; particularly the establishment oflocal food policy coalitions. Several such coalitionshave been formed in North America, Europe, andAustralia with the goal of improving community foodsecurity and promoting sustainable local food systems.Pioneer coalitions have served as models, yet therehas been little systematic evaluation of thesemodels. A qualitative study was conducted to identifyfactors that may hinder evaluation efforts. In grouptelephone interviews, we sought (...) the views ofacademics, project organizers, and funders, a total of24 key informants. Pressures to evaluate were assessed differently bythe three groups of key informants. Academics felt thefocus of evaluation should be on the effectiveness ofthe process used to discuss issues and formulatepolicies and plans. Project organizers and fundersperceived a need to assess project impact andoutcomes. A lack of suitable evaluation models andmethods was viewed as a formidable barrier. The use ofinappropriate methods and premature impact evaluationwere noted as potential threats to projectsustainability. External constraints and resourcelimitations were also said to inhibit evaluationefforts. It appears that several other factors may also beimpeding progress in conducting more (and more useful)evaluations including: (1) the apparent negativeconnotation of evaluation and the limited benefitsexpected from evaluation by stakeholders, (2) a lackof consensus about important evaluation questions,(3) insufficient evaluation expertise among projectorganizers, and (4) inadequate appreciation ofincreasing accountability pressures. (shrink)

Participation in the local food movement has grown dramatically in the United States, with the farmers’ market being one of its most widespread and heavily promoted forums. Proponents argue that the interactions and transactions that occur at farmers’ markets benefit market participants, but, more importantly, have broader benefits for the neighborhoods they are located in and for society itself. The promise of these benefits raises several important questions, notably: where are farmers’ markets located and who has access to them? (...) While many works have examined the characteristics of individuals who frequent markets, few have examined the areas and inhabitants hosting these markets. Using data from the USDA and US Census, I explore the location of farmers’ markets areas across several geographic measurements, including at the national, census division, and census tract levels. Results reveal the following: Perhaps not being as white of a movement as critics have suggested, farmers’ markets are almost exclusively a middle to middle-upper class phenomenon; and Farmers’ markets are very unlikely to be found in neighborhoods with lower than average socio-economic statuses indicators, in specific divisions of the US, and in rural areas. Results from this research further illuminate our understanding of where farmers’ markets are located throughout United States while presenting some interesting questions for the local food movement as it continues to moves forward. (shrink)

Regional food is grounded in local practices and heritage. With industrialization and post-green revolution threat to food produced within specific region and the associated knowledge has become imminent. Scholars have analyzed the revival of regional foods in different parts of the world. However, there have been limited studies focusing on the revival of regional food from the perspective of food as commons. The paper fills this gap by analyzing the efforts of Morarka-GDC Foundation along with farmers collective in (...) Nawalgarh, India. Employing the framework of commons, we examine how the foundation along with the collective is reviving Shekhawati region’s foods. We used primary and secondary sources to capture the social activities undertaken to sustain the commons. It was found that adopting organic agricultural practices helped in reviving the regional foods by creating and using stock of local resources. Further, social dilemma associated with culinary commons was avoided by creating networks between producers and consumers through _Shekhawati_ festival and Morarka Organics. These practices have resulted in rebuilding the local food system, local tourism, and intergenerational transmission strengthening the local gastronomic identity. However, linking regional food with gastronomic tourism can threaten the local gastronomic culture and survival of authentic regional food. We also find that for a sustained management of the regional foods, scaling-up plays an essential role which has further limitations. (shrink)

This article explores the labour behind local food in the Canadian Atlantic province of Nova Scotia. Based on surveys and interviews with farmers, migrant farmworkers, and farmers’ market consumers in the province, we suggest that the celebration of local food by government and industry is a form of “local washing.” Local washing hides key aspects of the social relations of production: in this case, it hides insufficient financial and policy supports for Nova Scotian farms and the (...) increased reliance on migrant farmworkers via the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program and the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. Our research found that a growing reliance on migrant farmworkers was not just the case for larger, industrial farms, but also for smaller farms participating in local and alternative food initiatives, like farmers’ markets and fresh produce subscription boxes. Additionally, our surveys show that while farmers’ market shoppers expressed an interest in supporting local foods, they reported knowing little about farm workers or working conditions. Our paper contributes to the literature on local and alternative food initiatives by connecting the relations of production to consumption. Rather than focusing solely on the nature of the relationships between farmers and consumers and the values embodied in direct agricultural markets, this research explores the central role of permanently temporary migrant workers in local agriculture. (shrink)

Local food has become the rising star of the sustainable agriculture movement, in part because of the energy efficiencies thought to be gained when food travels shorter distances. In this essay I critique four key assumptions that underlie this connection between local foods and energy. I then describe two competing conclusions implied by the critique. On the one hand, local food systems may need a more extensive and integrated transportation infrastructure to achieve sustainability. On the other (...) hand, the production, transportation, and consumption of local foods are fundamentally as reliant on fossil fuels as are long distance foods. A more holistic approach to energy use in the food system is needed to determine which particular sociotechnical factors optimize energetic sustainability. (shrink)

The local food movement is, increasingly, becoming a part of the modern American landscape. However, while it appears that the local food movement is gaining momentum, one could question whether or not this trend is, in fact, politically and socially sustainable. Is local food just another trend that will fade away or is it here to stay? One way to begin addressing this question is to ascertain whether or not it is compatible with liberalism, a set of (...) influential political theories that have shaped and continue to shape our political system. In this paper, I argue that the local food movement is partially compatible with forms of liberalism that accept the limited application of the principle of neutrality, as there are two directions or trends within local food: (1) The systems based direction and (2) the individual focused direction. The systems based direction is not compatible while the individual focused movement is largely compatible with liberalism. I go on to argue that the two directions form a dialectic that increases the political and social sustainability of the movement as a whole. Conceiving of the individual focused and the systems focused directions as in opposition to one another is, itself, a mistake. (shrink)

Chefs have been recognized as potentially important partners in efforts to promote local food systems. Drawing on the diffusion of innovation framework we (a) examine the characteristics of chefs and restaurants that have adopted local foods; (b) identified local food attributes valued by restaurants; (c) examine how restaurants function as opinion leaders promoting local foods; (d) explored network linkages between culinary and production organizations; and (e) finally, we consider some of the barriers to more (...) widespread adoption of local foods in the culinary community. Analyzing quantitative and qualitative data collected from interviews with individuals from 71 restaurants, we compare and contrast restaurants that utilize relatively large amounts of locally-produced ingredients with restaurants using few, if any, local products. Results reveal that chefs are most interested in intrinsic food qualities, such as taste and freshness, and less interested in production standards. As opinion leaders, chefs utilize signage, wait staff, and cooking classes to promote local foods; however, the diffusion process across restaurants, and between restaurants and producers, is limited by network associations. Structural barriers such as distribution problems and lack of convenience were identified as limiting more widespread use of locally-grown foods. We offer several implications of this research for further work that seeks to engage chefs as opinion leaders who are important to building greater support for local food systems. (shrink)

Amid the highly industrialized, export-focused food system of the Canadian prairies, some farmers and consumers are turning to localized agriculture as an alternative—they are “going local”. Despite farmers’ obvious importance to the food system, surprisingly little research has examined their motivations and reasons for localization. To date, most local food scholarship in North America has focused on either consumers’ motivations to buy local or the systemic aspects of local food, such as regulations, infrastructure, and marketing arrangements. (...) Existing research suggests that local food systems are supported by consumers’ rejection of the industrial paradigm and desire to connect with their food and its source. But what drives farmers to localize, particularly when export-focused production is firmly entrenched as the status quo? Based on interviews and focus groups with 60 farmers, processors, policy experts, and retailers in the Canadian prairie province of Saskatchewan, this paper examines local food systems from the producer perspective in a rural context of high industrialization and geographical dispersion. We examine what motivates farmers to produce for local markets, and what forces they must resist to do so. The findings indicate that farmers’ main motivations for localization are political and social in nature, and stem from a critique of the dominant neoliberal agri-food system. We map farmers’ agential responses to this dominant system on a spectrum that ranges from acceptance of a neoliberal “feed the world” ideology to promotion of food sovereignty. Drawing on farmers’ perspectives, our findings question the straightforward equation of local food with environmental sustainability and also challenge neoliberal economic assumptions of “scaling up”. (shrink)

In an increasingly globalized food economy, local agri-food initiatives are promoted as more sustainable alternatives, both for small-scale producers and ecologically conscious consumers. However, revitalizing local agri-food communities in rural agro-industrial regions is particularly challenging. This case study examines Grant and Chelan Counties, two industrial farming regions in rural Central Washington State, distant from the urban fringe. Farmers in these counties have tried diversifying large-scale processing into organics and marketing niche and organic produce at popular farmers markets in (...) Seattle about 200 miles away. Such strategies invoke the question, “How are ‘local’ agri-food networks socially and geographically defined?” The meaning of what constitutes “local” and/or “sustainable” systems merits consideration in the linking of these rural counties with distant urban farmers markets. Employing historical, in-depth interview and survey research, we analyze production and consumption networks and the non-market systems that residents in these counties access for self-provisioning and food security. (shrink)

Analysis of conservative political participation in local food initiatives tends to be critical and dismissive, positing this participation as self-serving, individualistic, exclusionary, nativist, or reactionary. While there are nefarious aspects to certain forms of conservative local food politics, my research at three farmers’ markets in the Upper Midwest reveals that self-identified conservatives can and do hold more nuanced positions. Those with whom I met recognize the need for both local and broader change, are concerned about marginalized and (...) struggling people, are troubled by the impacts of conventional agriculture on the health of farmers, consumers, and other species, and are humble and willing to listen to other perspectives. Most analyses of food systems miss these nuanced perspectives because they approach American political ideology through a rigid left–right binary. Using more fluid approaches to understanding political ideology can create room for recognizing the complexity and diversity of views pigeon-holed under the label of “conservatism.” Along with these different approaches, a politics of empathy and mutual respect across ideological difference can help reveal common values, concerns, and aspirations for changing the food system. Recognizing these commonalities can help build a broader base of support for food system transformation. (shrink)

As local food activities expand and grow, an important question to answer is how various participants contribute to a local food system’s overall vitality and strength. This paper does so by focusing on the relationships between locally-oriented farm and retail actors and assessing what the configuration of these relationships tells us about the workings of the broader local food system. Such an analysis reveals two things. Empirically, it shows the important role food retailers play in the overall (...) vibrancy of local food exchanges: food retailers form crucial links holding the broader system together and significantly expanding consumer access to local foods. Further, different retailer types have distinct impacts on network configurations, each serving particular roles in the development and maintenance of local food systems. Methodologically, this paper shows the value of applying social network analysis techniques to the study of local food systems: such an approach yields insights that may not be as readily assessable from other strategies. In this paper, I overview common network analysis techniques and apply them to a case study of local food activities in New England, suggesting how such an approach might be applied to local food systems in other places. (shrink)

Local sustainable food systems have captured the popular imagination as a progressive, if not radical, pillar of a sustainable food future. Yet these grassroots innovations are embedded in a dominant food regime that reflects productivist, industrial, and neoliberal policies and institutions. Understanding the relationship between these emerging grassroots efforts and the dominant food regime is of central importance in any transition to a more sustainable food system. In this study, we examine the encounters of direct farm marketers with food (...) safety regulations and other government policies and the role of this interface in shaping the potential of local food in a wider transition to sustainable agri-food systems. This mixed methods research involved interview and survey data with farmers and ranchers in both the USA and Canada and an in-depth case study in the province of Manitoba. We identified four distinct types of interactions between government and farmers: containing, coopting, contesting, and collaborating. The inconsistent enforcement of food safety regulations is found to contain progressive efforts to change food systems. While government support programs for local food were helpful in some regards, they were often considered to be inadequate or inappropriate and thus served to coopt discourse and practice by primarily supporting initiatives that conform to more mainstream approaches. Farmers and other grassroots actors contested these food safety regulations and inadequate government support programs through both individual and collective action. Finally, farmers found ways to collaborate with governments to work towards mutually defined solutions. While containing and coopting reflect technologies of governmentality that reinforce the status quo, both collaborating and contesting reflect opportunities to affect or even transform the dominant regime by engaging in alternative economic activities as part of the ‘politics of possibility’. Developing a better understanding of the nature of these interactions will help grassroots movements to create effective strategies for achieving more sustainable and just food systems. (shrink)

In the US, an increasingly popular local food movement is propelled along by structural arguments that highlight the inequity and unsustainablity of the current agri-food system and by individually based arguments that highlight personal health and well-being. Despite clear differences in their foci, the deeper values contained in each argument tend to be neglected or lost, while local innovations assume instrumental and largely market-based forms. By narrowing their focus to the rational and the economic, movement activists tend to (...) overlook (or marginalize) the role of the sensual, the emotional, the expressive for maintaining layered sets of embodied relationships to food and to place. This paper seeks to show that cultural and nonrational elements are fundamental to local food discussions. It proceeds from the assumption that, without them as full partners, the movement cannot be sustained in any felt, practiced, or committed way. To this end, it discusses the concept of place and bodies in place, as well as the connections between the ecological and the cultural, the sensual and the scientific. It offers a new set of questions and conceptual tools with which advocates and activists may “ground,” and thereby revalue and restore, the promise and practice of local food. (shrink)

Local sustainable food systems have captured the popular imagination as a progressive, if not radical, pillar of a sustainable food future. Yet these grassroots innovations are embedded in a dominant food regime that reflects productivist, industrial, and neoliberal policies and institutions. Understanding the relationship between these emerging grassroots efforts and the dominant food regime is of central importance in any transition to a more sustainable food system. In this study, we examine the encounters of direct farm marketers with food (...) safety regulations and other government policies and the role of this interface in shaping the potential of local food in a wider transition to sustainable agri-food systems. This mixed methods research involved interview and survey data with farmers and ranchers in both the USA and Canada and an in-depth case study in the province of Manitoba. We identified four distinct types of interactions between government and farmers: containing, coopting, contesting, and collaborating. The inconsistent enforcement of food safety regulations is found to contain progressive efforts to change food systems. While government support programs for local food were helpful in some regards, they were often considered to be inadequate or inappropriate and thus served to coopt discourse and practice by primarily supporting initiatives that conform to more mainstream approaches. Farmers and other grassroots actors contested these food safety regulations and inadequate government support programs through both individual and collective action. Finally, farmers found ways to collaborate with governments to work towards mutually defined solutions. While containing and coopting reflect technologies of governmentality that reinforce the status quo, both collaborating and contesting reflect opportunities to affect or even transform the dominant regime by engaging in alternative economic activities as part of the ‘politics of possibility’. Developing a better understanding of the nature of these interactions will help grassroots movements to create effective strategies for achieving more sustainable and just food systems. (shrink)

Local food systems seem virtuous in the larger context of the neoliberalization of global food systems and increasing food insecurity. However, local food systems are critiqued for reproducing neoliberalism when they prioritize niche-market consumerism over enhancing access for poor people. Advocates, in contrast, insist local food systems contribute to an equitable political economy of food if they are place-based and inclusive. Local food systems must not, according to them, be condemned monolithically in light of their neoliberal (...) tendencies, but evaluated instead on a case-by-case basis regarding their potentially innovative solutions to food insecurity. We heed this call by investigating how a regionally-renowned local food system addresses food insecurity in an impoverished corner of rural Appalachia. Specifically, we use qualitative methods, including semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and document analysis, to evaluate the local food system in Athens County, Ohio. Our findings indicate that extra-local processes under neoliberalism, including austerity and economic marginalization, create a large-scale context of malign neglect in which local food security initiatives operate. Place-based strategies for food security, in response, emphasize producer profitability and consumer responsibility as solutions to extra-local constraints. These localized processes of benign neglect, however, reproduce stifling neoliberalisms within the Athens local food system, giving it a defensive stance that fails to promote innovative modes of inclusion despite its sustainable reputation. Malign and benign forms of neglect, working in creative tension, perpetuate a problematic paradox of food insecurity amidst a seemingly robust local food system as neoliberalization operating at a variety of scales remains unchallenged. (shrink)

One of the many claims about the value of local food is that local food exchanges generate trust between producers and consumers. To what degree is this actually the case and how does such trust develop? Drawing on interview and fieldwork data in one local food system in the Northeastern U.S., I show how local food participants build trust and reciprocity with one another in order to mitigate the challenges imposed by the conventional system. This trust (...) and reciprocity builds primarily through three mechanisms: reliable, positive relationships; demonstrations of good will toward one another; and a shared understanding of the value of locally-oriented food. Through these mechanisms, local food operators are able to build a healthy, stable local food system, able to better resist the pressures of the conventional system in which it must continually operate. (shrink)

One of the many claims about the value of local food is that local food exchanges generate trust between producers and consumers. To what degree is this actually the case and how does such trust develop? Drawing on interview and fieldwork data in one local food system in the Northeastern U.S., I show how local food participants build trust and reciprocity with one another in order to mitigate the challenges imposed by the conventional system. This trust (...) and reciprocity builds primarily through three mechanisms: reliable, positive relationships; demonstrations of good will toward one another; and a shared understanding of the value of locally-oriented food. Through these mechanisms, local food operators are able to build a healthy, stable local food system, able to better resist the pressures of the conventional system in which it must continually operate. (shrink)

In recent years, new forms of high-tech controlled environment agriculture (CEA) have received increased attention and investment. These systems integrate a suite of technologies – including automation, LED lighting, vertical plant stacking, and hydroponic fertilization – to allow for greater control of temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide, oxygen, and light in an enclosed growing environment. Proponents insist that CEA can produce sustainable, nutritious, and tasty local food, particularly for the cities of the future. At the same time, a variety of (...) critics raise concerns about its environmental impacts and energy use, high startup costs, and consumer accessibility challenges, among other issues. At this stage, however, relatively little research has explored actual consumer knowledge and attitudes related to CEA processes and products. Guided by theories of sense-making, this article draws from structured interviews with local food consumers in New York City to examine what people know and think about high-tech CEA. From there, it explores the extent to which CEA fits into consumer conceptualizations of what makes for “good food.” Key findings emphasize that significant gaps in public understanding of CEA remain, that CEA products’ success will depend on the ability of the industry to deliver on its environmental promises, and that concerns about “unnatural” aspects of CEA will need to be allayed. Given the price premium at which high-tech CEA products are currently sold, the industry’s expansion will depend in large part on its ability to convince value-oriented food consumers that the products meet the triple-bottom-line of economic, social, and environmental sustainability goals. (shrink)

The idea of “food miles,” the distance that food has to be shipped, has entered into debates in both popular and academic circles about local eating. An oft-cited figure claims that the “average item” of food travels 1,500 miles before it reaches your plate. The source of this figure is almost never given, however, and indeed, it is a figure with surprisingly little grounding in objective research. In this study, I track the evolution of this figure, and the ways (...) that scholars and popular writers have rhetorically employed it. I then explore the ongoing debates over food miles and local food, debates that often oversimplify the idea of local eating to a caricature. I then examine a series of in-depth interviews with community-supported agriculture members and farmers in order to bring complexity back to discussions of local food consumers. I argue that the overwhelming focus on “food miles” among scholars threatens to eclipse the multitude of other values and meanings contained in the word “local” that underlie people’s decisions to “eat locally,” foremost among them, a desire to reintegrate food production and consumption within the context of place. (shrink)

The reasons why upland farmerson the Indonesian island of Sulawesi areengaged in a cacao boom and its long termimplications are addressed in the context ofprotected area management regulations, andpolitical and economic conditions inPost-Suharto, Indonesia. In the remote casestudy village of Moa in Central Sulawesi, wefound that while few households cultivatedcacao in the early 1990s, all had planted cacaoby 2000. Furthermore, the vast majoritycultivate cacao in former food-crop focusedswidden fields under full-sun conditions.Farmers cultivate cacao to establish propertyrights in light of a (...) land shortage driven inpart by the prohibition of farming and forestproduct collecting in a nearby national park,and to secure a future source of income, aconcern that has been exacerbated byIndonesia's economic crisis. However,conversion of swidden fields to sun-grown cacaoconstrains future food productionopportunities, increases susceptibility todrought stress and potential soil nutrient andorganic matter losses, and increases householddependence on a commodity that is subject toextreme price volatility. These factors raisesignificant concerns for local food securityand agricultural sustainability. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question of how local can be defined in practice. It contributes to the growing literature on local food systems and particularly our understanding of what counts as local and the elements that influence those contours. While most of our conceptions of local food tend to rely on an articulation of either proximity traveled or relationship between entities, I argue that a more nuanced and complete understanding must take account of both of these (...) aspects. I draw on a dataset of locally oriented farm and food-related establishments in southern New England to identify how far local food travels in this region and how interconnected local food establishments are with one another and use these and other measures to tease out the tension between proximity and relationship as measures of local. I find that these two aspects not only are connected to each other in a complex dynamic, but also are bound up with other structural factors as well. (shrink)

In the early 2000s, the development of local food systems in advanced industrial countries has expanded beyond creation and support of farmers’ markets and community supported agriculture farms and projects to include targeted Buy Local Food campaigns. Non-governmental groups in many U.S. places and regions have launched such campaigns with the intent of motivating and directing consumers toward more local food purchasing in general. This article examines the current manifestations and possibilities for social justice concerns in Buy (...) Local Food campaigns, by considering them within the more general category of “selective patronage“ campaigns. Historical campaign examples, such as Buy Union, Buy American, and Buy Black campaigns, offer instructive comparisons to contemporary consumer campaigns promoting local food. Through examining the construction of threats, intended beneficiaries, products to be avoided, and those to be preferentially selected, the paper demonstrates how selective patronage campaigns have emphasized social justice needs and concerns for designated groups in ways that have been potentially exclusionary of other disadvantaged groups and thus undermining of social justice more broadly. As a contemporary instance of “selective patronage,“ Buy Local Food campaigns exhibit similar contradictory impulses, which are intensified by the conceptual and practical pitfalls in designating “local.“ The article concludes by considering how the challenges and prospects for commitments to social justice in local food consumer campaigns reinforce the importance of emerging initiatives centered on domestic fair trade. (shrink)

Local food critics have recently argued that locavores, unaware of economic laws and principles, are ironically promoting a future characterized by less food security and more environmental destruction. In this paper, we critically examine the ways in which mainstream economics discourse is employed in arguments to undermine the proclaimed benefits of local food. We focus on several core concepts in economics—comparative advantage, scale, trade and efficiency—and show how they have been used to challenge claims about local food’s (...) benefits in the areas of economy, environment, food security, and food quality. After reviewing the arguments, we then evaluate some shortcomings that emerge from this reliance on economic logic and, importantly, we assess what local food proponents may take away from these critiques. We conclude by identifying several pathways for future research. (shrink)

Engagement happens when academics and non-academics form partnerships to create mutual understanding, and then take action together. An example is the “value web” work associated with W. K. Kellogg Foundation’s Food Systems Higher Education–Community Partnership. Partners nationally work on local food systems development by building value webs. “Value chains,” a concept with considerable currency in the private sector, involves creating non-hierarchical relationships among otherwise disparate actors and entities to achieve collective common goals. The value web concept is extended herein (...) by separating the values of the web itself, such as the value of collaboration, from values “in” the web, such as credence values associated with a product or service. By sharing and discussing case examples of work underway around the United States, the authors make a case for employing the value webs concept to represent a strategy for local food systems development, specifically, and for higher education–community partnerships, generally. (shrink)

The majority of food in the US is distributed through global/national supply chains that exclude locally-produced goods. This situation offers opportunities to increase local food production and consumption and is influenced by constraints that limit the scale of these activities. We conducted a study to assess perspectives of producers and consumers engaged in food systems of a major Midwestern city. We examined producers’ willingness to include/increase cultivation of local foods and consumers’ interest in purchasing/increasing local (...) class='Hi'>foods. We used focus groups of producers (two groups of conventional farmers, four local food producers) and consumers (three conventional market participants, two locavores) to pose questions about production/consumption of local foods. We transcribed discussions verbatim and examined text to identify themes, using separate affinity diagrams for producers and consumers. We found producers and consumers are influenced by the _status quo_ and real and perceived barriers to local foods. We also learned participants believed increasing production and consumption of local foods would benefit their community and creating better infrastructure could enhance efforts to scale up local food systems. Focus group participants also indicated support from external champions/programs could support expansion of local foods. We learned that diversifying local food production was viewed as a way to support local community, increase access to healthy foods and reduce environmental impacts of conventional production. Our research indicates that encouraging producers and consumers in local food systems will be more successful when support for the local community is emphasized. (shrink)

Local food advocacy is a political and moral discourse that is meant to provide the foundation for understanding local food networks as sites of resistance against the norms and power of globalized industrial food-ways. In this context, the concept of the “natural” is frequently and un-critically invoked to argue for the ethical significance of participating in and advocating for local food networks. I argue that the conception of the “natural” at work is unquestioningly purity-based and is consistent (...) with the construction of “nature” under traditional value dualism. This is problematic in that the dualistic framework serves to obscure many actual complexities within the “natural” and the “local” themselves, and in their relationships with their counterparts, the “cultural” and the “global.” Thus by leaving unquestioned certain assumptions about the meaning of the “natural” and how that meaning was constructed, local food advocacy is not as resistant as it might otherwise be. I suggest that local food advocates ought to utilize ecological and transnational feminist tools that are better able to acknowledge the complex and ever-changing character of the “natural” and the “local.”. (shrink)

The growth in organic and local foods consumption has been examined using two different approaches to identify characteristics and motivations of food shoppers: market segmentation and economic models using multivariate analysis. The former approach, based on Means-end Chain theory, examines how intrinsic characteristics of foods affect food choices. The latter microeconomic approach examines economic constraints and extrinsic factors. This study demonstrates value in combining the two approaches to generate better empirical predictions of who buys organic and (...) class='Hi'>local food. It also supports a broader theoretical framework to explain behavior in terms of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. Using US data, an adaptation of the Food Related Lifestyle model yields four consumer lifestyles segmented by intrinsic motivations related to food. Each consumer segment exhibits distinct organic and local foods consumption behaviors. A multinomial logit model is estimated to examine the probability of being in one of these four groups as a function of extrinsic variables and economic constraints. In support of Alphabet theory and Regulatory Focus theory, we find that inclusion of extrinsic factors improves prediction of behavior and the ability to explain why they buy organic and local foods. The extrinsic variables that significantly increase the probability of being in a particular consumer food lifestyle segment include: environmental concerns, health practices, race, the presence of a farmers’ market, and to a lesser degree, family composition and income. We also find regulatory focus is most pronounced among the most active organic and local food shoppers. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to provide a holistic examination of local food entrepreneurs (LFE) across the local food system (LFS) of a specific U.S. geographic region, including the drivers and barriers to their success. Over the past few decades, there has been a surge in entrepreneurs becoming involved in the LFS which includes the production (farming and manufacturing), distribution, and retail of local ag-related products and services. The LFS is complex and entrepreneurs operating within the (...) system are often met with steep barriers of entry and have trouble maintaining long-term success. Through recorded semi-structured interviews of LFEs (producers, processors, and purveyors) in the Missouri Ozark region, data was gathered and coded according to grounded theory methodologies. From the data collection, 24 emergent themes were identified using thematic clustering. These were further consolidated into eight categorical themes (strategy, skills development, financially sustainable model, differentiation drivers, operational drivers, external drivers, internal constraints, and external constraints) and three over-riding themes (approach, drivers, and barriers). This cross-sectional approach in examining entrepreneurs across the value chain in an LFS provides new insights into the unique entrepreneurial mindset of LFEs. (shrink)

Advocates for re-localizing food systems often encourage consumers to support local farmers and strengthen local food economies. Yet, local food systems hinge not only on consumers’ willingness to buy local food but also on whether farmers have the social support networks to address diverse challenges during food production and distribution. This study characterizes the challenges and support systems of farmers selling to local markets in Québec, Canada, across multiple growing seasons using a mixed-methods research design. (...) We sent an online questionnaire to 1046 farmers and conducted follow-up interviews with 15 of the 133 respondents. Our findings show that farmers relied on an average of four support actor groups, particularly employees, customers, and other farmers. Actors played distinct roles in terms of the importance, frequency, and formality of interactions, providing immediate and long-term support through formal and informal relationships across multiple spatial scales (farm, local community, and regional/international). Our thematic analysis showed that support actors helped farmers in four key domains: (1) Knowledge sharing and emotional support; (2) Labour and workforce; (3) Material and financial aid; and (4) Consumer education and business promotion. Farmer associations provided resources to tackle various challenges, acting as bridges across multiple support actor groups. Yet, our results suggest that political desires to encourage local food systems are in some cases poorly matched with resources to address specific types of challenges farmers face. Specifically, overlooking the role of diverse social support actors in helping farmers build food production and distribution capacity could undermine efforts to foster localization. (shrink)

Local foodshed proponents in the United States seek to change the food system through campaigns to “buy local” and to rediscover “good food” in the local foodshed. Presumably, common sense dictates that the word “local” signifies spatial proximity to the consumer. For some populations, however, both the terms “local” and “local food” signify various different meanings. The local food definition generally used by scholars and activists alike as “geographically proximate food” is unhelpfully narrow. (...) Localist rhetoric often does not incorporate the food choices and practices of immigrants, migrants, and refugees. In this paper, I report the various characterizations of local food among Filipino immigrants in San Diego, California: (1) geography-based local food; (2) (US) America-based local food; (3) community-based local food; and (4) immigrant identity-based local food. Local foodshed proponents should acknowledge those who have a starkly different definition of “local”—those who possess translocal subjectivities, for whom “local-ness” is both mobile and embodied. My study underscores how the movement of food—or its containment within a geographic space—cannot be viewed in isolation from the movement of people. (shrink)

The contemporary US food systemis characterized by both an unprecedentedconcentration of corporate control as well as afragmentation of sourcing and marketingprocesses, introducing both new constraints andnew opportunities for more localized foodsystems. The purpose of our study is to explorethese issues by investigating three keyquestions. First, what are the key trends inthe US grocery industry? Second, how dodifferent kinds of food outlets choose,procure, and promote food products? Finally,what are the implications of recent trends inthe food retailing process for strengtheninglocal flows of (...) the production, distribution,and consumption of food? Background informationon the grocery industry and the results ofseven open-ended interviews conducted withowners and managers of grocery stores in oneupstate New York county indicate that theretailing process differs in complex ways fromstore to store and in most aspects cannot beinferred from store type. The paper concludeswith a discussion of the implications of ourfindings for local food system efforts,specifically in terms of new collaborationsamong producers, distributors, retailers, andshoppers, who play an indispensable role indeveloping viable alternatives to increasingcorporate control. (shrink)

It is estimated that over 800 million people are hungry each day and two billion are suffering from the consequences of vitamin and mineral deficiencies. While a paradigm shift towards a multi-dimensional and multi-sectoral approach to food and nutrition insecurity is emerging, technical approaches largely prevail to tackle the causes of hunger and malnutrition. Founded in original in-depth field research among smallholder farmers in southwest Kenya, we argue that incorporating cultural or social dimensions in this technical debate is imperative and (...) that by systematically overlooking these dimensions, food insecurity cannot be accurately captured nor properly addressed. Based on a sub-location in rural southwest Kenya where the food plate is rapidly narrowing towards a high-calorie low nutrient diet and where over 80 % of households experience food shortages at least once a year, conclusions suggest that preferences, the local function of food, and the practices that emerge therefrom can affect the regularity of meals and their composition. The findings allow us to complement emerging research and program development with a more comprehensive and locally adapted approach to tackle food and nutrition insecurity. (shrink)

We examined how information from multiple communication channels can inform social norms about local food purchasing. The concept of social exposure was used as a guide. Social exposure articulates how information in social, symbolic, and physical environments contributes to normative perceptions. Data was collected from a sample in Wisconsin. Results indicated that information from communication channels representing symbolic, social, and physical environments all contributed to normative perceptions. We also found that for individuals who frequent farmers’ markets, information from some (...) communication channels was relatively less strongly associated with injunctive norms. It may be that when first-hand, experiential information is available to inform norms, individuals rely less on information available through other communication channels. Future work might further explore how farmers’ markets foster information sharing in communities, as such information may contribute to normative perceptions. (shrink)

This paper examines the increasingly popular chisan-chisho movement that has promoted the localization of food consumption in Japan since the late-1990s. Chisan-chisho emerged in the context of a perceived crisis in the Japanese food system, particularly the long-term decline of agriculture and rural community and more recent episodes of food scandals. Although initially started as a grassroots movement, many chisan-chisho initiatives are now organized by governments and farmers’ cooperatives. Acknowledging that the chisan-chisho movement has added some important resources and a (...) conceptual framework, we nonetheless point out that chisan-chisho has been refashioned as a producer movement by government as well as the Japan Agricultural Cooperative, capitalizing on local food’s marketing appeal. Chisan-chisho to date has not been able to become a full-fledged citizen-based political mobilization nor address the issue of marginality in the food system. (shrink)

Interest in purchasing local food from suppliers who follow sustainable practices is growing in Canada. Such suppliers wish to have their products recognized in the market so that price premiums might be received, and new markets developed. In response, the organization Local Food Plus (LFP) developed standards and a certification process to authenticate local and sustainable claims. LFP provides certification seals, and labeling provisions for qualifying producers and processors. However, given pre-existing national food labeling rules, it is (...) not evident that existing regulations permit such claims. Using LFP as a case, this study examined whether current federal labeling rules might impede the marketing of local and sustainable claims. Key findings include that the use of the terms natural, sustainable, and local in panel language and on shelf-talkers could be contested; and that the absence of specific regulation of numerous pertinent terms means they can only be assessed against general fraud prevention regulations, resulting in case-by-case determinations of compliance. Sustainability food label approvals in Canada, based on these general provisions, have not always been favorable to sustainable producers and firms. Existing regulation of these potentially contested terms appears to be out of step with other policy-related developments at the federal level and / or conceptual developments in the field. Proposals are made for amending existing rules to better support local and sustainable claims. (shrink)