ALTERNATIVES TO INDUSTRIALIZED FOOD

Alternatives to Industrialized Food

Alternatives to Industrialized Food

Introduction

The production and consumption of food are fundamental elements of life. Despite the everyday nature of food consumption, however, processes of food production are largely hidden from view, at once everywhere and nowhere as food distribution systems circle the globe and people know increasingly little about the sources of their food. This vision of a world where food appears on supermarket shelves 'from nowhere', in which food scares are increasingly common and where unsustainable agricultural systems place ever greater pressure on limited resources has driven the development of alternative food networks (AFNs).

Alternative food network (AFN) refers to a wide range of food production, distribution and retail activities presented as alternatives to conventional food systems, including farmers' markets, direct marketing schemes, community supported agriculture, vegetable-box delivery schemes, community gardens and food cooperatives. Figure 1 summarizes four outcomes of the development of AFNs, as detailed by Jarosz (2008).

Fig. 1. Four outcomes of AFN development (Jarosz 2008, p. 232).

Recent research emphasizes the processual nature of AFNs, explaining their emergence from, and contingence upon, a variety of socio-cultural and economic processes. As such, AFNs are positioned by scholars within processes of global economic restructuring, rural decline and redevelopment, environmental concerns and progressive political ideals (DuPuis and Goodman 2005; Jarosz 2008; Whatmore et al. 2003). Embedded in these multi-scalar processes, AFNs seek to localize food systems and to encourage contact between food producers and consumers, seeking to respatialize food systems perceived to have become 'placeless'. As activists work to re-embed food systems in 'local' places and communities, some academic commentators have identified place as the conceptual 'quiet center' of AFN discourses (Feagan 2007, p. 23) and have worked to situate AFNs within theoretical discussions of scale, space and place.

Against Conventional Food Systems

Alternative food networks have developed in response to widespread dissatisfaction with conventional food systems. The term 'conventional' is used here with caution, since authors have made clear that a dualistic conventional/alternative conceptualization of food systems hides the many variations within and links between, these two categories (Holloway et al. 2007b; Ilbery & Maye 2005; Watts et al. 2005). In a broad sense, therefore, conventional food systems are globalized networks of food production, distribution, storage and retail that are controlled by multinational agri-business and retail corporations. Production and supply chains are managed over long distances, exhibit high degrees of vertical integration and are driven by corporate capital. Ownership and control in the agri-food sector is highly concentrated, resulting in what Heffernan et al. (1999) describe as an 'hour glass' food system, in which 'thousands of farmers feed millions of consumers through an increasingly corporately controlled agri-food system that involves input suppliers, food processors, and retailers' (Morgan et al. 2006, p. 55).

Alternative food network (AFN) activists' dissatisfaction with conventional food systems can usefully be conceptualized in two, albeit closely related, areas: food production processes, and food products. Taken together, these concerns build the argument that conventional food systems no longer function adequately: that the food system is 'broken' (Blay-Palmer ...