Home » Posts tagged 'food chains'
Tag Archives: food chains
How Does Your Local Food Grow?
HOW DOES YOUR LOCAL FOOD GROW?
CAN WE BUILD A LOCAL FOOD WEB INSTEAD OF A GLOBAL AGRI-CHAIN?
Wayne Roberts looks at all the ways local food webs are already growing, ready to become the Next Big Thing in creative disruption.
Several weeks ago, I went to and wrote about an exciting international conference in Montpelier, France, on sustainable “agrichains” — which is geekspeak for food supply chains that are socially, economically and environmentally responsible.
I now want to propose the idea of going beyond the one-way and linear supply chain thinking of agribusiness, and make the case instead for civic food webs — based on partnerships among local governments, local public and community institutions (universities and co-ops, for example), social movements, citizen groups (such as the marvelous Equiterre of Montreal), community-oriented businesses, neighborhood groups, and engaged individuals and families.
Eaters of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your food chains!!
First, let me outline how I think we got to where we are now.
MORE THAN ONE WAY TO FILL A VACUUM
Nature abhors a vacuum, but global corporations seize upon them.
There was a food infrastructure vacuum in the cities of the 1800s and 1900s. It arose most obviously in Europe as a result of the lack of organic or community-based connections between city food consumers seeking to buy foods from around the world and food producers seeking to sell to them. Technologies, such as refrigerator ships, trains and trucks, were available to move food huge distances. As well, technologies, such a sewers and electrical utilities, were available to make large cities livable and attractive. But in the absence of community-based or government-based mechanisms to sponsor the necessary logistics, what were then called multinational corporations took over this “middleman” infrastructure function of bring food producers and consumers together.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
New Equations of Regions, People, Nature and Food Chains
New Equations of Regions, People, Nature and Food Chains
We usually think of geologists as going deep, but when it comes to working through the layers of meaning behind local food, geographer Terry Marsden knows how to dig very deep.
Marsden sees food as a uniquely human enterprise because it, more than anything else we do, relies so much on the relationship between humans and nature. Food is inevitably a product of our social nature, and always different from products, artifacts and commodities that can be isolated from direct relations with nature, he argues.
I appreciate someone who sees that as a starting point of understanding and appreciating food, even though my special interest is food and cities, which are often seen as far removed from nature.
But Marsden’s work is as important for city as countryside dwellers, because cities and countrysides are going to be working together more closely than ever in the food system he predicts to be on the way.
Marsden sees the local food trend that’s developed in Europe and North America over the last 30 years as a sign of a new relationship between food producers and consumers — both of whom are co-producing a new regionalism that puts a high value on food quality, the environment and the human relationships that come to the fore when food is localized.
Unlike some writers who warn of the “local trap” – wherein local food merchandisers masquerade the same old/same old industrial food in a charming new local bottle – Marsden sees local and regional food as an exercise based on integrity on the part of city and countryside people. Both producers and consumers are looking for a way out of reducing food to a commodity, and in the process, reducing themselves and their own relationships to the same lowly status.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
