Abstract
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.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
I’ve chosen Feenstra’s definition of the local food movement because her work is both extensive and thoughtful. It is also the definition that appears in Wikipedia’s entry for local food—arguably a reliable reflection of popular knowledge.
“Civic agriculture is a locally organized system of agricultural and food production characterized by networks of producers who are bound together by place. … Civic agriculture is fundamentally about problem solving. Taken together, the enterprises that make up and support civic agriculture can [be] seen as a part of a community’s problem solving capacity. … Civic agriculture is the embedding of local agriculture and food production in the community” (Lyson 2005, p. 92).
An anonymous reviewer has correctly noted that a wide range of values and goals are embedded within the local food movement today, not all of them consistent or necessarily progressive in nature. The Slow Food Movement, for example, champions indigenous or culturally authentic foods and food ways but has been criticized for its elitist, self-indulgent tendencies. Eating locally, likewise, has become a trope for supporting diversified, small-scale farmers and an agrarian revival that can be parochial, patriarchal, and sanctimonious. To be sure local food and the local food movement have attracted an odd assortment of bedfellows—survivalists, environmentalists, artisans, union labor, the healthy, and the unhealthy alike find answers in the local cause.
What is being argued here is that the concept of local as popularly presented and applied seems to be losing track of its own self-reflexive, and often contradictory and embodied nature. By becoming something that is easy for everyone to swallow, literally and figuratively, it serves the status quo far more keenly than its many adherents. The ease with which it cleaves to the individual, the industrial, and the generic suggests, to this author at least, that the concept, like sustainability and organic before it, may soon be “cut and controlled” (Burke and Ornstein 1995), losing much of its potential for systemic resilience.
This is not the New American Oxford Dictionary definition but a close approximation. The 2007 edition of the dictionary is not yet available either in hard copy or electronic form.
Credit card companies depend on this argument. Under the guise of being sustainable (socially and environmentally responsibility) a recent commercial for a major credit card allowed (and I’m paraphrasing here): “There’s so much good stuff in this world. And there’s nothing wrong with that. The problem is knowing how to manage it all. We’re here to help.”
Typical among their suggestions are things like grow a garden, eat more chocolate, join a CSA, and shop at a farmers market.
One way corporations can be “local” is to stock a token amount of locally grown produce, as Wal-Mart has done in some of its supercenters. The chain’s local food offerings are usually limited to a few of the main commodity crops of that particular state—peaches in Georgia or potatoes in Maine—and sit amid a sea of industry food and other goods shipped from the far side of the planet. Yet this modest gesture has won Wal-Mart glowing coverage in numerous daily newspapers, few of which have asked the salient question: Does Wal-Mart, which now captures more than one of every five dollars Americans spend on groceries, create more and better opportunities for local farmers than the grocers it replaces?
“Wal-Mart, like other chains, has learned that consumers increasingly support companies they perceive to be acting responsibly, and that tossing around the word ‘local’ is a far less expensive way to convey civic virtue than the alternatives. ‘Local is one of the lower-hanging fruits in terms of sustainability,’ explains Barry [senior vice president of the Hartman Group]. ‘It’s easier for companies to do than to improve how their employees are treated or adopt a specific sustainability practice around their carbon footprint, for example’” (Mitchell 2009).
I am indebted to Jayson Otto, former manager of the Fulton Street Farmers Market in Grand Rapids, for this observation.
Pollan has captured so much personal attention that people twittered about his not being breast fed, a banal revelation made during his appearance on the Colbert Report (http://www.comedycentral.com/colbertreport/full-episodes/index.jhtml?episodeId=227611).
Having said this, it is interesting to note that the Eastside has an identity, a sense of self and self-protection that is not available for the taking by outside agencies or bureaucratic structures. ANC pursues and receives many grants, large and small, public and private, on behalf of the Eastside. At the same time, it resists (and controls) the endless, invasive surveys and other accountability measures required by officials and funders. ANC has turned back funding for just such reasons. As important as economic resources are to this modest community non-profit, they are not seen as synonymous with, nor are they permitted to trump, the common good. As the market master has said, “The USDA (or any other organization) is welcome to visit the market as a guest of the Eastside. We welcome their programs and their assistance, but they are not welcome to appropriate what belongs to all Eastsiders” (DeLind 2008, pp. 12–13).
References
Adelson, N. 2007. “Being alive well”: Health and the politics of Cree well-being. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Balkin, S. 2009. Maxwell Street maybe has already moved to 41st and Ashland. Open Air Market Network. http://openair.org/node/548. Accessed 23 March 2009.
Barlett, P. 2009. Reason and reenchantment in cultural change. Current Anthropology 49(6): 1077–1098.
Basso, K. 1996. Wisdom sits in places: Landscape and language among western Apache. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico.
Bawden, R., and R.G. Packham. 1998. Systemic praxis in the education of the agricultural systems practitioner. Systems Research and Behavioral Science 15: 403–412.
Burke, J., and R. Ornstein. 1995. The axmaker’s gift: A double-edged history of human culture. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons.
Byczynski, L. 2008. Letter from wild onion farm. Growing for Market. 2 August.
Chicagoist. 2009. Walmart hosts a “farmer’s market,” avoids most farmers. http://chicagoist.com/2009/07/22walmart_hosts_a_farmers_market_avoi.php. Accessed 22 July 2009.
Collier, A.K. 2008. Fried corn redux. 7 August. Slow food nation’08. Blog Archive. http://slowfoodnation.org/blog/2008/08/07/fried-corn-redux/. Accessed 11 August 2008.
Dahlberg, K. 1993. Regenerative food systems: Broadening the scope and agenda of sustainability. In Food for the future, ed. P. Allen, 75–102. New York: Wiley.
DeLind, L.B. 2002. Place, work, and civic agriculture: Common fields for cultivation. Agriculture and Human Values 19: 217–224.
DeLind, L.B. 2003. Considerably more than vegetables, a lot less than community: The dilemma of community supported agriculture. In Fighting for the farm, ed. J. Adams, 192–206. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
DeLind, L.B. 2008. Fresh broccoli and neighborhood: Some thoughts on the relationship between farmers markets and community development. Paper presented at the joint meetings of the Agriculture Food and Human Values Society and the Association for the Study of Food and Society, New Orleans, 4–8 June 2008.
DeLind, L.B., and J. Bingen. 2008. Place and civic culture: Re-thinking the context for local agriculture. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 21: 127–151.
DeLind, L.B., and P. Howard. 2008. Safe at any scale? Food scares, food regulation, and scaled alternatives. Agriculture and Human Values 25(3): 301–317.
Diesen, D. 2009. For hunter park. http://jumpingthecandlestick.blogspot.com/2009_03-01_archive.html. Accessed 22 March 2009.
Esteva, G. 1994. Re-embedding food in agriculture. Culture and Agriculture 48: 2–13.
Feenstra, G. 2002. Creating space for sustainable food systems: Lessons from the field. Agriculture and Human Values 19(2): 99–106.
Gallagher, J. 2009. Farm could make Detroit hot spot for fresh food. Freep.com. http://www.freep.com/apps/pbsc.dll/article?AID=/200904021/BUSINESS04/904020370&te… Accessed 2 April 2009.
Garvey, H. 2009. 50 easy ways to eat green. Bon Appétit. February: 68–83.
Gilman, S. 2009. Food safety hits the fan: Regulatory action, inaction, and over-reaction and the effects on small scale growers. http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article16872.cfm. Accessed 12 March 2009.
Hamilton, L.M. 2002. The American farmers market. Gastronomica 2(3): 73–77.
Hantz, Farms. 2009. Preliminary plans call for the development of underutilized land to produce fresh, local, natural, safe fruits, vegetables and trees. 2 April. Detroit. PRNewswire.
Hawken, P. 2007. Blessed unrest: How the largest movement in the world came into being, and why no one saw it coming. New York: Viking.
Herzog, K. 2009. Growing power founder up for national award. Journal Sentinel. 21 April. Accessed through [COMFOOD listserv] http://www.foodsecurity.org/list.html 22 Apr 2009.
Huffstutter, P.J. 2009. Detroit planting seeds for urban farming initiative. Orlando Sentinel. 30 December: A6.
Kandaswamy, P. 2008. Beyond colorblindness and multiculturalism. Radical Teacher 80: 6–11.
Loeb, P.R. 1999. We don’t have to be saints. In Soul of a citizen: Living with conviction in a cynical time, ed. P.R. Loeb, 34–57. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin.
Lorde, A. 1984. The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. In Sister outsider, ed. A. Lorde, 110–113. Freedom, CA: The Crossing Press.
Lovejoy, A. 2009. 8 ways to join the local food movement. YES! Spring: 36–38.
Lyson, T.A. 2004. Civic agriculture: Re-connecting farm, food, and community. Medford, MA: Tufts University Press.
Lyson, T.A. 2005. Civic agriculture and community problem solving. Culture and Agriculture 27(2): 92–98.
Maiser, J. 2007. 10 steps to becoming a locavore. NOW/PBS. 2 November. http//:www.pbs.org/now/shows/344/locavore.html. Accessed 25 March 2009.
Maniates, M. 2002. Individualization: Plant a tree, buy a bike, save the world? In Confronting consumption, ed. T. Princen, M. Maniates, and K. Conca, 43–66. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Mintz, S. 1996. Cuisine: High, low, and not at all. In Tasting food, tasting freedom, 92–105. Boston: Beacon Press.
Mitchell, S. 2009. The corporate co-opt of local. The Wire. 7 August. http://www.wirenh.com/Features/Features_-_general/the_corporate_co-opt_of_local_200… Accessed 23 Dec 2009.
Mollison, B.C. (with R.M. Slay). 1994. Introduction to permaculture. Tyalgum, Australia: Tagari Publications.
Murphy, D. 2009. Join Michael Pollan’s Army!—Invite your friends. 22 January. Food Democracy Now! [Food_Democracy_Now@mail.vresp.com].
Nabhan, G.P. 2004. Cross-pollinations: The marriage of science and poetry. Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed editions.
O’Mara, J. 2008. Wal-Mart pares costs by selling local produce. 26 August. NPR. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stroy.php?storyId=93956012&sc… Accessed 26 March 2008.
Philpott, T. 2008. The NYT’s “lazy locavore.” 24 July. Grist. http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/7/23/144857/768?show_commen… Accessed 1 Aug 2008.
Pollan, M. 2007. Unhappy meals. New York Times Magazine. 28 January: 38–47, 65, 67, 70.
Pollan, M. 2008. In defense of food: An eater’s manifesto. New York: Penguin Press.
Project for Public Spaces (PPS). 2005 McDonald’s goes local. 1 April. http://www.pps.org/info/newsltter/april_first_2005/fo_local. Accessed 1 Apr 2005.
Roff, R. 2007. Shopping for change?: Neoliberalizing activism and the limits to eating non-GMO. Agriculture and Human Values 24(4): 511–522.
Severson, K. 2009. When “local” makes it big. The New York Times 13 May. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/13/dining/13local.html?_r=1&pagewanted+print. Accessed 23 Nov 2009.
Stein, J. 2008. Extreme Eating. Time. 10 January. http://www.time.com./to,e/printout/o,8816,1702353,00.html. Accessed 19 Jan 2008.
TCF (The Community Farm). 2008. A locally grown diet with fuss but no muss. Summer: 6.
Vitek, W. 1996. Community and the virtue if necessity. In Rooted in the land, ed. W. Vitek, and W. Jackson, 176–184. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Wilk, R. 2006. Home cooking in the global village: Caribbean food from buccaneers to ecotourists. Oxford/New York: Berg.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
An earlier version of this paper was prepared for the session, Agrifoodies and Alternative Agricultural Movements, at the joint meetings of the Agriculture, Food, and Human Values Society and the Association for the Study of Food and Society, 28–31 May 2009, Pennsylvania State University.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
DeLind, L.B. Are local food and the local food movement taking us where we want to go? Or are we hitching our wagons to the wrong stars?. Agric Hum Values 28, 273–283 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-010-9263-0
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-010-9263-0