A people's food policy for England

There is a vibrant food movement in the UK and Brexit means that there will be a national food and agriculture policy in the future. Will the UK stick to it market-liberal free trade politics or will it take the opportunity to re-shape its food system? A People’s Food Policy want it to be fundamentally transformed.

In Sweden, it is very difficult to discuss food or agriculture outside of the prevailing market paradigm. The story goes like this:

The consumers determine which food is produced, how it is produced and where it is produced through their purchasing behaviors. Therefore there is no need (well, very little need) for government interventions or other kinds of regulations in the food sector. If people want farmers to take care of their animals, the environment and their workers, they will favor producers doing so by buying their products. By and large it is a question of information and linking the proper information to the particular product.

The more advanced proponents add that this should be complemented with Payment for Ecosystem Services and the Polluter Pay Principle, whereby all external costs and benefits will be priced. I will not expand on all the arguments against this notion in this article, but you can read about it here, Can we shop our way to a better world? And here, Food: from commodity to commons.

Stepping away from market imperatives frees our minds and thinking about food and farm production. Agriculture and food systems, the resources needed for producing food and the landscapes where this takes place are a kind of commons or a public good. The more food is viewed as a public good, the less appropri­ate it is that the productive factors needed to produce foods, seeds, land, water etc., are private property and provided by the market.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 already defines food as a human right: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control” (Article 25).

Rethinking food as a right, farming as a management system of the planet and the food system as a commons is what I would call a real shift in paradigm (a most overused word!). It doesn’t rule out markets as one of several mechanisms for food distribu­tion, but does it reject market hegemony over our food supplies, and rejects the view that market forces are the best way of allocating food producing resources.

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Political actions to reform the food system can take many forms and happen on many levels. Citing America’s Declaration of Independence and the Maine Constitution, the one thousand or so citizens of Sedg­wick voted in 2001 in favor of a local ordinance stating that “Sedgwick citizens possess the right to produce, process, sell, purchase, and consume local foods of their choosing.” In similar ways many municipalities and counties in Europe have declared themselves to be GMO-free zones. All the Austrian Bundesländer (states) have declared their intention to remain GMO-free and more than hundred municipalities have signed resolutions to the same effect. Of course, these are primarily provocations, rather than a practical policy. But the system certainly needs provoking.

The Milan Urban Food Policy Pact commit the signatories to “develop sustainable food systems that  are inclusive, resilient, safe and diverse, that provide healthy and  affordable  food  to  all  people  in  a  human  rights - based  framework, that minimise  waste  and conserve  biodiversity  while adapting to  and  mitigating impacts  of  climate change.” The 144 cities having signed on to it includes New York, Beijing, Milan, London and Buenos Aires (no Swedish city has signed, so much for progressive Sweden).

One of recent political projects regarding food is A People’s Food Policy, in England. In the policy 80 organisations have agreed that

“Our vision is of a food system where everybody, regardless of income, status or background, has secure access to enough good food at all times, without compromising on the wellbeing of people, the health of the environment and the ability of future generations to provide for themselves.“

There is a vibrant food movement in the UK and Brexit means that there will be a national food and agriculture policy in the future. Will the UK stick to it market-liberal free trade politics or will it take the opportunity to transform its food system? The policy builds on the concepts of Right to Food and Food Sovereignty and elaborate a hundred different proposals, which, if implemented would largely re-shape the English[i] food system.

The policy strives to relocalize production and consumption of food produced according to agro-ecological methods. It want to support the kind of produce which currently is mostly imported, e.g. horticulture, as well as environmentally friendly farming methods. Meanwhile it proposes a ban on GMOs, several pesticides and antibiotics and environmental taxes on artificial fertilizers.

Two thirds of the population is malnourished or overweight and more than eight million people are short in food (scandalous in one of the world’s richer countries!). Better access to food and regulations and taxes for junk food, sugar, salt and fat are proposed.

Only one percent of the population owns half of the agriculture land in England. Land and housing ownership contribute to growing inequality and limits the opportunities for new entrants into food production. The policy falls short of radical redistribution of land (a “Land reform”) but it calls for strengthened community access to land and a number of other measures to make access to land easier. 

In an interesting twist the policy rejects both agricultural support based on production (which was the case earlier in the EU) and based on land management. The former drives intensification overproduction the latter favours big land owners over small ones. Instead it suggest that support could be distributed according to the amount of work involved or the jobs created, whatever you prefer to call it.

Finally, the People’s Food Policy calls for a very different view on trade and markets. It calls on protective tariffs and quotas to protect producers as well as renegotiation of the WTO agreement on agriculture. Trade agreements should not undermine social or environmental standards, in the UK or overseas. The existing Groceries Code Adjucator (a kind of ombudsman for supermarket suppliers) should be given much extended powers including ensuring that a “fair proportion of retail price goes to producers”.  

The measures described above of the above are radical, but wouldn’t amount to a “transformation” of the food system, taken one by one. But taken together they might actually tip the scale towards a new system. A system which we don’t know how it will look like in any detail, but where the guiding principles are food as a right and public goods.

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[i] There are other processes going on in Scotland and Wales which is why the policy is for England and not the UK.

Can we shop our way to a better world?

When you buy a cup of coffee for €2, the farmer gets 3-4 cents for the coffee in that cup. If you buy a cup of organic and fair trade coffee, you may have to cough-up €2.50 and the farmer will get 4-5 cents. The farmer’s income will increase by an impressive 20-25 percent. Looking at it from another perspective, it seems that you will need to spend 50 cents to increase the farmer’s income by 1 or 2 cents. This example throws up the question whether the market mechanism is efficient in transforming consumers’ willingness to pay for direct or indirect benefits of a product.

Voluntary sustainability standards (VSS) such as fair trade, organic, and eco-labels have emerged as part of a number of converging – and associated – trends such as:

- emphasizing the market and consumer choice as important tools to accomplish ethical, economic, environmental or social goals;

- facilitating government de-regulation, which leaves more self-regulation to the industries;

- holding those that bring products to the market place accountable for the quality of the products, a responsibility that extends to the suppliers of the products, and their suppliers in turn;

- introducing a stiff global competition which makes differentiation in the market place an essential survival strategy to escape ‘commodity hell’;

- organizing production into so-called value chains where each link is taken care of by independent companies that are under the constant threat of being exchanged, constantly competing with others.


Let me expand a bit on this last point.

In the movie The Godfather, Vito Corleone, the mafia boss played by Marlon Brando, is asked by his godson Jonny Fontane to help secure a film role that will boost his fading career. The head of the film studio has previously refused to give Fontane the part. The Godfather tells Johnny, "I'll make him an offer he can't refuse." One morning the studio director wakes up to find the head of his expensive racehorse on his bed. Fontane is subsequently given the part.

This is basically what the chain leaders, i.e. supermarkets or corporations, have done; given suppliers an offer they can't refuse – follow the standard. Suppliers in the chain, all the way to the farmers, and sometimes even the suppliers to the farmers, should follow the standards developed by the chain leaders. In many cases, the standards also shift the costs away from the chain leader to the suppliers. In order to enforce compliance, suppliers have to use verification mechanisms, normally private certification bodies, authorized by the chain leaders or auditors from the chain leader.

At a point in time, NGOs realized that consumer activism could be a tool to accomplish goals. This first took shape as boycott, that is refusal to buy products from companies because of their behavior. When companies tried to get away from their responsibilities by outsourcing, NGOs pointed out that those chain leaders had responsibilities for the whole chain. In some cases, this led to the NGOs initiating sustainability schemes, either in partnership with an industry or alone.

We don’t have VSS for social conditions for labour in Scandinavia – but there is a Food Justice Certified scheme developed in the USA now. Why? Because it is needed in the USA but not in Scandinavia (at least not in the same way as in the USA). VSS has emerged in the space between that well regulated by the markets and by the governments respectively. If we view their existence as a result of “policy failure” or “market failure”, it means that if the markets and governments did their job properly they would not be needed at all.

The example of the coffee cup shows that the market mechanism is not a particularly efficient tool for accomplishing non-market goals. Let me give a few more examples.

VSS is often presented as an option for small-scale farmers, but they are oversold in this regard. In general, only a small proportion of the farms will be able to participate in the new value chains. The sustainability schemes constitute one factor among many discriminating small producers, be it farmers or food processors. Farmers with more resources are able to capitalize more on the opportunities. The processes of certification also, almost inevitably, favor the rich over the poor, both in developed or developing countries.

I started an organic farm in 1977 in Sweden. From 1985 onwards, organic farms have been certified to voluntary standards. The number of organic farms in Sweden has grown from a few hundred in the early eighties to nearly 12,000. The market share has gone from 0 to 4-5 percent. Around 17 percent of arable land is organic. So this is a real success story. However, growth has slowed down despite the fact that a totally overwhelming majority of the population says that they want to eat organic food. Also, many farmers go organic mainly because of the compensation for environmental services that they get from the European Union and the government and not because of market demand. Looking at the bigger picture, the growth of the organic sector has done nothing to curb the rapid decline of farming in the country. The number of farms has halved in the same time that the organic market has developed.

Most VSS in the agriculture sector have regulations that production can't be approved if it is established on land that until recently was rainforest. If certified production becomes important, however, the net effect will be that the certified producers will buy existing land and other producers will continue to exploit the forest frontier with the money they get from selling land to the certified ones. This process has been ascertained in Brazil, where soya production – now certified as forest-friendly – push cattle ranchers to the forest zone. In reality, the impact of these standards is almost zero on deforestation, compared to government regulation. They do make consumers feel good, though.

They also are problematic to apply in situations caused by the sum of individual actions: for e.g. it is almost impossible to ascertain whether one farmer uses groundwater sustainably; it is the sum of water used by all farmers in the catchment area that will determine whether it is used sustainably or not. VSS in management of commons has existed for millennia, e.g. in the management of fisheries, forests, irrigation or pastures. But the modern sustainability schemes are based on the market and individual companies, which is contrary to the foundations of the long standing method of management of the commons.

When discussing the impact of a certain standard, it is often contrasted against a worst case scenario. The producers that first go for a VSS are, to a very large extent, those that have production already close to compliance, which is why there are many organic smallholders producing coffee, but almost no organic flower producers in the market place. Meanwhile, proponents of the schemes mostly contrast their affiliated production with worst cases of non-certified production.

I tell this not to make the case that organic farming and other VSS have failed, but to make the case that using the market and consumer purchase to accomplish policy goals is often less efficient than government regulations, direct subsidies, ban etc.

In general, VSS is not particularly efficient in dealing with problems that are rooted in fundamental structures of society, the market and the economy. They do normally work well when they are about a simple substitution of a technology, e.g. chlorine-free paper or CFC-free fridges. But things like that can – and should – be accomplished by mandatory regulations.

Ultimately, whether VSS delivers or not may be a sub-set of the bigger question, “Can we shop our way to a better world?” While I do think that we should buy organic and other products that are a better choice here and now – and to pay a bit more for them –I also firmly believe that this will only have small effects.

In State of the World 2013, Annie Leonard (the person making the excellent video Story of Stuff) points out that the focus on sustainable consumption “distracts us from identifying and demanding change from the real drivers of environmental decline…. Describing today’s environmental problems and solutions as individual issues also has a disempowering effect, leaving people feeling that their greatest power lies in perfecting their daily choices.” I couldn’t agree more. 

First published 26 April 2013

Stop dreaming about Green Growth

Research shows - again - that the talk about Green Growth is just talk and wishful thinking.

The doctoral thesis, Drivers of Climate Change? Political and Economic Explanations of Greenhouse Gas Emissions, by Ole Martin Lægreid at the University of Gothernburg shows a robust connection between ecoomic growth, measured by GDP, and emissions of greenhouse gases. The results furthermore suggest that the effect of economic growth on emissions is essentially unaffected by the extent of civil society participation, democracy, corruption, and institutional concentration of political power.

There is no support for the notion that economic growth leads to more extensive and stringent emission policies. In contrast to conventional theories in environmental economics and political science, the dissertation concludes that economic growth is not a viable path toward greenhouse gas emission reductions and that ambitious public emission limits may lead to emission reductions, but such policies are not necessarily driven forward by economic growth.


We would all be better off if we stop being lured by Green Growth and other eco-modernist narratives.

How capitalism realized a communist dream

The increase in eating out or buying ready-made food can be seen as an urban household’s mirror reflection of the commercialization of farms. More and more time is allocated to paid work, time is seen as scarce – even though data would say the oppo­site – and reproducing resources in the household, or reducing expenses are not seen as priorities. At first it might be hard to under­stand how this can coincide with a record in cook book sales and a plethora of kitchen appliances. I recently read in a newspaper that it is increas­ingly common for people in Sweden to hire chefs to help them to cook (by some perverse politics this is even tax-deductable) and I hear that in the United States there is a service that offers to shape your hamburg­ers so ’you can lean back and enjoy’ your own perfect home-made burgers.[i] This mirrors the fate of hunting, fishing and garden­ing. They have moved from being necessities for survival to expensive hobbies where the food harvested is no longer the most important thing. The gadgets, the experience, the nerdy knowledge of details are all expressions of this. Some may see this development as liberty and freedom from drudgery, other see more the loss of a feeling of belong­ing, the loss of one of the main rituals for bonding, social cohesion and a driver of unhealthy food and eating habits.

Modern consumer demand is to a very large extent created, not only (or even mainly) by advertising, but also by industrial and commercial processes that shape our whole world, of which advertis­ing is just a small component. As I have discussed earlier, govern­ments, the food industry, the fertilizer and seed industry giants and the supermarkets and even speculators, influence the food chain and the choices within it. When it is our turn to choose, most choices have already been made, by governments, by the various actors in the supply chain from the farmers to the supermarkets and by our predeces­sors. And with the enormous concentration of power in the food chain in the hands of very few actors those making these deci­sions have enormous powers over our daily food. But the lack of real choice is masked by the enormous supply of very similar products. The conditions under which we chose our food are a lot more impor­tant than the choices we have. In Reconnecting Consumers Producers and Food, six British researchers who studied alternative food schemes found that people whose food schemes offered the least choice (e.g. subscription schemes with fixed in-season contents) often ate the widest variety of food, more fresh food and cooked more meals from scratch. Through a lack of choice they were encouraged (and forced) to learn new recipes and acquire new cooking skills, and they were “in closer contact with the natural environment through their ability to appreciate the changing seasons and by seeing food as it comes out of the ground – misshapen or with mud on.”[ii]

The individualization and commodification of food has been a bonanza for, and perhaps the result of, the food industry. Commercial actors can now earn money from activities that were previously out of reach of the market (as they were done within the household), includ­ing cooking, food preparation and processing, feeding infants and brewing. Socialist utopians, such as Edward Bellamy,[iii] and the Soviet Union and the Israeli kibbutzim had a vision that we would not cook at home. We would either get ready-made foods from factories or eat in collective kitchens. In some Israeli kibbutzes people were not even allowed their own kettles to make tea.[iv] This vision, or part of it, has ironically enough now been materialized through the capitalist food industry taking over our food supply. 
 

(Extract from Global Eating Disorder - Order Global Eating Disorder  for a 10% discount at: https://www.createspace.com/5020215 using the code: GWDZZD8D)

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[i]            Hochschild, A. R. 2012 The Outsourced Self. Intimate life in market times Metropolitan Books.

[ii]           Kneafsey, M. et al. 2008 Reconnecting Consumers and Producers and Food Berg.

[iii]           Fernández-Armesto, F. 2001 Food, a History Macmillan.

[iv]          Ibid.

Food versus the city of Istanbul

Normally, I don't post article by others on this blog, but I found this article very interesting, and it is also an opportunity to thank ILEIA for all its good work during 30 years. ILEIA now says farewell. 

By Sevgi Ortaç, published by ILEIA 18 April 2017, reprinted with permission.

Istanbul, like many other cities, is under heavy pressure from urban development projects. In the face of this threat, the DÜRTÜK collective supports small scale farmers in and around Istanbul by organising reliable demand for the produce from urban gardens, and by building a supportive community around them. This initiative not only provides urban residents with local and fairly priced vegetables, but is also a line of defence against the destruction of the city’s historic vegetable gardens and a space of action in Istanbul’s violent, paralysing atmosphere.

Photo: Uygar Bulut

Every Monday our collective makes a list of vegetables available from local farmers, sets fair prices, and collects orders from our members. We also talk about the most urgent developments concerning the vegetable gardens, which are under constant threat from urban transformation projects. On Thursdays, we bring the produce to a central district of Istanbul where members can pick up their orders and socialise amongst themselves.
DÜRTÜK is the acronym for Producers and Consumers in Resistance (Direnen Üretici Tüketici Kolektifi in Turkish). It also means the poke or the poked, which we consider a modest and fun expression for motivating each other to take action. The DÜRTÜK collective was born in 2015 as common ground between the struggle for urban spaces and the emerging food sovereignty movement in Istanbul.

Finding common ground

In 2013, protests erupted all over Turkey in response to the violent dismantling of demonstrations against development plans that would destroy the Taksim Gezi Park, one of the few green places in the city. The protests brought together a rich multiplicity of people and groups opposing the enclosure of public spaces, destructive urban transformation projects, the ecological devastation, as well as ongoing state oppression and violence.
After the ‘Gezi Resistance’, the emerging movement continued to be active in neighbourhoods in the form of discussions, protests, solidarity events, open markets, workshops, community gardens and informal food coops. DÜRTÜK was born in this process, bringing together different experiences, actors and desires.

A violent, paralysing atmosphere

A meeting amongst new members of Dürtük at Dünyada Mekan, a collective space in Beyoglu for freelancers and white collar workers’ solidarity. Photo: Uygar Bulut

It is very difficult, and in fact painful, to look back now and reflect on the expectations, emotions and desires that we had at that time. It is painful, because over the past two years oppression and violence in Turkey has grown beyond our imagination.
The war in Syria, the bombings by ISIS (Daesh), the termination of the peace process in the Kurdish region of the country by the Turkish state, and the attempted coup in 2016 have generated political polarisation all over the country. Journalists, academics, teachers and politicians are being imprisoned, cities and neigbourhoods burnt, and many lives lost. Schools, streets and public squares lost their liveliness. Our hopes, our imaginations, and even our mobility, have shrunk.
Persevering with the seemingly modest activities of DÜRTÜK has been significant in overcoming this paralysis. It not only supported the producers but also kept us going, as activists, consumers and citizens in trying to create spaces of solidarity.

Bostans – an edible heritage

DÜRTÜK cooperates with the small scale orchards and vegetable gardens situated in central Istanbul known as bostans that are run by professional farmers. They grow green, leafy vegetables and herbs that can be harvested various times a week. The farmers sell to (and at) open markets, restaurants and grocery stores, as well as through DÜRTÜK, and directly from the bostan. Their cultivation methods are a combination of those inherited from generations of gardeners before them and other techniques.
While today only a few remain active, historically the bostans of Istanbul helped feeding the city. In fact, people depended on these gardens for survival during wars and famines. Today they are considered a nostalgic memory that is irrelevant to urban life. But nothing could be further from the truth. In recent years, bostans have convened people in defence of cultural heritage, the right to the city and urban food production.

The Land Walls: Defending and feeding the city

One of the producers we currently work with is Özkan Ökten. He works in a bostan in the moats of the ancient fort of Byzantium, called the Theodosian Land Walls of Constantinople, recognised as UNESCO World Heritage. Özkan, in his 40s, is also the head of a non-profit that aims to sustain the old and new bostans of Istanbul and supports the working conditions of its farmers.
Özkan and around 20 other families make a living by cultivating the moats of the Walls. They are the second or third generation of farmers who have migrated to Istanbul to earn a living. This history of agricultural activity around the Land Walls is deeply tied to the history of the Walls, which dates back to the fifth century.  As such, the Walls and the bostans together represent great urban know-how about both defending and feeding the city.
Gardening continues to be the most consistent activity in the moats and around the walled zone. Although this is keeping the area lively and productive, it is neglected both as a means to conserve the area and as cultural heritage. In recent years some of the very old and active bostans in the same area, known as Yedikule Bostanları, were destroyed by the municipality to make way for a park that will serve the surrounding gentrifying neighbourhoods.

The Mosque Garden: Threats and resistance

The Mosque Garden bostan was saved and declared
national heritage in 2015. Photo: Uygar Bulut

One active but endangered bostan of Istanbul is Piyalepaşa Camii Bostanı (Piyalepaşa Mosque Garden), which was supposed to become a car park in 2013. Mehmet and Cemile, acouple in their 60s, struggle to keep the bostan going in the middle of the rapidly transforming centre of Istanbul. The bostan’s history is closely related to that of the mosque, having been a source of income for the mosque since the 16th century. An unlikely alliance of activists, lawyers, archeologists and historians stood up for its protection, and with success. Not only was Piyalepaşa Camii Bostanı saved from becoming a car park, it was also registered as a historical heritage landmark in 2015.
This has been an exemplary case in Istanbul of how agricultural land can be recognised as cultural heritage. But the municipality and associated construction companies are continuing to put pressure on Mehmet and Cemile to move somewhere else. The latest rumour is that the bostan will be turned into a hobby garden for the municipality so that they can make a profit from it.
The near future of this bostan is uncertain for other reasons as well. Mehmet and Cemile are old and they do not have enough strength to cultivate all their land. Because of the low prices of agricultural produce, and the equally low social status of farming in Turkey, their children do not have an interest in keeping the business going.

No recognition, no security

Urban development speculators breathing down their necks is not the only worry for farmers like Mehmet and Cemile. Although the bostans are quite central in the city and are surrounded by residential areas, the farmers struggle to get fair prices for their produce. The problem is that they cannot compete with the prices of imported, industrialised food.
Moreover, despite the fact that the farmers have been cultivating their land for generations, their land tenure is insecure and they can be evicted at any moment. The land they cultivate is not considered agricultural land so they cannot formally register asfarmers. This means that they are not recognised in agricultural policies and don’t get access to public social security programmes. Combined, all these precarious conditions make the farmers in bostans hesitant to make long term investments in the soil.

Cultivating hope

Taksim, where we have our base, has been the scene of many political demonstrations and marches. It is a historically loaded place. Demonstrations are banned now, and a state of emergency has been in place since the attempted coup in 2016. Police are everywhere and constantly present. This has made many people afraid of coming to Taksim, which limits the growth of our orders. We haven’t been able to hold big meetings in the past year, and we are also having difficulty finding volunteers to invest time in DÜRTÜK‘s operations and activities.
But even if there are not many weekly orders, we are continuing. We are trying to organise events and keep the discussion alive on how to continue and develop the organisation. We discuss food sovereignty in an international context, and talk about themes such as Community Supported Agriculture models in different countries and alternative economies. We organise picnics and participate in solidarity markets to find new members. We come together with other organisations to discuss issues and to gather strength.
The weekly routine of DÜRTÜK’s meetings represents hopeful, common ground for gardeners, farmers, consumers, activists and other citizens to exchange experiences about how they cope in their precarious situations, and to support each other. At DÜRTÜK, the urgent need to save and to defend agricultural spaces meets the humble labour of cultivating and reproducing everyday life.

Sevgi Ortaç (durtukgirdibostana@gmail.com/ sevgiortac@ gmail.com) is a member of DÜRTÜK and a visual artist and researcher, born and living in Istanbul.