Die Neue Zeit
7th December 2015, 01:42
Food as a Commons: Reframing the Narrative of the Food System (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2255447)
Our body compulsory demands food, water and air to keep its vital functions and yet their economic nature is rather diverse with food mostly considered a private good, water suffering an accelerated privatization process and air so far considered a global common good. Food has evolved from a common good and local resource to a national asset and then to a transnational commodity as the commodification process is rather completed nowadays. Cultivated food is fully privatized and this consideration means that human beings can eat food as long as they have money to but it or means to produce it. With the dominant no money-no food rationality, hunger still prevails in a world of abundance. In order to provide a sound foundation for the transition towards sustainable food systems, the very nature of food as a pure private good is contested and subsequently reversed in this paper, proposing a re-conceptualisation of food as a common good, a necessary narrative for the redesign of the dominating agro-industrial food system that merely sees food as a tradable commodity. This aspirational transition shall lead us to a more sustainable, fairer and farmer-centred food system. The idea of the commons is applied to food, deconstructing food as a pure private good and reconstructing it as an impure commons that can be better produced and distributed by a hybrid tri-centric governance system compounded by market rules, public regulations and collective actions. Several food-related elements are already considered as common goods (i.e. fish stocks, wild fruits, cuisine recipes, agricultural knowledge, food safety regulations and unpatented genetic resources) as well as food’s implications (hunger eradication) and benefits (public health and good nutrition). Should food and be consider as a commons, the implications for the governance of the global food system would be enormous, with examples ranging from placing food outside the framework agreements dealing with pure private goods, banning financial speculation on food commodities or preparing international binding agreements to govern the production, distribution and access of food to every human being.
Food Sovereignty: A Critical Dialogue (http://www.iss.nl/fileadmin/ASSETS/iss/Research_and_projects/Research_networks/ICAS/89_Pol.pdf)
Nowadays, the value of food is no longer based on its many dimensions that bring us security and health, values that are related to our cultural foundations (food as culture), to human rights considerations (the right to food), to the way food is produce (food as a sustainable natural resource) or to its essential nature as fuel for human body. Those multiple dimensions are superseded by the tradable features, being value and price thus mixed up. This article defends that a fairer and more sustainable food system shall revalue the non-monetary dimensions of food, and hence the global and local food production and distribution systems shall not be exclusively governed by supply-demand market rules. Institutional arrangements based on collective actions, appropriate legal collective entitlements, adequate funding and political support shall also be given due consideration by politicians and academics. Self-regulated collective actions for food, either market-based, share-based, organic, local or fair trade-based represent the third pillar of the governance of the evolving food system. The State-Market duopoly in food provision will need to re-accommodate this mounting force of citizens ́ actions to reclaim food as a commons. Food can and must be shared, given for free, guaranteed by the State, cultivated by many and also traded in the market. The purchasing power cannot exclusively determine our access to such essential.
Why Isn't Food a Public Good? (http://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/01/10/2014/why-isnt-food-public-good)
What would the world look like if we were to treat food as a public good or commons and not merely as a commodity? So far, each and every solution proposed by international conferences, donors, UN institutions, and most knowledgeable scholars is based on food, an essential resource for human beings, as a fully privatized good. I propose a different idea: considering food as a commons, since it is essential for every human on this planet. Purchasing power should not be the only means to get access to natural and man-made food resources. We should move towards a different system that values food based on its multiple and essential dimensions to humans and not just as a priced commodity. This transition should be steered by a governance of food as a commons, composed of three branches: state-driven initiatives, policies, and regulations; market-driven allocations based on supply and demand; and self-regulated collective actions for food producers and consumers with different forms of food-sharing finding a place in a more sustainable and fairer food system.
Transition Towards a Food Commons Regime: Re-Commoning Food to Crowd-Feed the World (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2548928)
This paper analyses the main fault lines of the industrial food system and the consequences of the absolute commodification of food. Then, using the food regime theory and exploring the developments in the industrial food system (mainstream) and the urban alternative food networks (AFNs) and rural food sovereignty movement (innovative niches), the author proposes a transition pathway (the re-commonification of food) towards a food commons regime in which primacy rests in its feature as human beings’ absolute need and the different dimensions of food are properly valued, in opposition to the corporate mono-dimensional valuation of food as a commodity. In order to crowdsource this transition, this paper argues the food sovereignty movement and the AFNs need to grow together, beyond individual organisations, to knit a different and bigger food web capable of confronting the industrial food system for the common good. This ongoing transition that will span decades is to be steered by a tricentric governance system (urban and rural civic collective actions for food, partner states and social private enterprises) that enables access and promote food in all its dimensions through a multiplicity of open structures and sustainable peer-to-peer practices aimed at sharing, co-producing and trading food and knowledge. Unlike the market, the food commons are about cooperation, sharing, stewardship, equity, self-production, sustainability, collectiveness, embeddedness and direct democracy from local to global. Shifting the dominant discourse from the private sphere to the commons arena will open up a whole new world of economic, political and societal innovations, not least the Universal Food Coverage.
Our body compulsory demands food, water and air to keep its vital functions and yet their economic nature is rather diverse with food mostly considered a private good, water suffering an accelerated privatization process and air so far considered a global common good. Food has evolved from a common good and local resource to a national asset and then to a transnational commodity as the commodification process is rather completed nowadays. Cultivated food is fully privatized and this consideration means that human beings can eat food as long as they have money to but it or means to produce it. With the dominant no money-no food rationality, hunger still prevails in a world of abundance. In order to provide a sound foundation for the transition towards sustainable food systems, the very nature of food as a pure private good is contested and subsequently reversed in this paper, proposing a re-conceptualisation of food as a common good, a necessary narrative for the redesign of the dominating agro-industrial food system that merely sees food as a tradable commodity. This aspirational transition shall lead us to a more sustainable, fairer and farmer-centred food system. The idea of the commons is applied to food, deconstructing food as a pure private good and reconstructing it as an impure commons that can be better produced and distributed by a hybrid tri-centric governance system compounded by market rules, public regulations and collective actions. Several food-related elements are already considered as common goods (i.e. fish stocks, wild fruits, cuisine recipes, agricultural knowledge, food safety regulations and unpatented genetic resources) as well as food’s implications (hunger eradication) and benefits (public health and good nutrition). Should food and be consider as a commons, the implications for the governance of the global food system would be enormous, with examples ranging from placing food outside the framework agreements dealing with pure private goods, banning financial speculation on food commodities or preparing international binding agreements to govern the production, distribution and access of food to every human being.
Food Sovereignty: A Critical Dialogue (http://www.iss.nl/fileadmin/ASSETS/iss/Research_and_projects/Research_networks/ICAS/89_Pol.pdf)
Nowadays, the value of food is no longer based on its many dimensions that bring us security and health, values that are related to our cultural foundations (food as culture), to human rights considerations (the right to food), to the way food is produce (food as a sustainable natural resource) or to its essential nature as fuel for human body. Those multiple dimensions are superseded by the tradable features, being value and price thus mixed up. This article defends that a fairer and more sustainable food system shall revalue the non-monetary dimensions of food, and hence the global and local food production and distribution systems shall not be exclusively governed by supply-demand market rules. Institutional arrangements based on collective actions, appropriate legal collective entitlements, adequate funding and political support shall also be given due consideration by politicians and academics. Self-regulated collective actions for food, either market-based, share-based, organic, local or fair trade-based represent the third pillar of the governance of the evolving food system. The State-Market duopoly in food provision will need to re-accommodate this mounting force of citizens ́ actions to reclaim food as a commons. Food can and must be shared, given for free, guaranteed by the State, cultivated by many and also traded in the market. The purchasing power cannot exclusively determine our access to such essential.
Why Isn't Food a Public Good? (http://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/01/10/2014/why-isnt-food-public-good)
What would the world look like if we were to treat food as a public good or commons and not merely as a commodity? So far, each and every solution proposed by international conferences, donors, UN institutions, and most knowledgeable scholars is based on food, an essential resource for human beings, as a fully privatized good. I propose a different idea: considering food as a commons, since it is essential for every human on this planet. Purchasing power should not be the only means to get access to natural and man-made food resources. We should move towards a different system that values food based on its multiple and essential dimensions to humans and not just as a priced commodity. This transition should be steered by a governance of food as a commons, composed of three branches: state-driven initiatives, policies, and regulations; market-driven allocations based on supply and demand; and self-regulated collective actions for food producers and consumers with different forms of food-sharing finding a place in a more sustainable and fairer food system.
Transition Towards a Food Commons Regime: Re-Commoning Food to Crowd-Feed the World (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2548928)
This paper analyses the main fault lines of the industrial food system and the consequences of the absolute commodification of food. Then, using the food regime theory and exploring the developments in the industrial food system (mainstream) and the urban alternative food networks (AFNs) and rural food sovereignty movement (innovative niches), the author proposes a transition pathway (the re-commonification of food) towards a food commons regime in which primacy rests in its feature as human beings’ absolute need and the different dimensions of food are properly valued, in opposition to the corporate mono-dimensional valuation of food as a commodity. In order to crowdsource this transition, this paper argues the food sovereignty movement and the AFNs need to grow together, beyond individual organisations, to knit a different and bigger food web capable of confronting the industrial food system for the common good. This ongoing transition that will span decades is to be steered by a tricentric governance system (urban and rural civic collective actions for food, partner states and social private enterprises) that enables access and promote food in all its dimensions through a multiplicity of open structures and sustainable peer-to-peer practices aimed at sharing, co-producing and trading food and knowledge. Unlike the market, the food commons are about cooperation, sharing, stewardship, equity, self-production, sustainability, collectiveness, embeddedness and direct democracy from local to global. Shifting the dominant discourse from the private sphere to the commons arena will open up a whole new world of economic, political and societal innovations, not least the Universal Food Coverage.