Direct food provisioning: collective food procurement

Abstract

Direct food provisioning is a term I use here to indicate any way of procuring food that does not conform to the 'Western' norm of individuals shopping in supermarkets. According to this form of food procurement, consumers sit at the receiving end of a long, complex, often global food chain. In fact, this 'norm' is not at all 'normal', namely it is neither long-established nor sustainable. Indeed, there are so many ways of practising direct food provisioning, including traditional subsistence farming all over the world, that we can consider direct food provisioning as the norm. In short, procuring food is a multifaceted social phenomenon that has accompanied the history of the human species and the differentiation of its cultures. It should be natural then to expect comparison between different types of direct food provisioning in diverse locations and at different scales. This chapter challenges the idea that direct food provisioning should be considered per se 'alternative' or 'radical'. In particular, I will show how collective food procurement allows reflection on the consequences of globalized food systems vis-à-vis direct food provisioning. SUPERMARKETS VS. DIRECT FOOD PROVISIONING The separation of food provisioning from food production and exchange has become the norm with the establishment of supermarket chains as worldwide models for food logistics. The disconnect between consumers and producers is the topic of widespread scholarship about and against 'big food' (Sage 2012). More traditional ways of producers meeting consumers have become increasingly seen as 'alternative' fringes in a global food system. These new 'reinventions' include farmers' markets, small independent retailers, and community gardens. In effect, they are 'transgressions' in the face of the ever-increasingly consolidated worldwide food capital of seed-to-table agribusiness. According to this latter model, a few companies concentrate resources and centralize purchasing; they also maximize profit, thus guaranteeing cheaper prices to the consumer than it might cost the smallholder to produce food. This race to the bottom is unsustainable for independent food producers, who then have to specialize in niche markets. The reason is that niche customers are prepared to pay a premium for their products, such as heritage foods, geographic denominations, or community supported agriculture schemes-and this 'premium' price is necessary to independent food producers for survival. Access to markets for small producers is very difficult. Large distributors often impose precise quotas and dates of delivery, with fines for failing to deliver. Small and seasonal productions with their variations are unwelcome and unrewarded. On the other hand, where smallholders and local farming have disappeared, we find rural areas where accessing fresh and seasonal food from local farms has become impossible. Even when people want to buy local and organic food, if the economy of scale is too small and the cost of production is too high, farmers cannot sustain busin...

Building networks for sustainability?: Food surplus redistribution, non-profit organisations and neoliberalism in Turin, Italy

“…project 2 . The main research method I used was participant observation, which allowed me to follow closely and, in most cases, become part (as a participant, volunteer or collaborator) of 11 collective food procurement networks ranging from food markets to food aid initiatives and urban gardens (see also Grasseni 2018). In addition to fieldwork notes, this research included 75 semi-structured interviews, mostly audio-recorded, as well as the (co)production of audio-visual material such as five cultural maps, video footages, and photos.…”

Polanyi and the Other Alternative Food Network: What San Francisco‐Based Multi‐Level Marketers of “Healthy” Food Tell UsAboutValues in Market Societies

“…In this article we contribute to scholarship on the relationship between market and social values by scrutinizing an AFN that differs from those typically studied. AFN scholarship, particularly in the US context, overwhelmingly focuses on initiatives that are anti‐capitalist: small‐scale and subsistence production (e.g., Kosnik, 2018; Rissing, 2019; Weiss, 2016), face‐to‐face and solidarity food provisioning (e.g., Allen & Hinrichs, 2007; Grasseni, 2020; Moragues‐Faus, 2017), and food justice initiatives (e.g., Barlett, 2017; Hendrickson & Heffernan, 2002). By contrast, the San Francisco‐based NatureRise AFN resolutely promotes “the motive of gain” and self‐regulating markets while advancing non‐monetary values related to nutrition, environmental purity, and human wellbeing.…”

“…These modes of food production, distribution, and consumption, also called alternative food movements, are diverse. They include environmental practices such as permaculture, organic agriculture, and small‐scale production, food localization and reterritorialization schemes, solidarity purchasing groups, designations such as Fair Trade, and food justice movements (e.g., Allen & Hinrichs, 2007; Bowen, 2010; Donner et al, 2017; Gillette & Vesterberg, 2022; Goodman et al, 2012; Grasseni, 2020; Kass, 2022; Kosnik, 2018; Marsden et al, 2018; Papacharalampous, 2021; Rissing, 2019; Weiss, 2016). While alternative food networks (AFNs) are heterogenous, scholars have noted that their participants share (1) the desire to work against the existing food system, and (2) efforts to access food from outside this system (Sarmiento, 2017; see also Barlett, 2017; Goodman et al, 2012).…”

“…Since the industrial revolution, western societies have oscillated between disembedding, or the extension of markets based on the price mechanism and “the motive of gain” on the one hand, and on the other, embedding or social protection, through which actors and institutions attempt to advance non‐monetary values and counteract market hegemony (Polanyi, 2001). Social analysts have used Polanyi's concepts to analyze food markets (Bliss, 2019), geographical indicators (Bowen, 2010; Morris & Kirwan, 2010), “taste of place” initiatives (Donner et al, 2017; Urquhart & Acott, 2013), local and regional food movements (Hendrickson & Heffernan, 2002; Marsden et al, 2018), collective food procurement (Grasseni, 2020; Moragues‐Faus, 2017), food sovereignty programs (Kass, 2022), natural wine (Krzywoszynska, 2015), and various labelling and certification schemes (Goodman et al, 2012; Guthman, 2007).…”

„Rzuciła pracę w korpo i zajęła się… gotowaniem”. Praca z jedzeniem, nieoczywiste transformacje zawodowe i poszukiwanie alternatywnej relacji ze światem

“…Modrzyk 2014), zaangażowaniem obywatelskim (np. DuPuis, Gillon 2009Bilewicz, Śpiewak 2019;Grasseni 2018), bezpieczeństwem żywnościowym, sprawiedliwością(Herman, Goodman, Sage 2018) i suwerennością żywnościową (np. Bilewicz 2020) czy zrównoważonym rozwojem (np.…”