Food, sustainability and
alternative food networks
Changing narratives:
debates about sustainability and security
Dr Daniel Keech
Countryside and Community Research Institute
University of Gloucestershire, UK
dkeech@glos.ac.uk
Masaryk University, Brno, 28th March 2022
• Examine narratives around sustainability in relation to food,
including
 Food (in)security
 Environmental performance and climate change
 Self-sufficiency and globalisation (esp since COVID-19)
• Discuss the idea that sustainability is a complex aspiration,
rather than a settled state or particular truth.
Aims of this session
• Sustainability is when human and natural systems are able to
survive and flourish in the long-term. (Behrens et al. 2020).
(Interactions and interdependence between humans-nature.)
Sustainability and how it relates
to food
Source: ©United Nations 2018
• The challenge of creating a mode
of food provisioning that is
ecologically sustainable, while
addressing nutritional issues (Lang
and Mason, 2017).
• ‘Any discussion of sustainability and
which way we should go, has to
take into account, and explore, the
values that stakeholders bring to
the debate.’ (Garnett 2014
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/1326477
16.pdf)
• Move from meat (EAT Lancet 2019)
• 1/3rd of food bought is thrown
away (UC Davis) https://www.ucdavis.edu/food/news/why-
is-one-third-of-food-wasted-
worldwide#:~:text=Nearly%20one%2Dthird%20of%20all,economic%2C%2
0environmental%20and%20social%20costs.
Sustainable diets
Source: Reproduced from Lairon (2010)
Well-
being,
health
Eco-
friendly,
local
seasonal
Sust.
diets
Some generalised key developments post 1945:
• Marshall Plan, ‘Green revolution’, Soviet collectivisation, selfsufficiency,
surplus for trade and aid
• Oil dependency highlighted in oil crisis of early 1970s (see Jones,
A. (2001) Eating Oil. Sustain, London; and AEA (2005) The Validity of Food
Miles as an indicator of Sustainability.)
• CAP production subsidies until 2003 ⟹ surpluses, global
dumping, falling food prices for consumers. Supermarket
dominance and foreign direct investment (FDI) (see Neil Wrigley).
• CAP reform from 2003 ⟹ decoupling of subsidy from
production and link to environmental stewardship, farming as
a multifunctional activity
Plenty, healthy, quality?
More or less falling consumer prices until 2000s, but derivatives and CIFs cause price
volatility following the 2007-8 financial crisis.
Environmental degradation (Carson 1966), food safety scares, growth of organic movement
from 1990s (see Julie Guthman 2002 and Gill Seyfang 2006…)
‘Quality turn’ and shift from public to individualised concerns in 2000s – health, lifestyle,
‘alternative hedonism’ (Soper 2004)
Lack of diversity in trade – 97% of all food in UK sold in 10 supermarkets.
Obesity/famine paradox, food poverty - the rise of social food co-ops in the absence of
policy (e.g. see Elizabeth Dowler and Martin Caraher and allies). COVID exacerbating this.
Plenty, healthy,
quality? (2)
Public health concerns around dietary intake affected by
structural and social changes:
• Fewer people work in industrial settings and other jobs which
feed workers. Traditional family structures are changing. Postmodern
cities and working arrangements. ‘On the hoof ‘ eating,
convenience shopping. COVID ⟹ routine home-working.
• Move from 1980s (in UK) away from institutionalised public
catering to consumer choice, lowest price tendering and deskilling
kitchen labour. School cooks ⟹ food assembly workers
(Morgan and Sonnino 2008).
• By highlighting choice, the state moved some public health
responsibilities to the private domain.
Food in the public health arena
Spatial/social health inequality
Bambra, C. and Orton, C. ( 2016) A train Journey through
the English health divide: Topographical map.
Environment and Planning A 48(5) 811–814
In their 2016 paper, Bambra
and Orton outline differences
in regional life expectancy in
England, mapped through the
train network.
• Wigan 80.9 years
• London 86 years
Q: If we assume some of these
differences could be linked to
food, what might be the foodrelated
causes of these
differences?
Household food insecurity
‘More than 8m people in Britain struggle to
put enough food on the table… half
regularly go a whole day without eating…’
Guardian newspaper 22nd March 2017
Food insecurity: ‘the inability to acquire
or eat an adequate quality or sufficient
quantity of food in socially acceptable
ways’ (Dowler & O’Connor 2012)
Oxfam (2013) and the Church of
England (2018) link food poverty and
the rise of food donation projects to
welfare reforms.
COVID has made a bad picture worse:
unemployment, stockpiling, supply
chain mobility, price rises: ‘Lockdown
has led to 503 million more (+38%) inhome
meals eaten per week creating
further pressures on food supplies’
(Power et al. 2020)
CO2 vs. social justice
Source: The Guardian 8th Feb ‘11
Environmental impacts
Guardian 22nd March 2018
‘Have you eaten the Amazon today?’
www.vegetarianformeatlovers.weebly.com
13
Circular farming in the
Netherlands
Different scales/aspects of food
security (overlaps)
Global/international National Household
• Trade –
barriers/alliances?
• Distribution – on
what basis?
• Environmental
factors – eg drought,
deforestation, soils
• Population rises
• Migration patterns
• Self-sufficiency
• (Brexit)
• Subsidy/tariffs
• Land avail’ty/quality
• Skills and labour
• Retail structure
(supermarkets?)
• Fuel consumption
• Income
• Family structures
• Nutrition
• Eating (cultural)
preferences
• Access
• Knowledge
COVID-19
Food system issues
Production
Processing &
manufacture
Distribution
Advertising &
marketing
Well-being Social justice Environ. Sust. Resilience
Impact of pesticides
on nearby residents
Poor labour
conditions
Dependence on
gang-masters
Degradation (soil,
water, over-fishing)
Habitat destruct’n
Highly energy
intensive
Dependence on
migrant labour
More processing =
harder to control salt
fat sugar
consumption
Dependence on
global trade
Road intensive =
noise, pollution,
traffic
Power balance
against producers
Carbon intensive Fuel cost
Junk food adverts
target children
Power balance
against small or
indep. shops
Consolidation of
retail sector
High levels of waste
& packingDisposal
Sustainable Food
Food culture issues
Cooking
Eating
Meaning
Sustainable Food
Well-being Social justice Environ. Sust. Resilience
Poor avail. of healthy
food in disadvantaged
areas
Low income =
inadequate for healthy
diet
Expectation of yearround
avail. of all
products
Time poverty = more
consumption of
prepared foods
Falling levels of
food ‘literacy’
Loss of eating together Fuel cost
Disconnection to rural
and farming issues
Homogenisation of
food & places
Shopping
Post-normal science?
• The best way forward seems uncertain – who are the
winners and losers? Science is behind practice.
• But the need is very urgent and there are multiple legitimate
perspectives (Funtowicz & Ravetz 1993)
• One thing we can say, therefore, is that the decision-making
process about where we go next needs to be democratised.
• This brings us finally to local and alternative approaches to
sustainable food. How do local networks try to forge a
sustainable food system based on more democracy and
shared values?
Key beliefs in local and sustainable food
• It is better (healthier) to eat a more rather than a less
diversified diet
• It is better (healthier) to eat fresh food rather than
preserved/prepared food
• It is better (less environ. damaging, & food chain more
transparent) to eat food produced closer to rather than
further from the point of consumption
• It is better (healthier, and less environmentally damaging)
to eat food produced with a minimum of pesticides
• It is better (less environmentally damaging) to eat food
produced with a minimum of inorganic fertilisers
• It is better (more socially just) to eat food produced,
processed and/or marketed by smaller-local rather than
larger-international operations
(Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming, London.)
NGO and market innovations
• Farmers’ markets
• Hyperbolic organic sales (mainstreaming) (until 2008)
• Box schemes
• CSA and buying groups (growth during COVID)
• Public food procurement (FFL, SFT, free school meals)
• Food access co-ops
NGOs as civil society agitators → under-paid market
innovators?
In summary…
Food is complex – farming, nutrition, education, consumption,
industry, diet, culture, shopping, politics, income, town planning,
waste, political activism…
"...the concept of a base-line sustainability standard is non-sense,
as sustainability is an aspirational open-ended agenda involving
trade-offs and a range of potentially conflicting priorities...” Smith, B.
(2008) Developing Sustainable Food Supply Chains. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society for
Biological Sciences. 363, pp. 849-861.
“What is most pressing is alliances that move local food beyond a single-issue
topic. This overcomes defensive localism autarky, articulating instead local food
as part of place-centred community resilience…” Jones et al. (2021) Resilience and
Transformation: Lessons form, the UK local food sector in the COVID-19 pandemic. Geographical
Journal https://doi.org/10.1111/geoj.12428
Questions?