Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
speaks to issues about food miles, but also the cultural inheritance of food that un-
derlies the growth of Slow Food and related movements. The 'food renaissance' also
speaks to the importance of re-embedding food as a key glue for social relationships
(Prety 2002; Dowler,
et al.
, 2009).
Our proposed food utopia can help bridge the two broad categories (incremental
and transformational) of hange identiied in
Table 14.1
and facilitate the engage-
ment of their respective proponents in arriving at a solution to world hunger. Of
course we can't discard the existing food system just because it is failing. There is
muh to be commended in terms of our ability to measure what is and is not work-
ing and these good things need to be retained. And there is no certainty that we will
ever see the ahievement of a perfectly responsible and fair global food system. But
one of the great powers of imagination is envisioning where we might be headed
- thinking the unthinkable helps move away from that whih is broken. When you
plan a holiday, typically you hoose a place to go and then use a set of criteria (speed,
comfort, aesthetic appeal) to decide on the best way to arrive at the travel destina-
tion. A utopia works in muh the same way - we have to envision an ideal endpoint
before we can even start on our way there. Further, a food utopia framework moves
us away from the neoliberal assumptions that hide the inequality and failed prom-
ises behind the simplicity of its economic language. To properly feed the world, we
must admit that too many suffer from hunger and that this situation is a problem
worthy of our collective efforts. Hungry people are not a mere externality of a sys-
tem that is yet to work perfectly.
Our contributors' hapters provide an incisive assessment of both the failings of
business-as-usual and the remaining sources of hope in the existing food system.
Our lak of appreciation of the socio-ecological nature of the food system (Prety)
encourages a focus on the economic and productive outcomes while ignoring the en-
vironmental (Lawrence
et al
.,) and social (Wald
et al
.,) costs of production. By valu-
ing free trade despite its tremendous laws (Prithard, Lawrence
et al
.,), we ignore
the problems it causes in local areas (Smith and Lyons). By conflating development
(typically food aid) and economic growth (free trade) we create volatility in com-
modity prices as described in McMihael, and Neilson and Ariin. If we conceive
of food as a human right (Mahon, Wald
et al
.,) and move away from food security
as only a nutritional threshold (Butler and Dixon) we open up space for locally re-
spondent creativity (Thornton). To reconceptualize an ideal food system is to re-en-
