Routledge Handbook of Food as a Commons: Expanding Approaches

by Jose Luis Vivero-Pol (Editor), Tomaso Ferrando (Editor), Olivier De Schutter (Editor)

From the scientific and industrial revolution to the present day, food - an essential element of life - has been progressively transformed into a private, transnational, mono-dimensional commodity of mass consumption for a global market. But over the last decade there has been an increased recognition that this can be challenged and reconceptualized if food is regarded and enacted as a commons.

This Handbook provides the first comprehensive review and synthesis of knowledge and new thinking on how food and food systems can be thought, interpreted and practiced around the old/new paradigms of commons and commoning. The overall aim is to investigate the multiple constraints that occur within and sustain the dominant food and nutrition regime and to explore how it can change when different elements of the current food systems are explored and re-imagined from a commons perspective. Chapters do not define the notion of commons but engage with different schools of thought:



the economic approach, based on rivalry and excludability;



the political approach, recognizing the plurality of social constructions and incorporating epistemologies from the South;



the legal approach that describes three types of proprietary regimes (private, public and collective) and different layers of entitlement (bundles of rights);



and the radical-activist approach that considers the commons as the most subversive, coherent and history-rooted alternative to the dominant neoliberal narrative.

These schools have different and rather diverging epistemologies, vocabularies, ideological stances and policy proposals to deal with the construction of food systems, their governance, the distributive implications and the socio-ecological impact on Nature and Society.

The book sparks the debate on food as a commons between and within disciplines, with particular attention to spaces of resistance (food sovereignty, de-growth, open knowledge, transition town, occupations, bottom-up social innovations) and organizational scales (local food, national policies, South-South collaborations, international governance and multi-national agreements). Overall it shows the consequences in terms of food, planet and living beings of a shift to the alternative paradigm of food as a commons.

424 pages, Paperback

Published September 30, 2020

Reviews

[Shelhorowitzgreenmkt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Food is usually considered either a market-based commodity or a government-supplied necessity. The authors describe a third option: food as a resource collectively governed by producers and consumers, perpetuating age-old traditions and cultures while adapting to modern times with a need to manage resources for sustainability. They combine a holistic, global analysis with an openly communitarian, anti-capitalist, anti-mega-agribiz bias that may disturb some readers—but even if you’re totally pro-capitalist, they show alternative models of functioning within established markets. It’s also intersectional (examining the sometimes-conflicting needs of human rights, poverty eradication, and regenerative agricultural practices) and examines both historical and contemporary perspectives, going back to the enclosure acts that removed land from the commons hundreds of years ago—and recognizing that eating is not only a nutritional act, but also a way of preserving culture and building community at the same time.

This important resource isn’t a traditional anthology (where each chapter is disembodied), but a true collaboration; the authors consistently refer to each other’s chapters. I found that very refreshing. I’d even call it an act of love.

The book is also a major research work, with hundreds of notes and references (mercifully separated out at the end of each chapter). It draws case studies from around the world (among them Canada, Cuba, Hungary, South Africa, the UK, and the US), some in considerable depth and others in brief overviews.

A few among many points (noting the first time each shows up in my notes, as many show up several times throughout the book), including some that I agree with and some I have concerns about:

- Food solutions can help solve many other planetary crises (p. 16)
- Commodification both raises prices and erodes community values (p. 26)
- Food scarcity is artificial; much is wasted and/or poorly distributed (p. 33)
- Commoning can reinvent food systems (p. 43)
- Current approaches to charity food distribution and food waste are unacceptable because they stigmatize poor people and inflict low-quality, often culturally inappropriate food on folks who see no other choice (pp. 48-49); both charity and agriculture must also be designed to pay workers fairly (p. 124) and not to silence poor people or acquiesce to oppression (p. 128)
- Local governments can have a major impact; several cities have signed the Milan Urban Food Policy Act to create a sustainable and just urban food system (p. 78); good local governance can make charity unnecessary (p. 122) or place restrictions on or eliminate subsidies to large multinational food businesses (p. 125)
- Treating food as a public good means addressing freeloaders and hoarders, as well as corporations that privatize profit but socialize costs (p. 88); that’s more likely if it’s organized as a commons (p. 96)
- To understand poverty, study the rich and the industrializers (pp. 142-143)
- Traditional culture is not a cure-all; issues like gender equality (p. 151), resource depletion, low productivity, and encroachment by corporate junk food, high-meat diets, etc. need to be addressed
Successful commons are typically self-governed and solve conflicts through resource-management rules that address four components: the resource, community, rules that govern access, and the value the resource creates (pp. 174-175); they don’t have to be homogeneous (p. 198)
- Big Ag’s privatizing of resources through patenting, enclosures, and other methods can be thought of as a theft of traditional agricultural knowledge (p. 176), often drawing on traditional methods and seeds but sequestering that knowledge and those resources (p. 218, p. 221); its emphasis on developing pesticide-resistant plants is an attack on the environment and public health (p. 192)

Since my review is already long, I’ll skip my notes on the second half of the book, many of which deal with country/region-specific practices.

One big criticism: This topic was so fascinating that I took ten pages of notes. BUT I also put up with a very un-reader-friendly writing style (mired in dense academese) and spent five months reading just a few pages at a time to get all the way through it. I would love to see more academics write for ordinary human beings with the goals of readability and content absorption.