food as a commons: a paradigm for a fair and sustainable transition

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JOSE LUIS VIVERO POL PhD Research Fellow in Food Governance

FOOD AS A COMMONS

A paradigm for a fair and sustainable transition

Phot

o: S

heng

hen

Lin,

Flic

kr

Commons are material / non-material resources, jointly developed and maintained by a community/society and shared according to community-defined rules, irrespective of their mode of production (private, public or commons-based means), because they benefit everyone and are fundamental to society’s wellbeing

3Photo: ukhvlid, Creative Commons, Flickr

Scholars’ & People’s CommonsPeople have commons in common (diversity)

Academics have theorized from different epistemologies (schools of thought) • Historical Approach (describing institutional diversity)• Legal Approach (slighly reductionist, mostly a duopoly)• Economic Approach (highly reductionist, mostly a monopoly)• Political Approach (recognising diversity of social arrangements)• Activist Approach (struggle for old commons, inventing new

commons): praxis & theory as counter-hegemonic and alter-hegemonic to capitalism (neoliberalism)

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Economic School: reductionist + theoretical

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25% of Galicia is onwed in communal property

Private property

Legal Approach

9% of Europe is communal

property

Different epistemologies, confusing vocabularies

• Water: private good (ECO), public-private-collective ownership with different bundle of rights (LEG), public good (POL), commons (HIS)

• Knowledge: public good (ECO), public-private-collective (LEG), public-private (POL), commons (HIS)

• Health/Education: public goods (ECO), public goods provided by public & private means (POL), non-defined propietary regimes (LEG), private goods (HIS)

• Food: private good (ECO), private good provided by private, public & collective means (POL), public-private-collective properties (LEG), public-private-collective owned & manged (HIS)

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AIR

WATER

FOOD

SUNLIGHT

Commodity

Commons

Culture

Food dimensionsHuman Need

Human Right

Natural resource

Food as a commodity mono-dimensional approach whereby economic dimension of food prevails and overshadows non-economic dimensions.

Price (value-in-exchange)

11Photo: Dean Hochman, Flickr

Food as a commons means revalorising different dimensions relevant to human beings (value-in use) & reducing the commodity dimension (value-in exchange)

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Food commons are what a society does collectively, through private, state and self-regulated provision, to guarantee everybody eats adequately in quantity and quality everyday

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Consideration of food as commodity is social construct that can / shall be

reconceived

WHY?Foto: Finabocci Blue Flickr Creative Commons

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Food is essential for human life…

… so access to food cannot be exclusively determined by the purchasing power

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Only the economic dimensionObjectification & commodification of food,

depriving & neglecting the other dimensions

Every food has a priceMaximizing profit not nutrition

(value in exchange dissociated from value in use)

Food is rival & excludable Economic concept VS political, legal and

historical approaches

Food access is the main problemAmple consensus in science & policy makers:

access is limited by price, law & property

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The actual way of producing, distributing

and eating food is unsustainable and it

cannot be maintained as a such for the next 50

years IAASTD (2008)

UNEP (2009)

UNCTAD (2013)UK Foresight (2011)

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Planetary Boundaries

Climate Change

Oil Peak

Radical changeUK GovIAASTD

Business as usualIncrease productivityImprove access

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The TRANSITION towards a fairer & more sustainable food system needs a different narrative

Recognizing & valuing the multiple dimensions of food = FOOD AS A COMMONS

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Industrial Food System Food Commons System

Mono-dimensional Food as a commodity (value in exchange)

Multi-dimensional Food as a commons (value in use)

TRANSITION

TRANSITION MOVEMENT

Contemporary collective actions

for food (urban consumers)

Alter-hegemonic + gradual

Food as a commons

The Globalised

Industrial Food

System

a. Contemporary

Food Civic Actions (urban)

b. Customary

Food Producing

Systems (rural)

Food as a commodity

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Food as a new old commons (innovative + historic)

Sustainable agricultural practices (agro-ecology) Open-source knowledge (creative commons licenses) Polycentric governance (states, enterprises, civic actions)

Social MarketEnterprisesSupply-demand Food as private good

Public

Private

Not f

or p

rofitForm

alFo

r pro

fitInform

al

Collective actionsCommunitiesReciprocityFood as common good

Partner StateRedistribution Citizens welfareFood as public good

Tri-centric Governance of Food Commons

Systems

Incentives, subsidies, Enabling legal frameworks

Limiting privatization of commons

Farmers as civil servantsBanning food speculation

Minimum free food for all citizens

Local purchaseRights-based Food

banks

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The Re-Commonification of

Food will take generations

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Considering FOOD as a COMMONS may be utopical…But is the right thing to do and the best goal to aspire

Eduardo Galeano Uruguayan writer and activist

“Utopia lies at the horizon.When I draw nearer by two steps,it retreats two steps.No matter how far I go, I can never reach it.What, then, is the purpose of utopia?It is to cause us to advance.”