Holt-Giménez explores racism and capitalism within the food movement. He claims that we should explore the intersection of capitalism and racism and how global supermarket oligopolies prevent certain populations from accessing healthy food. In short, “the food system cannot be changed in isolation from the larger economic system” (3). This sentence resonated with me as I believe that we should explore the relationships between local and global food networks. It is not sufficient to simply address an issue on a purely local scale as this will only benefit a select group of people. When we met last summer in San Francisco, he explained to us how Food First provides support to community-based food movements and organizations. (He was one of our guest speakers in the IHP Climate Change: The Politics of Food Water and Energy program I participated in last fall).
Holt-Giménez’s commentary reminded me of a reflection I had about a week ago. On our second “fifth day”, we visited the Berry Center in New Castle, KY. Having little to no prior knowledge on farmers’ economic situations in rural Kentucky, I learned a lot from this experience. Mary Berry provided extensive information on the economic hardships her region is facing. For those who are not familiar, Kentucky is loosing farmland at a faster rate than any other state. Farmers are becoming poorer as fewer people choose to stay in rural areas. Mary Berry believes that part of the solution is for more young people to become farmers and for everyone to eat local. Personally, I do not feel like this addresses the issue of food injustice and racism. Few people have the luxury of having access to local food. Simply buying local will not uproot the social, economic, and political foundations of the globalized capitalist market. In the words of Agyeman, “In many circumstances, the food justice movement operates to reject the neoliberal mechanisms that dominate today’s food system, but simultaneously needs to operate within this system (to a degree) in order to exist” (211). Rejecting the global supermarket structure by only buying local is not sufficient to create real sustainable change. Food injustice and racism is a global issue, so we should explore global solutions.
I really appreciate both your comments, Raphaelle, and your response, Fredy. Both of you offer important insights. My feeling is that the relation of local food and farming to global food realities is a question so vast and complex that it resembles one of those riddles Zen teachers call koans: complexities we need to carry in our hearts and minds, day after day, in a sustained and sincere struggle to integrate them into our lives.
I completely agree that there’s a connection between the economic and food systems both locally and globally. I think that understanding this connection is essential to the achievement of real positive change in the food system. However, I don’t think that we should undermine the importance of looking for local solutions and alternatives to or food system in order to find a global one which may be just unattainable.
The value -and beauty- of the local food movement lies in that it presents an alternative to the globalized food system that promotes the consumption of foods from the other side of the globe without any regards to the socio-economic repercussions this may have in the people producing this food. Local food can be a way to change the food and economic systems, providing models that could be replicated in other places once adapted to the realities of these places.