CIVIL SOCIETY ROLES IN TRANSITION
Dr Rachael Durrant, University of Sussex
Overview
1. Introduce the topic – shift thinking
2. Present a new framework that I developed
3. Talk through some case studies
4. Relate this to wider debates about food policy
5. Invite your feedback
Why transition?
Industry vs Nature (image from La Via Campesina website, courtesy of Grupo de Reflexión Rural)
Global search for solutions
Mounting calls for transition to sustainable food…
Civil society organisations (CSOs)
State
Civil
Society
Market
Paton’s Three Sector Model
Figure 1. The three sector model (after Paton, 2009)
CSOs
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Civil society
• a distinguishable yet inherently open
and changeable arena
• defined in relation to state and
market arenas and always
intertwined with them in practice
• people freely form themselves into
groups in order to connect around
divergent notions of the public good
• diversity and hybrid forms are
generated
are governed and managed independently of the state
do not distribute profits to shareholders
encompass a degree of voluntarism
exist largely to pursue notions of the public good
UK-based CSOs in food and farming
£300-700 million is spent per year
on activities related to sustainable
food and farming by somewhere in
the region of 10-25,000 CSOs
Total spend on food advertising
UK £727 million in 2003
Total value agro-food goods &
Activities that:
servs UK £89.1 billion in 2009
• make an immediate difference on the ground
Total govt spending food & ag
• co-ordinate and facilitate
UK £5.42 billion in 2011
• change the rules of the game
“The focus seems to be on filling holes left in a food system
dominated by the private and public sectors, ahead of working to
influence and change that system”
Food Ethics Council, Brighton, 2011
http://www.foodissuescensus.org/
Theory of ‘transition’
After Geels (2002)
Trends and events
Food scares
Climate
change
Current
food
regime
Neoliberal
trade policy
Innovations
New Govmt
Financial crisis
(Sustainable)
Future food
regime
Supermarkets
Junk food
Biodynamics
food coops
Permaculture
land-sharing
seed swaps
Social equity
Environmental
integrity
Personal
wellbeing
Civil society roles in transition
Durrant (2014)
Raising awareness and mobilising peoples’ support through attention-grabbing stunts, storytelling, celebrity patronage, e-zines and online petitions
Certification and labelling of products, outlets and supply chains using alternative
standards and assurance schemes
Educating and re-skilling people through the provision of information, guidance and advice in
food outlets, at public events and through public institutions
Incorporation of alternative assessment systems into commercial standards
Public institutions
Consumers
Incorporation of alternative criteria into procurement rules for public sector
institutions and major public events
Policy-makers
Industries
Promoting alternatives to people through advertisements, events and celebrations, public
demonstrations and permanent displays
Businesses
Generating moralistic pressure by publicly championing and promoting ‘good’ businesses and
practices, naming and shaming ‘bad’ businesses and practices, and opposing undesirable
developments
Norm
Influencing policy-making processes by hosting policy development platforms, providing tools
for decision-making, responding to government consultations and submitting
evidence for
challenging
planning procedures
Delivering commissionable service packages (including food service, food
education, business development, and so on) for local authorities so they can
meet their health and wellbeing obligations
Corporations
Convening multi-stakeholder platforms to drive dissemination of alternative
criteria in the UK and beyond the UK
Regime
reform
Advocating specific policy changes by publishing reports and political manifestos, giving public
talks and media interviews, issuing press releases, and lobbying politicians directly
Biodynamic/organic/low-carbon agriculture and horticulture, aquaponics, farm
diversification, and growing trials for novel crops
Consumption
Providing accredited horticultural and agricultural training programmes (including distancelearning and residential courses), un-accredited cooking and growing workshops/courses,
apprenticeship schemes and volunteer and staff development programmes
Personnel
Peri-urban farming, urban market gardening, and food-growing on urban micro-sites
Communal growing in gardens, allotments and orchards
Production
Direct marketing through farm shops, box schemes and farmers’ markets; co-operative retail
Garden-sharing and seed swapping amongst individuals
operations
Trade, distrib’n, retail
Local diet challenge, community dining events
Grassroots
Co-operative governance
innovation
Food waste collection
Community consultation
Communal ownership by shares
Care-farming
Models
Improving knowledge of alternative models by commissioning research, collating case studies,
co-ordinating trials and running breeding programmes
Niche
development
Networks
Providing guidance and technical assistance for practitioners through helplines, online and
printed resources (including toolkits and how-to guides), knowledge transfer programmes
(peer-to-peer and expert-led), and formal standards and guidelines
Infrastructures
Establishing formal members’ networks (place-based and nationwide) through online
networking platforms, e-zines and network-building events
Facilitating new partnerships between network members and networking local supply bases
Providing secure land tenure at below-market rates, start-up funding, specialist inputs
Assisting with community planning processes, supporting funding bids
UK case study…
Key
Social movement
Policy/issue field
Geographical area
Relationships between organisations
Landscape
Regime
Niche practices
Transformation
Review
1. CSOs play important roles in transition
2. They are adaptive and strategic in combining
the roles to achieve their missions
3. They work together to exploit synergies
between the roles, exchanging ideas and
resources
4. Over time they have created innovation
pathways that influence the mainstream
What does this mean for food policy?
• Long history of ‘Productionism’ in UK food policy, coupled with
Neoliberal trade policy
• Lead roles for central governments, multinational business, hightech science (sustainable intensification) - civil society viewed as
delivery vehicle for top-down agenda, and/or ‘social conscience’
What about civil society-led initiatives?
• Inappropriate focus on quantity of food, of improved
sustainability credentials, CSOs are involved in producing
• Ignorance of other important factors:
o wider benefits of ethical food consumption, civic involvement in food
systems and related social activism
o the different forms of systemic innovation through which CSOs
influence food provision and contribute towards sustainability
Food policy ‘asks’
What if policy:
• Viewed civil society as a source, incubator, champion and
translator of innovations – rather than treating CSOs as (variously)
irrelevant, expedient delivery partners, or just troublesome?
• Judged CSOs in terms of their collective contributions to system
innovation, rather than focussing volumes of food produced?
• Recognised the mutually reinforcing nature of the different roles
that CSOs play in transitions to sustainability?
• Acknowledged the need to support a diversity of approaches?
What would this look like in practice?