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We Are What We Eat: Cultivating Well-being and Happiness through Sustainable Food Systems
by
Jo Anne Mallari Tacorda
A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts
Graduate Department of Adult Education and Community Development
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education University of Toronto
© Copyright by Jo Anne Mallari Tacorda 2015
ii
We Are What We Eat: Cultivating Well-being and Happiness
through Sustainable Food Systems
Jo Anne Mallari Tacorda
Master of Arts
Adult Education and Community Development
University of Toronto
2015
Abstract
If the systems that we build, including food systems, are meant to support and reflect our
ideologies and theories, then contemporary interest in well-being and happiness cannot be
ignored. If we want well-being to flourish and to be happy then the foods we eat must also be
produced, processed and consumed in this way. This thesis critically examines if and how well-
being and happiness are being facilitated through food systems driven by neoliberalism, food
security and food sovereignty. This thesis uses systems thinking to identify the elements and
relationships within each food system and applies a critical theory lens to delineate the power
within those relationships. Each system is then evaluated using Dr. Jennifer Sumner’s theoretical
model of sustainability to understand if and how they promote the three building blocks of
sustainability – counter-hegemony, dialogue and life values – and thus well-being and happiness.
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my professor and supervisor, Dr. Jennifer Sumner, and my second reader,
Dr. Mustafa Koç, whose research has illuminated my understanding of food systems. Thank you
for your insights and thoughtful feedback throughout the thesis writing process.
I would also like to dedicate this thesis to all my loved ones. Thank you to my mom who models
inner strength and has instilled a fiery and fearless attitude in me. Her words of encouragement to
“keep going” propel me through life and empower me to achieve goals that sometimes seem just
beyond my grasp. I would also like to thank my dad who continues to teach me the value of hard
work, generosity and humility and who taught me to “hold yourself up to your own standards and
no one else’s”. A special thanks also goes to my brother, Leo, who has taught me that the pursuit
of knowledge and fun can be one in the same. My gratitude also goes out to Jesse Jennings who
grounds me, teaches me to appreciate the small things in life and whose artistic talents continue
to amaze me. I would also like to thank him for acknowledging that “many of our conversations
blossom from [my] schooling” and for his kindness and patience through it all.
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments .......................................................................................................................... iii
Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................... iv
Prologue .......................................................................................................................................... 1
Chapter 1 We Are What We Eat ..................................................................................................... 4
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 4
Purpose of Study ............................................................................................................................. 6
Research Objectives ........................................................................................................................ 6
Theoretical Approach: Critical Theory and Systems Thinking ...................................................... 7
Strategy for analysis ................................................................................................................... 9
Methodology ............................................................................................................................ 10
Ethical Considerations ............................................................................................................. 13
Limitations of this Research..................................................................................................... 13
Conclusion................................................................................................................................ 14
Chapter 2 Food Systems and Well-being and Happiness ............................................................. 15
Understanding Food Systems through Systems Thinking ............................................................ 15
Well-being and Happiness ............................................................................................................ 17
Utilitarian Theory ..................................................................................................................... 17
Discussion ......................................................................................................................... 17
Critique ............................................................................................................................. 19
Agential Flourishing................................................................................................................. 21
Discussion ......................................................................................................................... 21
Critique ............................................................................................................................. 22
Capabilities Approach .............................................................................................................. 23
Discussion ......................................................................................................................... 23
Critique ............................................................................................................................. 25
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Sumner's Theoretical Model of Sustainability ......................................................................... 26
Discussion ......................................................................................................................... 26
Critique ............................................................................................................................. 28
The Three Building Blocks ...................................................................................................... 28
Counter-Hegemony ........................................................................................................... 28
Dialogue ............................................................................................................................ 31
Life Values ........................................................................................................................ 32
Conclusion................................................................................................................................ 33
Chapter 3 An Evaluation of The Neoliberal Food System ........................................................... 34
Hegemony ..................................................................................................................................... 34
Dialogue ........................................................................................................................................ 37
Life Values .................................................................................................................................... 42
Conclusion: System Malfunction .................................................................................................. 45
Chapter 4 An Evaluation of Food Security ................................................................................... 47
Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 47
Hegemony ..................................................................................................................................... 48
Dialogue ........................................................................................................................................ 50
Life Values .................................................................................................................................... 53
Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 55
Chapter 5 An Evaluation of Food Sovereignty ............................................................................. 57
Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 57
Hegemony ..................................................................................................................................... 58
Dialogue ........................................................................................................................................ 61
Life Values .................................................................................................................................... 63
Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 65
Chapter 6 Conclusion: Building Sustainable Food Systems ......................................................... 66
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Epilogue ........................................................................................................................................ 69
Works Cited .................................................................................................................................. 70
Appendix 1: Sumner’s Theoretical Model of Sustainability ........................................................ 80
Copyright Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................... 81
1
Prologue
‘An American investment banker was at the pier of a small coastal
Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked.
Inside the boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The American
complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked him
how long it took to catch them.
The Mexican replied, “Only a little while.”
The American then asked why didn’t he stay out longer and catch
more fish.
The Mexican said he had enough to support his family’s immediate
needs.
The American then asked, “But what do you do with the rest of
your time?”
The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with
my children, take siesta with my wife Maria, stroll into the village
each evening, where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos. I
have a full and busy life.”
The American scoffed, “I am a Harvard MBA and could help you.
You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds buy a
bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy
several boats, and eventually you would have a fleet of fishing
boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell
direct to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You
would control the product, processing and distribution. You would
need to leave this small coastal village and move to Mexico City,
then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding
enterprise.”
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The Mexican fisherman asked, “But how long will this all take?”
To which the American replied, “From to 15 to 20 years.”
“But what then?”
The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the
time is right you would sell your company stock to the public and
become very rich. You would make millions.”
“Millions…then what?”
The American said, “Then you would retire. Move to a small
coastal village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with
your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the
evenings where you could sip wine and play guitar with your
amigos.” - Author Unknown (McFarlane 25-26).
The parable of the fisherman and investment banker has been interpreted in many ways. To some
“[i]t brilliantly illustrates the illusions we so easily fall into when pursuing wealth and financial
freedom…and [how we] forget the end game is happiness and a fulfilling life (Tresidder “The
Parable”). Others have critiqued its over simplification and romanticized notion of the simple life
(Hamm “Some Thoughts”). For this thesis, the parable serves as a launching pad into a deeper
discussion about food systems and its relation to well-being and happiness.
In the parable, a food producer is presented with two paths to a full and rich life. In one, the
traditional fisherman has time for his family and friends but risks future financial instability in
the face of unforeseen hardships. In this path, it is unclear how the fisherman will cope with the
growing concern of overcapitalization and overfishing in Mexican fisheries brought on by
neoliberal influenced law that “fails to establish ‘how much one can fish’” (Ibarra, Reid, and
Thorpe 19). His ability to compete with “the new and powerful interest groups that neo-liberal
policies have permitted to emerge within the sector” is also questionable (Ibarra, Reid, and
Thorpe 20). Must the fisherman give into the second path and become part of a neoliberal food
system as the American Investment banker advises? If he does, will the neoliberal food system
deliver on its promise of well-being and happiness in the future? Or is there another food system
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that can facilitate well-being and happiness for this fisherman, his family and his community that
does not fall into the trappings of neoliberalism? This thesis asks these questions and explores
the connection between food systems and well-being and happiness.
Chapter 1 will provide a detailed overview of the purpose, objectives, theoretical approach,
strategy for analysis, methodology, ethical considerations and limitations of this thesis. Chapter 2
will lay the conceptual groundwork of this thesis and will showcase a literature review of food
systems, systems thinking, well-being and happiness and Sumner’s theoretical model of
sustainability that prioritizes sustainability and well-being through the promotion of the civil
commons. Chapter 3 will unpack the neoliberal food system and will evaluate its ability to
support well-being and happiness against Sumner’s theoretical model of sustainability. Chapter 4
will build of the analysis in Chapter 3 and will evaluate a food system based on food security -
the first of two alternative food systems that will be studied in this thesis. Chapter 5 will study a
system based on food sovereignty, an emerging concept that has the potential to transform food
systems away from neoliberal influences, and discuss the potential it has to systematically
integrate well-being and happiness.
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Chapter 1 We Are What We Eat
Introduction
Food is multidimensional; it is essential to human life, facilitates social interaction and tethers us
to earth’s natural processes. To organize food, human societies create food systems which can be
as simple as hunter-gather arrangements or as complex as food systems facilitated through
international trade (Sumner, “Conceptualizing” 326). Humans interact with food systems
frequently since “eating is one of the most common human activities we engage in on a regular
basis” (Koç, Sumner and Winson xi). Although interactions with the food system happen
constantly, just a brief reflection on one’s relationship with food reveals that these interactions
are far from mundane as “food carries multiple levels of emotional, social, cultural, and political
meanings, intertwined with taste, memory, tradition, and ritual” (Brady, Gingras and Power 122).
Indeed, food systems are relational and “embody relations among humans and the environment”
(Sumner, “Sustainability” 327). The pervasiveness of the adage ‘you are what you eat’
demonstrates just how intimately relational food systems can be. Food and the study of food
systems are pedagogical tools that teach us about ourselves; unpacking the relational quality of
food systems reveals that ‘you are what you eat’ and, conversely, ‘you eat what you are’. This is
because food systems emerge from what societies declare as important, such as the dominant
theories and paradigms of a particular time, and in turn feed those theories and paradigms back
to us. This relational embodiment occurs because “a food system operates within, and is
influenced by, the social, political, economic and environmental context” (Goodman as cited in
Colonna, Fournier and Touzard 70). As such, a food system can be understood as an expression
of the dominant political economy and political ecology.
The influence of dominant ideology on food systems can be witnessed throughout human
history; in the last several decades the prevailing ideology of capitalism has greatly influence
how we conceptualize food and structure our food system. Capitalism can be understood as
the process that aims to accumulate the greatest profit in the least
amount of time. This is done by maximizing the spread between
the production cost and the selling price of a commodity, by
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expanding the market for the profitable commodity as quickly as
possible, and by increasing the speed at which a unit of capital
turns over (Albritton 92).
The relationship between capitalism and food is not new, journalist and food theorist Paul
Roberts argues that “food was our first form of wealth, and its production was our first economic
enterprise” (xiii). He also argues that it was agriculture that taught us the fundamentals of
capitalism including rudimentary economic organization, specialization, accounting and
management practices and the economic and political value that can be derived from trade and
speculation (P. Roberts xiii). He also points out that it was labour saving technology, large
production and global trade that saved Europe from famine when population started to increase
in the eighteenth century (P. Roberts xiii). Indeed, capitalism has greatly impacted humanity’s
relationship to food particularly in the way food is perceived. Under capitalism, food is viewed
and treated as a commodity. Since the 1970s, the ideology of neoliberalism has further embedded
the principles of capitalism into social structures, including modern food systems.
Neoliberalism is a political ideology and practice that can be described as an intensification of
capitalism through privatization, free market policies, deregulation, fiscal austerity and cuts in
social programs (Harvey, “A Brief History” 2 and Miles 3 Feb. 2014). This ideology emphasizes
principles of neoclassical economics and focuses on material and economic growth that
“promotes money values first and foremost” (Sumner, “Searching” 87). It asserts that human
well-being is best advanced by entrepreneurial freedom in a market-driven society (Harvey,
“Neo-liberalism” 145). Proponents of neoliberal ideology also argue that “[t]o become happy, as
any liberal will tell you, we must embrace the invisible hand of the market” (Binkley 163).
Neoliberalism is the key ideology driving the globalization project which is an ongoing process
of the “[transferring] of certain powers from nation states to international financial institutions
and corporations” (McMichael as cited in Fairbairn 18). The globalization project is corporate
globalization, also referred to a globalization from above (Sumner, “Sustainability” 43), in
action.
One of the effects of the globalization project is the emergence of the industrial, neoliberal food
system that removes the social and political barriers hindering the free flow of capital in food and
agriculture (Fairbairn 10). Since this food system is driven by neoliberal ideology, it can be
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assumed that its purpose is also to advance human well-being and happiness. The critical
question then becomes well-being and happiness for whom?
Purpose of Study
If the systems that we build, including food systems, are meant to support and reflect our
ideologies and theories, then the contemporary interest in well-being and happiness cannot be
ignored. The purpose of this thesis is to explore and evaluate the food system that perpetuates
principles of neoliberalism and alternative food systems that perpetuate principles of food
security and food sovereignty and if and how each facilitates and supports well-being and
happiness.
This research will contribute to food justice discourse and encourage food advocates, civil
servants, educators, business leaders, and citizens to pursue food systems that support well-being
and the pursuit of happiness, which the United Nations has declared “a fundamental human goal”
(UN News Centre).
Research Objectives
There are three main objectives of this thesis. The first objective is to unpack the neoliberal food
system and evaluate its ability to support well-being and happiness using Sumner’s theoretical
model of sustainability. The second objective is to evaluate two alternative food systems against
the neoliberal system to see if they have the potential to systematically integrate well-being and
happiness. The first system is based on food security and the second is based on food
sovereignty.
To achieve these first two objectives, I will ground my analysis in critical theory which “holds
that social problems often result from groups in society being constrained by social structures
and processes that they themselves construct and maintain” (Murray and Ozanne 129). Looking
at these three food systems is also important because critical theory helps to understand the
present, but also “move[s] beyond this understanding to reveal avenues of change” (Murray and
Ozanne 135). This exploration of alternatives coincides with the third objective which is to
identify how to change food systems to better facilitate well-being and happiness.
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Theoretical Approach: Critical Theory and Systems Thinking
This thesis aims to understand the inner workings of food systems and how those systems are
shaped by and reify social ideologies within their structures. More specifically, this thesis looks
at the neoliberal food system and its relationship to the concepts of well-being and happiness and
also explores alternative food systems guided by principles of food security and food
sovereignty. To illuminate the elements within the neoliberal food system, and the relationships
between those elements, I will use critical theory which is “a theory of history and society driven
by passionate commitment to understand how ideological systems and societal structures hinder
and impede the fullest development of humankind’s collective potential to be self-reflective and
self-determining historical actors” (Welton 1995a as cited in Sumner, “Sustainability” 135).
Critical theory is underpinned by key assumptions. One assumption is that
reality is enacted or socially produced, but in time these social
structures become stubborn, resist social change, and thus become
constraining. Unless reflection occurs, the meanings people
attribute to social structures change more slowly than the structures
themselves (Murray and Ozanne 133).
Another assumption is that
because past social creations constrain us, we are not free-wheeling
creators of our future...[but rather|…humans have the potential to
become anything they wish since we can never know the
fundamental nature of humans. Thus…human potential becomes
the measure of all things (Murray and Ozanne 133).
Critical theory also includes two value judgements, the first being “human life is worth living
[and second that] human life can be improved” (Murray and Ozanne 134).
Critical theory is fitting for my research because it very much supports the development of well-
being and happiness since it “seeks social change that will improve human life” (Murray and
Ozanne 130). Many critical theorists would argue that engaging with the question ‘well-being
8
and happiness for whom?’ is important because they “ground their work in a history of
philosophy and sociology that identifies the achievement of the ‘common good’ within
approaches that link human moral growth with enlightenment or critical rationality” (Regnier
50). From this perspective, well-being and happiness can be considered as common goods to be
experienced by all so that humanity can advance.
To strengthen my critical theory approach, I will draw on critical theorists, including Paulo
Freire who argues that people’s vocation is to be fully human and that freedom from oppression
is integral to humanizing the world (Freire 44). I will use Freire’s concept of conscientização, or
critical consciousness, to show that this question of well-being and happiness is actually a
question of power – who has it and who does not in the neoliberal food system. This question of
power is important since “the more powerful sectors may often reproduce society in a way that
solidifies their dominance” (Murray and Ozanne 123). In critical research, understanding
potentially constraining social conditions can be done by uncovering contradictions which can be
catalysts for change (Murray and Ozanne 129). A productive way to unearth the contradictions
and unveil power structures in the neoliberal food systems is through systems thinking.
A systems thinking approach is integral to this thesis because it supports critical theory through
providing “the freedom to identify root causes of problems and see opportunities” (Meadows 2).
By unraveling systems, systems thinking can become “a critical tool in addressing the many
environmental, political, social, and economic challenges we face around that world” (Wright in
Meadows xi).
Systems thinker, Donella Meadows, suggests that a system has three essential aspects: elements,
interconnections, and a function or purpose (Meadows 11). Meadows uses the analogy of a
football team to describe how these aspects form a system.
A football team is a system with elements such as players, coach,
field, and ball. Its interconnections are the rules of the game, the
coach’s strategy, the players’ communications, and the laws of
physics that govern the motions of ball and players. The purpose of
the team is to win games, or have fun, or get exercise, or make
millions of dollars, or all of the above (Meadows 11).
9
The key interconnected elements in food systems include corporations, governmental bodies,
food producers and food eaters. The function or purpose can be generating profit, providing good
livelihoods, feeding a population or all of the above. To understand how the system runs,
Meadows warns against struggling to identity all the elements of a system and suggests that it is
more productive to try to understand the relationships between the elements instead (Meadows
13). This understanding is important in critical theory because it is an “interdisciplinary
perspective [which] is a systematic critique of social conditions that aims to help people envision
a better society” (Murray and Ozanne 129).
It is also important to note that critical theory does not merely result in a description of social
conditions but is also forward thinking. In this way critical theory “explicitly declares an
emancipatory interest; that is, its aim is to release constraints on human freedom and potential”
(Murray and Ozanne 129). While this emancipatory aspect of critical theory is important, it has
also been critiqued as a point of weakness. The problem “involves how one moves from abstract
theory to concrete social change” (Murray and Ozanne 141). To overcome this limitation, this
thesis once again invokes systems thinking. Systems thinking is integral to this emancipatory
process because it reveals leverage points within a system “where a small change could lead to a
large shift in behavio[u]r” (Meadows 145). This thesis studies two alternative food systems
based on food security and food sovereignty to understand if they have better leverage points to
facilitate well-being and happiness than the neoliberal food system that is dominant today.
Strategy for analysis
To achieve the objectives outlined above, this thesis uses systems thinking to unpack and
identify the elements and relationships within food systems driven by neoliberalism, food
security and food sovereignty. A critical theory lens is also applied to delineate the power within
those relationships. To evaluate the three food systems and their ability to facilitate well-being
and happiness, this thesis utilizes Dr. Jennifer Sumner’s theoretical model of sustainability for a
critical understanding sustainability. Sumner’s concept of sustainability is important to this
research because “sustainability can result in increased individual and community well-being”
(Sumner, “Sustainability” 2). Indeed, Sumner argues that “[w]ell-being is not only associated
with sustainability, but is also the portal to the realization of human potential. It is the connection
10
between the concrete world that is and the utopian world that could be” (Sumner,
“Sustainability” 34).
Sumner’s model was conceptualized through utopian thinking, which like critical theory, seeks
out alternatives that support the realization of human potential (Sumner, “Sustainability” 12).
The model suggests that sustainability can be built on the building blocks of counter-hegemony,
dialogue and life values (Sumner, “Sustainability” 159). The building blocks within Sumner’s
theoretical model of sustainability interact to create and maintain the civil commons which
“provides crescent spaces where individual and community well-being can flourish, and the
utopian project can be realized” (Sumner, “Sustainability” 263). In this way, Sumner’s model
demonstrates importance of systems thinking and highlights how the maintenance of
sustainability, well-being and happiness depend on dynamic relationships of a system.
Methodology
This thesis is based on a literature review of documents. Documents are “broadly defined to
include public records, personal papers, popular culture documents, visual documents, and
physical material and artifacts” (Merriam 162-163). This thesis benefited from a careful review
of documents because they are “product[s] of the context in which they were produced and
therefore grounded in the real world” (Merriam 156). This perspective on documents is
particularly important for this thesis since food is necessary to life and well-being and happiness
are essential for an improved quality of life. Additionally, documents represent “voices begging
to be heard” (Glaser and Strauss as cited in Merriam 150), which is not unlike interviews or
observations.
While there are many benefits to using documents to mine data, one limitation is that they are
“usually produced for reasons other than the research at hand” (Merriam 140) unlike
interviewing and observing which are “data collection strategies designed to gather data that
specifically address the research questions” (Merriam 139). On the other hand, because
documents are not produced for research purposes they can contain “clues, even startling
insights, into the phenomenon or study” (Merriam 149). Additionally, there are strategies to
overcome this limitation such as determining the accuracy of documents and coding and
cataloging them (Merriam 151-152).
11
To conduct my literature review of documents, I began by reading books and articles focused on
food that I encountered while I completed equity and food justice courses at the University of
Toronto or that were recommended to me by my professors. These books included Food
Sovereignty: Reconnecting Food, Nature and Community edited by Hannah Wittman, Annette
Aurélie Desmarais, and Nettie Wiebe, Critical Perspective in Food Studies edited by Mustafa
Koç, Jennifer Sumner and Anthony Winson and The No-Nonsense Guide to World Food by
Wayne Roberts. I also reviewed online literature from La Via Campensina, the global peasant
organization representing over 200 million farmers worldwide. They are making strides in
changing food systems by demanding food sovereignty, a term they coined that recognizes the
“right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through sustainable
methods and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems” (La Via Campesina
“The International”).
After I read this body of work and gained a general understanding of food justice issues, I then
commenced a systematic literature review following a workshop I participated in that was led by
a librarian at OISE. To ensure authenticity of the documents, I researched and reviewed
published works, academic journals and reputable organizational websites. To conduct my
systemic literature review, I researched the key categorical subject areas of systems thinking,
food systems, well-being and happiness, neoliberal food systems, food security and food
sovereignty.
To narrow down the databases, I selected the following subjects on the University of Toronto
library search tool:
Agriculture
Economics
Environment
Equity studies
Food science
Geography
International development
Political science
Social science
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Women and gender studies
These subjects were selected because of the multidisciplinary nature of food issues. Additionally,
my focus on well-being and happiness is tied to social justice. Indeed my thesis will take on a
social justice framework where an important principle is to strive to not further marginalize
communities or increase inequities in society (Creswell 34). I am also “seeking to bring about
change or address social justice issues in our societies” (Creswell 23). For these reasons, it was
important to include literature from the social sciences and humanities.
To conduct my literature review, I started with systems thinking and food systems and read
Thinking in Systems: A Primer by Donella Meadows and Diana Wright. This book was
recommended to me by Dr. Jennifer Sumner in her Pedagogy of Food course offered at the
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. I also studied material
from Critical Perspective in Food Studies, the text book for the Pedagogy of Food course. To
further broaden my knowledge, I also conducted a systematic literature review by searching
through the databases available through the University of Toronto library based on the subjects
listed above. To search productively through the University of Toronto library, I searched for
literature that focused on food systems and the related terms ‘conventional food systems’,
‘industrial food systems’, ‘corporate food systems’ and ‘systems thinking’. I also searched for
articles and books that mentioned ‘food systems’ and ‘neoliberalism’ together (including a
Boolean search for ‘neo*liberalism’ and a general search for ‘food AND Neo*liberalism).
To conduct a literature review regarding well-being and happiness, I searched through the
databases available through the University of Toronto library based on my pre-selected subjects.
I reviewed material from the year 2000 to 2015 to understand contemporary interest in well-
being and happiness. My search focused on the key concepts ‘wellbeing’ and ‘happiness’
(including Boolean searches for ‘well*being’). I also searched for articles and books that
mentioned ‘food systems’ and ‘wellbeing’ and/or ‘happiness’ and ‘food’ and ‘wellbeing’ and/or
‘happiness’. I have also searched for ‘wellbeing’ and ‘happiness’ in terms of health,
sustainability and the environment.
To conduct a literature review regarding food security and food sovereignty, I started with
material from Critical Perspective in Food Studies, the text book for the Pedagogy of Food
13
course that provided an introduction to different kinds of food systems. I also searched through
the databases available through the University of Toronto library based on pre-selected subjects.
My search focused on the key concepts ‘food security’, ‘food sovereignty’ and the related terms
‘food justice’ and ‘food movements’.
Documents were then coded based on the three building blocks of Sumner’s theoretical model of
sustainability – counter-hegemony, dialogue and life-values.
Ethical Considerations
Since only secondary data was collected, this thesis did not require a review from the Research
Ethics Board. This is supported by the Panel of Research Ethics that states “usually, research
based entirely on existing, stored documentary material, publications, or records, is NOT
considered to be research involving humans that requires REB review” (Panel on Research
Ethics).
Limitations of this Research
Due to the nature of conceptual work, this thesis has been written within certain parameters that
make it both relevant and limited. Limitations include discussing the contested terms ‘well-
being’ and ‘happiness’ and the data collection method utilized.
This conceptual thesis acknowledges that various forms of oppression do have very real material
effects including limited access to proper food and housing. While these material implications of
poverty cannot and should not be ignored, it is also important to acknowledge the psychic and
spiritual importance of well-being and happiness.
Another limitation that is present in this thesis can be witnessed through the data collection
method utilized. Due to the conceptual nature of this thesis, only secondary data has been
collected. Additionally, although discourse on well-being, happiness, and food occurs globally
and is undeniably influenced by diverse cultures, the literature reviewed in this thesis is only in
English.
Due to the nature of this work, it is very important to note that the analysis presented in this
thesis is not meant to represent the experiences and opinions of all food producers and food
14
eaters but rather it is intended to create and contribute to an ever evolving discourse about the
relationship between food systems and well-being and happiness.
Conclusion
This chapter detailed the purpose, objectives, theoretical approach, strategy for analysis,
methodology, ethical considerations and limitations of this thesis. To engage in a productive
discussion, it is important to lay the conceptual groundwork first. To do so, chapter 2 will
showcase a literature review of food systems, systems thinking, theories on well-being and
happiness and Sumner’s theoretical model of sustainability that prioritizes a critical
understanding sustainability and well-being through the promotion of the civil commons.
15
Chapter 2 Food Systems and Well-being and Happiness
Understanding Food Systems through Systems Thinking
To understand food systems, it is helpful to use a systems thinking approach. The definition of a
system can easily be applied to food systems; a system is “an interconnected set of elements that
is coherently organized in a way that achieves something” (Meadows 11) and likewise, a food
system is “an interdependent web of activities that include the production, processing,
distribution, consumption, and disposal of food” (Sumner, “Conceptualizing” 326-7). When a
system has been established and strengthened through feedback loops it starts to perpetuate itself
(Meadows 25). Food systems also integrate dominant theories and paradigms so it is important to
monitor a system to ensure that the system’s purpose or function still supports its intended goals
since “one of the most common mistakes is designing systems around the wrong goal.” The best
way to evaluate the system’s purpose is to observe its behaviour (Meadows 14).
Interestingly, food activists and scholars who observe the food system note that food systems
have been affected by the globalization project which “aims at the removal of social and political
barriers to the free flow of capital in food and agriculture and is institutionalized through
international agreements” (Fairbairn 18). One of the effects of the globalization project is the
emergence of the industrial, neoliberal food system. The ideology that drives this industrialized
food system is neoliberalism which Harvey defines as
a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human
well-being can be best advanced by liberating individual
entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional
framework characterized by strong private property rights, free
markets, and free trade (Harvey, “A Brief History” 2).
Since the 1970s neoliberalism has become a ‘total ideology’ which can be
considered as
(a) a program or plan of action
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(b) based on an explicit, systematic model or theory of how the
society works
(c) aimed as radical transformation or reconstruction of the society
as a whole
(d) held with more confidence (‘passion’) than the evidence for the
theory of model warrants (Geuss 11).
Proponents of neoliberalism certainly have and continue to push the ‘total ideology’ of
neoliberalism as they seek to “bring all human action into the domain of the market” (Harvey,
“A Brief History” 3) because they are fixated on growth (Sumner, “Eating as” 4). Just as systems
seemingly run themselves, the neoliberal ideology “depicts neoliberalism as an inevitable,
external force rather than an intentional project” (Fairbairn 18). Rather than accepting
neoliberalism and letting it enclose us in, what Freire calls, a “circle of certainty” (38), systems
thinking “allows us to reclaim our intuition about whole systems” (Meadows 6). Through
observing the system a critical consciousness can start to develop. This critical consciousness
helps us to “perceive social, political, and economic contradictions” (Freire 35). In systems
thinking, these contradictions can be noticed as the difference between the perceived purpose of
a system and the actual purpose of a system as demonstrated by its behaviour. In the case of
neoliberalism, it purports to advance human well-being and happiness but its observed behaviour
demonstrates otherwise, indicating that there is a contradiction and thus a system malfunction.
For instance, under the industrial food system, there are 795 million people in the world who do
not have enough to eat, according to the FAO as of May 27, 2015, farmers face the highest
bankruptcy and suicide rates compared to any other occupation, and 170 million child labourers
are exploited through their work in agriculture (FAO “World Hunger” and W. Roberts 27).
Industrial food production is also problematic because it is the biggest polluter compared to other
industries and livestock and their by-products are estimated to account for at least 51% of
greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change (W. Roberts 26 and Goodland and
Anhang 11). These findings indicate that either both well-being and happiness are defined as
social exploitation and environmental degradation, or that the neoliberal food system is not
achieving its purpose. To delineate this contradiction, a deeper reflection on what well-being and
happiness means is needed, followed by an evaluation of the industrial, neoliberal food system.
17
Well-being and Happiness
Interest in happiness and well-being is evident throughout human history and continue to be
studied in the fields of economics, psychology and sociology (Atherton 3). More recently, the
international community has also demonstrated commitment to prioritizing happiness and well-
being as can be witnessed in changing policy and governance frameworks such as the Gross
National Happiness index from the government of Bhutan, the Happy Life Years indicator from
The Netherlands, the Happy Planet Index and the World Happiness Index for example (Ahmed 3
and Beyond GDP). Similarly, there are indexes focused on well-being such as the Canadian
Index of Wellbeing and the National Accounts of Well-being (Beyond GDP). In fact, on July 19,
2011, the General Assembly of the United Nations called on member states to “undertake steps
that give more importance to happiness and well-being in determining how to achieve and
measure social and economic development” (UN News Centre). If the systems that we build,
including food systems, are supposed to support our goals and ideologies, then the contemporary
interest in well-being and happiness cannot be ignored. Our discussion now turns to
understanding what is meant by happiness and well-being.
While there are philosophers who attempt to disentangle the concepts of well-being and
happiness, this thesis acknowledges that the two are essentially contested terms and that “the
terms well-being, utility, happiness, life satisfaction, and welfare [are] interchangeable…”
(Easterlin as qtd. in Raibley 1106). This thesis utilizes well-being and happiness for consistency
and because these words are often interchanged in the literature reviewed. In this section I will
discuss and critique prominent theories on happiness and well-being that are focused on
maximizing utility, agential flourishing and locus of control, functioning and capabilities, and
finally building the civil commons.
Utilitarian Theory
Discussion
According to Harvey’s definition, the intention of neoliberalism is to promote well-being
(Harvey, “A Brief History” 2). Binkley also argues that “[t]o become happy…we must embrace
the invisible hand of the market” (163). The preeminent concept that is meant to help achieve
this goal is what economists call ‘utilitarian theory’. Utilitarian theory presumes that “our goal
18
should be to promote happiness, which means to maximize the sum of human wellbeing”
(Grenholm 42). In utilitarian theory, “the only intrinsic value is individual utility defined in terms
of happiness or desire-fulfilment” (Grenholm 49). Under this model, “welfare is often
understood in terms of preference satisfaction” (Grenholm 42). This theory is very much driven
by neoclassical economics and “assumes we are rational individuals, seeking to promote our own
preference satisfaction” (Helgesson as cited in Grenholm 43). Under utility maximization
theory holds that every time a person buys something, sells
something, quits a job or invests, he is making a rational decision
about what will…provide him ‘maximum utility’. ‘Utility’ can be
pleasure…or security…or self-satisfaction (Bigelow as cited in
McKibben 30).
Jeremy Bentham also defines utility as “the property in any object that tends to produce benefit,
advantage, pleasure, good or happiness…or…to prevent the happening of mischief and pain,
evil, or unhappiness” (as quoted in Qizilbash 54).
In neoclassical economics, efficiency is often used to assume what is good and valuable
(Glenholm 43). Economic efficiency can be understood as Pareto optimality, “a social state...if
and only if no-one’s utility can be raised without reducing the utility of someone else” (Sen as
cited in Glenholm 44). Glenholm also notes that
[m]any economists today would argue in favour of the choice
interpretation of the Pareto principle. This is an interpretation
which is related to a preference-satisfaction theory, according to
which an alternative x is better for a person that an alternative y, if
an only if the person prefers x to y. According to this position, all
preferences which are expressed by an individual on a market
should be taken into account. The preference of an individual is
simply what she would choose, if she would have to make a choice
between two alternatives (44).
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Critique
The major critique of utilitarian theory is its focus on the ‘economic man’ which
refers to
a hypothetical individual who acts rationally and with complete
knowledge, but entirely out of self-interest and the quest to maximize
personal utility. Economic Man is an imaginary figure who is able to
satisfy economic models that push for consumer equilibrium. All of
Economic Man's choices are based on the fulfillment of his or her "utility
function", meaning the ability to maximize any situation that involves
choice (“Economic Man”).
This approach is flawed because the economic man is a constructed, imaginary, capitalist ideal
(“Economic Man”).
Indeed, it is clear that utilitarian theory promotes, what Sumner would describe as, “the cult of
the individual” (Sumner, “Searching” 87) which is supported by the rational choice model. By
using rationalism as a guide, the rational choice model designs a culture that constructs people as
purely self-interested individuals who are economically motivated to decrease costs and
maximize profit (Zey 10). Happiness in the neoliberal sense is “what one feels when one has
acted on one’s own, in one’s own interest, at some risk and according to some calculus of
probability - and succeeded” (Binkley 103). Viewed from a critical theory lens, the problem with
designing the societal structures in this way is that these ideas become hegemonic, the mentality
of the cult of the individual becomes internalized and people act more like consumers than as
critically engaged active citizens.
Indeed, the rational choice model is an interesting theory to consider conceptually but is
impractical to apply. In its pure form, it assumes that individuals are motivated by self-interest
and are aware and knowledgeable of the different alternatives they have (Zey 10). In reality,
people “sometimes have preferences which are based on bad information and therefore do not
promote our own good [and] what is good for us does not always coincide with our actual
choices” (Glenholm 43). In some cases, “our preferences are welfare irrelevant, which means
that they do not affect our welfare at all. There are also welfare-decreasing preferences, which
20
means that getting what we want would be bad for us at least in the long run” (Glenholm 45).
Under utilitarian theory “[i]t is not necessary that the preferences are well-informed and
thoroughly considered” (Glenholm 44).
The rational choice model also assumes an optimal equilibrium where one only gains through
another’s loss (Zey 10). This is in line with utilitarian theory and Pareto optimality. Indeed it is a
“capitalist-based notion of well-being…[that believes] there is not enough to go around, that the
good life can be had only by a few” (hooks 89). At best this facilitates competition and at worst it
facilitates exploitation where individuals use rational thought to justify self-interested decision
making even if they are contributing to collective problems.
Indeed, Pareto optimality is the ideal of utilitarian theory but individualism can also breed
competition where “[m]en do not desire to be rich, but to be richer than other men” (J.S. Mill as
cited in Steedman 33). This quest for riches could create a situation where the privileged feel
compelled to protect their individual interests by acting as gate-keepers of information according
to their self-interest. Power in a utility-driven society is zero-sum. Viewed through critical
theory, this type of power structure is problematic because it produces a division in society that
can privilege those with an economic advantage over those without. This significantly impacts
the decision making process of those with little or no economic power because their access to
information, and ability to produce alternative information, is systemically and unjustly denied.
Ignoring privilege within the utilitarian model can be highly destructive to the collective.
The focus on individualism can also sever societal ties because interconnection is no longer
valued. Story of Stuff author Annie Leonard points out how relationships are being replaced by
services available on the market – friendships are replaced by life coaches, quality time is
replaced with entertainment – which demonstrates how “things that were once public amenities,
neighborly activities, or the role of friends [has been turned into] privately purchasable Stuff of
services” (Leonard 150). The approach utilitarian theory takes in terms of happiness and well-
being is very much in line with the neoclassical economic perspective that “promotes money
values first and foremost” (Sumner, “Searching” 87). The Pareto optimality championed by the
utilitarian theory is indeed a
very limited kind of success, and in itself may or may not
guarantee much. A state can be Pareto optimal with some people in
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extreme misery and others rolling in luxury, so long as the
miserable cannot be made better off without cutting into the luxury
of the rich (Sen as cited in Glenholm 44)
The limitations of the utilitarian theory are important to note as is the acknowledgement that the
accumulation of material goods and the cult of individualism does not guarantee happiness or
well-being.
Utilitarian theory also defines human potential as economic power. This is problematic when
viewed through a critical theory lens because it does not necessarily advance the common good
which many critical theorists advocate for (Regnier 50). Even Adam Smith, the pioneer of
modern economics, forewarned that objects could never secure happiness (McMahon 2). Under
this neoclassical economic perspective the basic assumption is that “life is meant to serve
accumulation and cannot be seen as a value itself” (Sumner, “Searching” 87). Unfortunately,
utilitarian theory focuses on “the actual achievements, not upon the freedom to achieve”
(Grenholm 49). There are, however, a number of theories that attempt to close this gap including
those focused on agential flourishing.
Agential Flourishing
Discussion
Philosopher Jason Raibley’s approach to well-being helps tackle the gap between achievement
and freedom that is apparent in utilitarian theory. Raibley argues that one of the commonalities
among the theories related to well-being is that well-being is closely connected to the concepts of
benefit and harm. He explains that benefiting from something is linked to an increase of well-
being while being harmed diminishes well-being (1111). Raibley has conceptualized harm as
something that moves a person away from achieving their values (1116). Raibley defines values
as something that can include “abstract values that are important to one, like freedom or equality.
Or, it may involve actualizing states-of-affairs that one deeply desires, e.g., writing a book or
achieving a promotion at one’s work” (1117). Raibley’s theory focuses on ‘agential flourishing’
and promotes the achievement of values rather than the ongoing pursuit of wealth. A flourishing
agent is a person who “successfully realizes their values and is stably disposed to do so” (Raibley
1116). Raibley asserts that a person must be able to freely identify his or her own values and be
22
able to achieve those values his or herself through his or her own effort (Raibley 1116).
Raibley’s approach to well-being is in line with Atherton’s who argues that it is “associated with
an ability to connect to values external to oneself” (8). This sense of internal responsibility to
achieve one’s values is very much related to a construct that social psychologists call ‘the locus
of control’.
In psychology, people who believe that they can influence the outcome of a situation by way of
their own actions are thought to have an internal locus of control. People who believe that the
outcome of a situation remains unaffected by their actions are thought to have an external locus
of control (Verme 147). A study by Paolo Verme suggests that the locus of control has
important implications for life satisfaction, a concept he uses interchangeably with happiness.
His study finds that “the variable freedom of choice and control is by far the most significant
predictor of life satisfaction” (Verme 152). Verme’s findings support Raibley’s argument that
individuals should have the freedom to choose, pursue and achieve their own values in order to
improve their well-being and happiness. Recognizing the importance of freedom of choice
moves beyond the limited scope of utilitarian theory and starts to move toward Aristotelian
philosophy where “happiness is taken to be much more than pleasure. It is related to flourishing
and integral human fulfillment, which means the realization of the potential we have as humans”
(Grenholm 47).
Critique
While agential flourishing acknowledges that humans are thinking, aspiring beings its
perspective on the social aspect of human societies is limited. In this sense, agential flourishing
focuses too much on the individual in similar ways as utilitarian theory. Alfred Marshall, author
of the influential Principles of Economics, argues that “true happiness is not to be had without
self-respect, and that self-respect is to be had only on the condition of endeavouring so to live as
to promote the progress of the human race” (as cited in Steedman 24). Conceptualizing happiness
and well-being through a social lens is also important to critical theory because it is concerned
with social constructs that societies create (Murray and Ozanne 129). In fact, critical educational
theorist Paulo Freire argues that people’s vocation is to be fully human and to humanize the
world and integral to this is freedom from oppression (Freire 44). Through a critical theory lens,
theories concerned with agential flourishing and locus of control would benefit from
23
acknowledging that “past social creations constrain us, we are not free-wheeling creators of our
future…[but rather|…humans have the potential to become anything they wish” (Murray and
Ozanne 133). It is essential to acknowledge the existence of social structures that regulate the
power that allows the mobility of some and the constraining of others. This is essential because
critical theory recognizes that “people who own and manage technology, finance capital, and the
communication and transportation infrastructure generally have more of an impact on the
creation of reality than does the average person” (Murray and Ozanne 133). Raibley’s theory on
agential flourishing needs to give more recognition to the context in which people live. One
theory that attempts to address this gap is the capabilities approach.
Capabilities Approach
Discussion
One theory on happiness and well-being is the ‘capabilities approach’ conceptualized by Indian
economist and philosopher, Amartya Sen, and further developed by American philosopher,
Martha Nussbaum. The capabilities approach rejects the pleasure and preference satisfaction
values of utilitarian theory. Similar to Raibley’s agential flourishing, it advocates that a good
human life is about self-actualization (Grenholm 48). It also argues that “human development is
constituted by a freedom to achieve valuable functions” (Grenholm 51). This approach “involves
assessing the quality of people’s lives in terms of functionings and capabilities” (Carter 77).
According to Sen
[f]unctionings are constitutive of a person’s wellbeing, and the
relevant functionings can vary - from such elementary things as
being adequately nourished and being in good health, to more
complex achievements such as being happy and having self-
respect. Capability is primarily a reflection of the freedom to
achieve valuable functionings. It reflects the person’s freedom to
lead one type of life or another, and thereby it constitutes the
person’s freedom to have wellbeing (Grenholm 49).
In this approach, quality of life is improved when a person can chose from a range of alternative
functionings and has the capability, based on internal abilities and external resources, to choose
24
(Carter 77). This approach understands “that there are variations in our ability to convert
resources into actual freedoms” (Glenholm 49). Variations in capabilities “can be of a personal
nature (disability, etc.), of a social nature (discrimination, exclusions, etc.) or of a geographical
nature (dry region, etc.)” (Ballet, Koffi, and Pelenc 29). Viewed through a critical theory lens,
this understanding recognizes an element of inequality and inequity (Ballet, Koffi, and Pelenc
29) within structures that maintain the status quo that privileges some, while constraining others.
Unlike utilitarian theory that encourages individualism, the capabilities approach is concerned
with justice in the collective and argues that capabilities should be equally distributed so that a
person has the freedom to “achieve the various combinations of functionings that are important
for the person” (Glenholm 48-49). In this view “individuals’ claims are to be assured in terms of
the freedoms they actually enjoy to choose the lives they have reason to value…thereby it takes
into account that human beings are diverse” (Glenholm 49). Nussbaum further maintains that “all
humans should have the capability for central functionings in human life…which means that the
capabilities are sought for each and every person” (Glenholm 50). This neo-Aristotelian
approach
entails an adequate understanding of a good human life as related
to human flourishing. Human development is constituted by a
freedom to achieve valuable functionings, not only by resources to
satisfy human needs or preferences. This capabilities approach is
also a theory of justice, according to which capabilities are social
goods which should be distributed equally (Glenholm 51).
This element of justice is important because it argues that to achieve functionings, people must
be free from oppression. This freedom will allow people to be, what Raibley describes as,
flourishing agents who are able to identify their own values or goals and who can achieve those
goals freely through his or her own effort (Raibley 1116). Like critical theory, the capabilities
approach is cognizant of the reality that people do not act in a vacuum and “take[s] an interest in
how individuals are actually doing and their actual circumstances” (Kotan 369). While the
capabilities approach acknowledges that individuals are affected by social structures it also
recognizes their agency, a state where a
25
human agent is a person or collection of persons having the ability
to exert power so as to influence the state of the world, do so in a
purposeful way and in line with self-established objectives (Kotan
370).
Indeed, the capabilities approach “prioritizes human freedom: the ability and liberty to live the
life one wants to live” (Kotan 369).
Critique
According to the capabilities approach, “human development is constituted by a freedom to
achieve valuable functionings, not only by resources to satisfy human needs of preferences”
(Grenholm 51). From a critical theory perspective that seeks to create a better society, one major
critique of the capabilities approach is that it is not clear if functionings are innately good or if
there can be ‘bad functionings’ (Carter 79). It is possible to view functionings as neutral “so that
all conceivable doings and beings - including, say, suicide and homicide - count as functionings”
(Carter 80). Nussbaum’s understanding of functionings and capabilities, however, are value
laden (Carter 80).
Indeed, Nussbaum is concerned with human dignity and argues that “all humans should have the
capability for central functions in human life” (Grenholm 50). Her perspective assumes that
humans should be able to
live to the end of a human life of normal length, [be able] to have
good health, [be able] to move freely from place to place, and [be
able] to have attachments to things and people. They also include
being able to live with others, being able to live with concern for
other species, and being able to participate in political choices
(Grenholm 50).
Nussbaum’s views however have been criticized for assuming a universalism in values even
though “our deeper understandings of functionings, capabilities and justice are influenced by our
different social positions, cultural traditional and experiences” (Grenholm 51).
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Another critique is that “the conversion rate from capabilities into functionings varies from one
person to another…depending on differences in the quality of people’s actual choices” (Carter
85). In this situation a person may freely chose to prioritize his or her wants, such as over fishing
to increase profit, rather than pursuing other functionings such as having a concern for other
species. This is known by capability theorists as “‘functioning poverty’: although not poor in
either terms of resources or in terms of capabilities…[but]… in terms of achieved functionings”
(Carter 85). This is problematic when viewed through critical theory since these types of actions
may reproduce constraining social structures and processes.
An additional critique of the capabilities approach is one that is shared between all of the theories
of well-being and happiness discussed in this section, and that is its anthropocentrism and
neglect of explicitly stating the role of the environment. While Ballet, Koffi, and Pelenc argue
that access to ecosystem services is implicit in increasing the capacity of people (31), the
capabilities theory is still largely anthropocentric. This critique is important to consider in this
thesis because “eating is the most intimate relationship we have with the environment, when
various parts of plants and animals are integrated into our bodies” (Waltner-Toews 85). Since the
food we eat becomes a part of us it is essential to recognize that “the quality of what we take in
and what we give off is intimately connected with the general quality of our environment”
(Bertell 35). If we desire well-being and happiness then the environment from which we derive
our food and deposit our waste must be healthy. To address this weakness in well-being and
happiness theories, it is productive to invoke the concept of sustainability as theorized by
Dr. Jennifer Sumner, a scholar who has conducted extensive research on food security,
indigenous knowledge, organic agriculture, sustainability and spiritual knowledge.
Sumner's Theoretical Model of Sustainability
Discussion
There have been many iterations of the definition of sustainability hailing from a variety of
perspectives. These perspectives can be organized into three, sometimes overlapping, broad
categories which are the economic perspective, the social perspective and the environmental
perspective (Sumner, “Searching” 85). From the economic perspective, sustainability ensures
that the standard of living is maintained and/or enhanced from one generation to the next
(Sumner, “Searching” 86). The social perspective is concerned with the quality of human life in
27
human society, particularly as experienced by an individual. Indicators of social sustainability
range from basic to complex human needs including food, shelter, education and freedom. The
social perspective also concerns itself with existing institutions and their ability to be maintained
and strengthened over time (Sumner, “Searching” 89). The environmental perspective
understands sustainability from an ecological point of view and places emphasis on the long-
term resiliency of ecosystems (Sumner, “Searching” 91).
The theoretical model of sustainability put forward by Dr. Jennifer Sumner suggests that
sustainability exists when it fits within an optimum area that contains “the building blocks of life
values, dialogue and counter-hegemony” (Sumner,“Searching” 85). The theoretical model of
sustainability can be represented by a three-dimensional box where the optimum area for
sustainability is represented by a smaller box (please see appendix 1). This optimum area sets the
stage for building a “set of structures and processes that build the civil commons” (Sumner,
“Sustainability” 226) which is “a co-operative human construct that protects and/or enables
universal access to life goods” (Sumner, “Sustainably” 263). The civil commons protects life and
enables life through producing and ensuring things like “regulatory systems for clean air, water,
foodstuffs…[and] universal education” (McMurty 2000 as cited in Sumner, “Sustainability”
235). As a human construct, the building and maintenance of the civil commons relies on human
agency at the personal, collective and institutional level (McMurty 1999a as cited in Sumner,
“Sustainability” 275). This need for human agency ties directly with Sen’s capabilities approach
because it depends on people having the capability to achieve functionings and making
conscious and free choices.
Sumner argues that well-being is the goal of sustainability. Like Sen, Sumner recognizes the
importance of human flourishing and views well-being as integral to the realization of human
potential (Sumner, “Sustainability” 34). An integral aspect of tapping into the human potential,
as described by Sumner, is engaging in sustainable learning, “a kind of critical, transformational,
social learning that is one of the processes that builds the civil commons” (Sumner,
“Sustainability” 285). Sustainable learning is built on the same building blocks of counter-
hegemony, dialogue and life values and “is part of the project of sustainability and can contribute
to individual and community well-being, as well as the realization of the utopian project of
becoming more fully human” (Sumner, “Sustainability” 322). Sumner understands well-being as
28
being “experienced on three planes: thought, feeling and action. Increased well-being involves
experiencing an increased range of life on these three planes (Sumner, “Sustainability” 34-35).
Critique
Sumner’s theoretical model of sustainability has been criticized for creating simplistic, stark
moral contrasts where “counter-hegemony is good, and hegemony bad; dialogic is good,
monologic bad” (Bantjes 244). However the poles on these two spectrums can be supported by
critical theory. Critical theory supports taking a counter-hegemonic perspective because its view
of causality is that “[h]umans are confined by social structures, which are real, independent, and
measurable…[a]t the same time, they are the architects of these social structures” (Murray and
Ozanne 135). By taking on a counter-hegemonic approach, constraining social structures can be
unveiled, analyzed and changed. Critical theory also supports dialogue because it acknowledges
that “humans may not be cognizant of distorted communication” (Murray and Ozanne 134)
which can reproduce flawed messages. In this case, dialogue is “a guide or…a critical standard
from which actual discourse can be evaluated” (Murray and Ozanne 134). While Sumner’s
theoretical model of sustainability may seem simple it is actually constructed to be a complex
“trialectical matrix of checks and balances” (Sumner, “Sustainability” 26). For these reasons,
Sumner’s theoretical model of sustainability is a useful tool in evaluating complex food systems
and how they can evolve into systems that support well-being and happiness.
Since each building block – hegemony, dialogue and life value – is necessary to Sumner’s
theoretical model of sustainability, a thorough understanding of each is important. This is
because “[i]f any one of the blocks is missing, then the critical understanding will be flawed and
ultimately unworkable” (Sumner, “Sustainability” 226). In the discussion that follows, each
building block will be discussed in terms of how they contribute to sustainability, and thus well-
being and happiness, and how each addresses the major critiques of the other well-being and
happiness theories.
The Three Building Blocks
Counter-Hegemony
To describe the importance of counter hegemony, Sumner draws on Antonio Gramsci’s concept
of hegemony which is
29
the ‘spontaneous’ consent given by the great masses of the
population to the general direction imposed on social life by the
dominant fundamental group; this consent is ‘historically’ caused
by the prestige (and consequent confidence) which the dominate
group enjoys because of its position and function in the world of
production (Gramsci as cited in Sumner, “Sustainability” 129-
130).
Hegemony is perpetuated through coercive, sometimes subtle, forces wielded by the dominant
ruling class and “expressed in the organs of public opinion (such as the media, schools and
churches)” (Sumner, “Sustainability” 131). The status quo becomes normalized and re-
communicated so much so that “citizens have few opportunities for a wider understanding of
global forces and tend to maintain the status quo, in spite of clear evidence that is it not in their
best interests to do so” (Sumner, “Sustainability” 133).
In terms of well-being and happiness, this type of uncritical behaviour is very similar to how the
economic man acts under utility theory; the economic man does not need to be well-informed or
thoroughly consider his preferences in order to act (Glenholm 44). In order to flourish, a person
must have space to question the status quo and the opportunity to carefully consider alternatives
and this is a space that counter-hegemony can provide. Counter-hegemony is also aligned with
critical theory since both question systems and processes of social structures and the meanings
built into them. This behaviour of questioning is also related to learning because hegemonic
relationships “induce false consciousness” (Sumner, “Sustainability” 316).
To break hegemonic relationships, a person must start cultivate a critical consciousness that
allows one to “perceive social, political and economic contradictions, and to take action against
the oppressive elements of reality” (Freire 35). An essential aspect of developing this critical
consciousness is problem posing which can help “people develop their power to perceive
critically the way they exist in the world with which and in which they find themselves; [so] they
come to see the world not as a static reality, but as a reality in process, in transformation” (Freire
83). Once a person is able to decode the social structures around them they can understand that
these structures can be manipulated and shaped, as with everything else in the world, nothing is
permanent. This realization is central to the concept of resistance which emphasizes that
30
“individuals are not simply acted upon by abstract “structures” but negotiate, struggle, and create
meaning of their own” (Weiler 21).
This realization can be very empowering as “[i]t is only when the oppressed find the oppressor
out and become involved in the organized struggle for their liberation that they begin to believe
in themselves” (Freire 65). Understanding that oppression is a result of how social relations are
constructed is an analysis of power. This realization can also help unveil that power is also fluid
and
is dispersed and expressed in a myriad of locations, events,
relations and groupings of people, rather being centrally located in
large structures such as the states or the judiciary or a union or a
large corporation (Freire as cited in Newman 254).
This understanding of power is critical in the struggle to redistribute power in ways that disrupt
the hegemonic relationships.
Cultivating this critical consciousness is very challenging as the rationalist ways of thinking have
become ingrained in society and within individuals. The oppressed internalize the oppressor’s
guidelines as a prescription (Freire 47). Leaving comfortable hegemonic relationships is a
daunting task and the struggle against them leaves many people vulnerable and “fearful of still
greater repression” (Freire 47). Interestingly, deliberately cultivating a critical consciousness can
also be a cause of psychic anxiety, not only due to the fear of greater oppression, but also a fear
of freedom (Freire 46). As Donella Meadows writes, knowing that we can change the system
through our own efforts is “[c]omforting, in that the solutions are in our hands [yet] [d]isturbing,
because we must do things, or at least see things and think about things, in a different way” (4).
To grow into the ability to think critically, people must accept and embrace their own power to
create meaning and the opportunity “to confront, to listen, to see the world unveiled” (Freire 39).
The awakening of a critical consciousness is integral step toward liberation from oppression but
it must be nurtured and cultivated or it could dissipate or lead to unproductive frustration. To
grow one’s critical consciousness, Freire suggests that this deep reflection must be balanced with
engaged action – which he calls praxis (Freire 65). Bowls and Gintis reinforce this idea as well
and argue that “consciousness develops through the individual’s direct perception of and
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participation in social life” (Bowls and Gintis 128). This social aspect of consciousness addresses
the limitations in the Raibley’s theory of agential flourishing because it acknowledges that agents
do not exist in a vacuum but interact within societies. It also acknowledges the importance of
dialogue, the second building block of Sumner’s theoretical model of sustainability.
Dialogue
According to Sumner, dialogue is “an ongoing, two-way (or more) flow with productive,
reproductive and transformative potential” (Sumner, “Sustainability” 231). Instead of recoiling
from the harshness of oppressive social structures, one must engage, resist and shape them not
only through self-reflection but also through dialogue with others. This element of Sumner’s
model also aligns with Freire when he argues that
the more radical the person is, the more fully he or she enters into
reality so that, knowing it better, he or she can better transform it.
This individual is not afraid to confront, to listen, to see the world
unveiled. The person is not afraid to meet the people or to enter
into dialogue with them (Freire 39).
Sumner’s discussion of dialogue is greatly influenced by Habermas who argues that critique
emerges through communicative action (Murray and Ozanne 132). This communitive action
depends on the ideal speech situation which “anticipates an ideal social structure that makes
possible freedom, justice, and reason” (Murray and Ozanne 134). This ideal speech situation
occurs when “all people have an equal opportunity to engage in discourse unconstrained by
authority, tradition, or dogma” (Murray and Ozanne 134). The ideal speech situation is also
important in empowering human agency at individual and collective levels since “[b]oth forms
of agency are crucial to a critical understanding of sustainability” (Sumner, “Sustainability”
277). Although the ideal situation is in fact an ideal, it demonstrates the importance of dialogue
and its ability to redistribute power in a hegemonic relationship. This is important because
“critical theory…has an interest in knowledge that will enable humans to achieve subsistence,
self-determination, and autonomy…[and]…enhances the possibility of freedom” (Murray and
Ozanne 132).
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Dialogue is an integral element of Sumner’s theory but it cannot ensure sustainability, and thus
well-being and happiness, on its own. Additionally, dialogue can be interpreted as value neutral
even though it serves a counter-hegemonic purpose. The problem with neutrality is evident in the
capability approach where functionings do not necessarily need to contribute to the promotion of
life-values. To overcome this, Sumner put forward the third building block of life values.
Life Values
Ultimately, Sumner’s theoretical model of sustainability is concerned with building and
protecting the civil commons, which is “[l]ife-based and life-protective, the civil commons is
oriented to life values, not money values. As such, it is a means to increase well-being and the
realization of the utopian project” (Sumner, “Sustainability” 235). Prioritizing life values also
addresses the weakness in dominate theories of well-being and happiness that do not strongly
acknowledge the role of the environment. Sumner, on the other hand, is quite unequivocal when
she writes that “[c]hoosing for life values emphasizes human and planetary life first and foremost
- every other decision must be subsumed under, and conform to, this primary one” (Sumner,
“Sustainability” 150). Supporting the life code of value “must involve decisions that are clearly
based on life values, without primary or unconscious deference to money values.” (Sumner,
“Sustainability” 150). This can be done by advancing the civil commons which “can work to
prevent the destruction of the environment, the basis of all life on earth and the ultimate ground
of human development” (Sumner, “Sustainability” 243).
The prioritization of life values overcomes the limitations of utilitarian theory which prioritizes
money values and also emphasizes the importance of agency apparent in well-being and
happiness theories that are concerned with agential flourishing and capabilities. Indeed
[h]uman agency based on common interests and critical autonomy is
pivotal to a critical understanding of sustainability because the civil
commons must be built by conscious and co-operative human
agents… human agents need to learn their way into sustainability,
learn how to contribute to the civil commons (Sumner,
“Sustainability” 283-284).
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This building block supports two key axiological assumptions of critical theory which is that
“first, human life is worth living [and] [s]econd, human life can be improved” (Murray and
Ozanne 134). The prominence of life values emphasizes the importance of actualizing human
potential, the central concern of critical theory, because it provides a goal, or an ideal, that
encourages an ongoing process of development and learning.
Conclusion
This chapter provided the conceptual groundwork for this thesis by discussing food systems,
systems thinking, preeminent theories of well-being and happiness and Sumner’s theoretical
model of sustainability. Equipped with this understanding, we can now take a more critical look
at three different food systems and evaluate their ability to facilitate well-being and happiness by
utilizing Sumner’s theoretical model of sustainability. A closer look at food systems in terms of
their ability to support experiences of well-being and happiness is important because “[f]ood
provisioning stands at the very centre of human evolution” (Albritton 90). Although food
systems are something people interact with every day, they should not be taken for granted
because they are relational and reflect and reproduce society. If realizing human potential is
important, then food systems must advance and protect sustainability and the civil commons. To
do this food systems must be constructed on the foundational building blocks of counter-
hegemony, dialogue and life values so that well-being and happiness can be experienced by all.
Chapter 3 examines the neoliberal food system and its claim of advancing well-being and
happiness through the lens of Sumner’s theoretical model of sustainability.
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Chapter 3 An Evaluation of The Neoliberal Food System
An important link between food and well-being and happiness was enshrined in 1948 under
Article 25(1) of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states that
Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the
health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food,
clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services,
and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness,
disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in
circumstances beyond his control (Pritchard 53).
Although Article 25(1) emphasizes that well-being is for everyone the critical question now
becomes: is this the true purpose of the neoliberal food system? Questioning the purpose of the
neoliberal food system problematizes it and starts to unveil that it is indeed a reality in process,
something that is designed by and perpetuates an ideology. Systems thinker Donella Meadows
asserts that observing how a system behaves will reveal its purpose (14). To be able to truly
observe a system, one needs to cultivate a critical consciousness that allows one to “perceive
social, political and economic contradictions” (Freire 35). Sumner’s model provides a critical
lens through which the social structures and processes that comprise food systems can be
evaluated. The model can help reveal how a food system is or is not reproducing constraining
social problems that critical theory is concerned with. It can also provide a model for change
through building the civil commons.
This chapter will use Sumner’s theoretical model of sustainability to demonstrate how neoliberal
ideology has been a threat to building and protecting civil commons. In the sections that follow,
the industrial neoliberal food system will be evaluated in terms of the three building blocks of
sustainability, and thus its ability to increase well-being and happiness. These sections will
discuss counter-hegemony, dialogue, and life values in the neoliberal food system.
Hegemony
A key element in Sumner’s theoretical model of sustainability is the building block of counter-
hegemony.
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As Harvey articulates
for any system of thought to become hegemonic requires the
articulation of fundamental concepts that become so deeply
embedded in common-sense understandings that they become
taken for granted and beyond question…A conceptual apparatus
has to be constructed that appeals almost “naturally” to our
institutions and instincts, to our values and our desires (“Neo-
liberalism” 146).
Hegemony can also be defined as an “organizing principle; or world view (or combination of
world views) that is diffused by agencies of ideological control and socialization into every area
of life” (Boggs as cited in Weiler 14). Food justice activists and scholars would argue that the
reigning ideology is neoliberalism (Fairbairn 10). Indeed, neoliberalism has been infused into
food systems and arguably in very hegemonic ways. Neoliberalism can be witnessed in the
policies that shape food systems and affect food producers and consumers.
The creation of neoliberal policies and corporate controlled trade agreements are the agencies in
which neoliberalism has entered and become more entrenched in society. Supra-national
organizations, such as the IMF, the World Bank, and multilateral or bilateral agreements, such as
the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the General Agreement on Tariffs and
Trade (GATT) and World Trade Organization (WTO) “[define] global rules of conduct” (Koç et
al. 124). To promote trade, proponents of neoliberalism argue that the role of the state should be
limited to the maintenance of existing markets and the creation of markets if one does not exist
(Harvey, “Neo-liberalism” 145). They argue that beyond this, the state should not venture
because it “cannot possibly possess enough information to second-guess market signals (prices)”
(Harvey, “Neo-liberalism” 145). Neoliberalism
increasingly [envisions] a society based on a privatization and
deregulated economy, where the state’s interventions would be
limited primarily to providing basic services and infrastructure for
the private sector and maintaining law and order (Mustafa et al.
124).
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Neoliberal polices act as reinforcing feedback loops that perpetuate this estrangement so that
neoliberalism starts to reproduce itself and become hegemonic. Some argue that “neoliberalism
was from the very beginning a project to achieve the restoration of class power to the richest
strata in the population” (Harvey, “Neo-liberalism” 148). Food system analyst Harriet
Friedmann further illuminates this point when she says that the commodification and trading of
food was “ ‘a crucial aspect of proletarianization’ of formerly subsistence economies turned into
workshops of cheap manufactured goods for export” (cited in W. Roberts 48). Indeed, the
transformation of global food systems into market-places should be regarded as an oppressive act
since “the oppressor consciousness tends to transform everything surrounding it into an object of
its domination” (Freire 58).
As a program setting ideology, neoliberalism aims to transform the food system into a
commodity economy. This desire has manifested itself through intentional policy changes and
the formation of particular trade agreements that create markets for trade. Examples of such
agreements include the inclusion of agriculture in GATT in the 1980s and the corporate food
polices and structural adjustment programs of the WTO (Wiebe 159, Bello and Baviera 67, W.
Roberts 75). Prior to this, food was excluded from the market as a commodity because “food
was such a central factor in the employment and health policies of all countries” (W. Roberts
86). These trade agreements place an emphasis on growing food for export which was a policy
change welcomed by agribusiness corporations in food-exporting countries such as Canada and
the United States (Weibe 156).
These agreements allow large agribusinesses and corporations that operate in multiple
jurisdictions to thrive off weakened local food producers who no longer have laws or programs
to protect them from foreign competitors or investors (Weibe 159 and W. Roberts 86). These
policy changes have increased the power of agribusiness corporations and agricultural
industrialization (Fairbairn 29). Under this regime, food is reduced to a unit of production and
furthers the neoliberal trade agenda through “maximizing production, lowering price per unit,
and increasing market share” (Weibe 158). These trade-agreements have transformed food
systems into platforms where corporations have power over local food producers and businesses
(Norberg-Hodge 30). As a result, people, such as food producers and eaters, become
domesticated since “oppressive reality absorbs those within it and thereby acts to submerge
human beings’ consciousness” (Freire 51). This continuous objectification of everything is in
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line with neoliberalism as a ‘total ideology’ because it strives to be all encompassing. This
intense commodification has touched many elements that exist within the civil commons,
including food.
It is clear that neoliberalism has become ingrained into food systems in very hegemonic ways
and in turn well-being and happiness is unlikely to flourish here. Rather than having an internal
locus of control and freedom of choice, key predictors of life-satisfaction (Verme 152), local
food producers are denied the opportunity to choose, pursue and achieve their own objectives in
terms of the foods they want to grow and produce and how they want to grow and produce them
through their own effort. There is clearly an imbalance of power in the relationship between
corporations and food producers that has created a situation where food producers are coerced
into accepting the neoliberal policies.
Dialogue
The second building block to Sumner’s theoretical model of sustainability is dialogue. This
building block involves communication as a
continuum between the poles of dialogue and monologue. This
continuum between two-way communication and one-way
communication sets up a range for communication that runs from
communication that is community based, involves local
stakeholders and operates out of communicative rationality to
communication that is based outside of the community, does not
involve local stakeholders and operates of instrumental rationality
(Sumner, “Sustainability” 157).
Given the concentration of power and the hegemony of neoliberalism it is arguable that the
relationship between corporations, food producers and food eaters is dominated by monological
communication from corporations.
In the neoliberal food system, corporations dominate and control all stages of work (Sumner,
“Conceptualizing” 327). Political-economy analysts also verify that corporations, and their
shareholders, are highly favoured in this system (Rosin, Stock and Campbell 8-9). Even though
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these stages of work are dominated by corporations it does not mean that corporate executives
and shareholders are completing all the work alone; farmers, fisherfolk, agricultural labourers
and consumers also facilitate the various stages of work in the neoliberal food system but they
are not benefiting nearly as much as corporations. As Raj Patel bluntly declares, “unless you’re a
corporate food executive, the food system isn’t for you” (Patel, “Stuffed” 293). Through using
systems thinking to unravel the different aspects of the neoliberal food system, it becomes clear
that corporations engage in one-way communication. This can be witnessed in the ways that
producers and eaters are transformed into what Freire calls ‘listening objects’ and how learning
is undermined.
Similar to the teacher-student relationships that Freire describes in the banking model, workers
and eaters are treated as students to be filled with corporate narration such as what and how to
grow and purchase food (Freire 72). Neoliberalism redistributes power to corporations so much
so that they have become “the teacher [in the banking model who] talks about reality as if it were
motionless, static, compartmentalized, and predictable” (Freire 72). Corporations create this
reality by owning and controlling society’s modes of production. To understand this imbalance
of power it is essential to remember that neoliberalism is an intensification of capitalism (Miles 3
Feb. 2014). To understand the effects of capitalism it is helpful to invoke the work of Karl Marx.
According to Marx, capitalists reap the benefits of owning and controlling society’s modes of
production. Capitalists thrive off of the exploitation of workers who must choose between work
or unemployment. This ‘choice’ creates an “asymmetry of power in the labour market which
allows capitalists to keep wages lower than they otherwise would be and to impose
dehumanizing working conditions” (Case et. al 470). Marx’s ideas are very much manifested and
indeed amplified in the neoliberal food system because corporations do not just control the
means of production but the entire food system including the way food is produced and
consumed.
In neoliberal food production, large agribusinesses and corporations have an advantage over
individual farmers since farmers cannot trade in the global marketplace because they are
“excluded by the scope, risks, expertise, and power required” (Weibe 159). Farmers were put at a
further disadvantage when the WTO “[prohibited] laws or programs protecting local farming,
fishing or food interests from foreign competitors or investors” (W. Roberts 86). In this
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arrangement “[f]armers have virtually no bargaining power” (Wiebe 164). As a result farmers
become alienated from their work, a condition that Marx describes as a situation “in which
[workers] lose a sense of meaning or purpose in life because their main life activity – work – is
under the control of their employer” (Case et. al 470).
Corporations are also favoured in the processing stage of the industrial food system. With
efficiency and profit top of mind, industrial companies take a systematized approach to food
processing (Colonna, Fournier and Touzard 71). Corporate food processors ‘add-value’ by
turning ingredients into pseudo-foods to increase their revenue. These pseudo-foods are
“nutrient-poor edible products that are typically high in fat, sugar, and salt and often provide
over abundant calories (Winson 188). The rise of highly-processed pseudo-foods, such as snack
foods, benefit corporations and undermine small-scale food processers because the snack-food
industry is dominated by a few multinational food manufacturers (Winson 190). This has
resulted in the further marginalization of small-scale processors because they cannot afford to
place their foods in the supermarkets as “fewer and fewer food processors are able to pay, and as
a result in most categories the products of smaller firms have all but disappeared” (Winson 194).
The neoliberal emphasis on the use of technology also undermines sustainable learning. Food
producers are locked into certain technologies and coerced into buying “fuel, fertilizers,
chemicals, antibiotics, seeds and equipment from corporations at the demanded prices” (Weibe
164) instead of developing and using their own skills and abilities. The denial of this knowledge
usage and education is in complete opposition with agential flourishing, the capabilities approach
and sustainable learning. Under the neoliberal food system, opportunities for happiness and
flourishing well-being are diminishing for food producers. Small-scale processors depend on
their know-how and adaptive ability to process food but the opportunities for them to use their
skills are waning (Colonna, Fournier and Touzard 71).
In addition, the increase in the standardization of work in the industrial food system decreases
the opportunity for workers to engage with an important aspect of happiness called ‘flow’, which
is the experience of completing a task using well-developed skills (Barker and Martin 7). When
tasks are routinized worker’s capabilities are not fully stretched (Barker and Martin 7). Indeed,
the knowledge and abilities of small-scale producers is not being communicated in the neoliberal
food system and is not part of the dialogue that create the structures and processes of the system.
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The pattern of relationship domination by corporations continues as we track how they interact
with eaters. To control consumer choice, proponents of neoliberalism promote the flawed
rational choice model, touted by utility theory, which declares that consumers are rational
decision makers motivated by self-interest who are aware and knowledgeable of the different
alternatives they have (Zey 10).
Through the process of commodification, food has become fetishized and shrouded in mystery in
ways that limit a consumer’s understanding of its social and ecological significance (Weis 104).
Consumers have also lost the knowledge and ability to use food and drink for “purposes such as
healing, relieving symptoms of illness, or for improving emotional states” (Jaffe and Gertler
148). This fetishization has contributed to a distancing between consumers and their foods
(Barndt 68). In the industrial food system, “an individual’s food ‘choices’ are often the product
of government policies and marketing strategies that promote processed and refined foods to the
exclusion of more traditional or unprocessed foods” (Martin 208).
The deskilling of eaters provides another advantage to corporations because they are dependent
on the agri-food chain (Jaffe and Gertler 146). Corporations rely on this estrangement between
consumers and food and further encourage it through labeling, a form of one-way
communication. These labels are literal manifestations of Freire’s concept of prescription which
is “the imposition of one individual’s choice upon another, transforming the consciousness of the
person prescribed to into one that conforms with the prescriber’s consciousness” (Freire 47).
Labels give consumers the impression of choice between alternatives when their choices are
actually being limited to what is already within the existing system (Knezevic 257). In fact,
“much of what gets produced and sold in the food system reflects only the quest for market
dominance and enhanced profit-potential in individual product lines” (Jaffe and Gertler 146).
This significantly impacts the decision making process of consumers because the different
alternatives they would have considered in a true rational model is systemically denied. This
false sense of choice only acts to temper consumers and to discourage them from becoming
flourishing agents.
When food eaters demand for their voice to be heard they face numerous barriers. For instance,
in the United States, a movement of concerned food eaters is calling on food producers to label
genetically modified foods. Their concerns stem from “a broad range of socio-economic, legal,
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and environmental concerns, from food safety risks…environmental oversight, [and] corporate
control of seeds and patents” (Bain and Dandachi 9457). They argue that this type of labeling
would increase transparency in the food system and also give consumers the ability to choose to
buy genetically modified foods or not (Bain and Dandachi 9457). Having this type of labeling
would increase dialogue in the neoliberal food system because it would demonstrate that
consumers are being heard and their concerns are being responded to. Unfortunately, the
hegemony of neoliberalism runs strong through the neoliberal food system since the “agri-food
industry is overwhelmingly opposed to mandatory labeling” (Bain and Dandachi 9457). In fact,
[f]ood companies, such as Nestle, together with biotech
companies, such as Monsanto, spent over a $100 million to
defeat…four state ballot initiatives. In addition, Vermont’s
mandatory labeling law was immediately challenged in federal
court by four food industry associations led by the Grocery
Manufacturers Association (Bain and Dandachi 9457).
One of the reasons companies oppose this is because “90 percent of all corn, soybeans and sugar
beets [in the US agri-food system] are genetically engineered and 80 percent of all processed
food includes at least one ingredient derived from a genetically engineered crop” (Bain and
Dandachi 9457). The opposition from corporations stems from their desire to protect their
profits. In fact, a recent study has shown that “consumers’ willingness to pay for a food product
decreases when the food label indicates the food product is genetically modified” (Huffman et al.
497). By prohibiting the growth of the critical consciousness within consumers, corporations are
hindering the consumer’s freedom of choice. In terms of dialogue within the neoliberal food
system, money talks and, unfortunately, it’s to the detriment of sustainability and the well-being
and happiness of food producers and eaters.
Instead of advancing well-being for all, neoliberalism continues to intensify and perpetuate the
oppressive class system put into operation by capitalism. The social relationships within the
corporate food regime are set up to include capitalist patterns such as “dominance and
subordinacy in the production process, the distribution of ownership of productive resources, and
the degrees of social distance and solidarity among various fragments of the working population”
(Bowls and Gintis 126). The corporate quest for domination becomes even more apparent when
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one recognizes that food producers are being alienated from their work and consumers are being
distanced from their food in ways that benefit the ‘corporate class’. Corporations are weakening
the relationship between food producers, eaters and food which in turn supports a monological
framework where their opinion and agency is undermined to the point that they are not able to
actively shape food systems.
Life Values
The third element of Sumner’s theoretical model of sustainability is life values, which is
particularly relevant here because food is the sustenance for life. Indeed, “food represents a
constant connection to our environment” (Boyd and Howard 237). Since the food we eat
becomes a part of us, it is essential to recognize that food reflects the health of the environment.
An examination of the neoliberal food system shows that money values, not life values, are being
promoted. This prioritization of values exists because the system is driven by neoliberalism, an
extreme evolution of capitalism. The focus on money values is evident in the relationship
between corporations, the environment, food producers and food eaters. Critical theorists such as
Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno criticized the logic of capitalism because “the key feature
of this process is a relation to nature as something to be controlled and exploited. [They argue
that the] result is the constitution of the modern subject as a being estranged from external and
internal nature - from nature outside of and within the self” (Haugaard and Cooke 3).
Additionally, social commentators and researchers have observed that economic growth in
affluent societies linked to consumerism is also linked to “the decline of individual and social
levels of well-being” (Carlisle and Hanlon 412).
Indeed, rather than promoting well-being and happiness corporations are denying the critical
consciousness and personhood of food producers and eaters. Instead of promoting human
potential, the neoliberal food system contributes to dehumanization. It also dehumanizes those
who make up the powerful ‘corporate class’ since oppressors lose their humanity in the exercise
of oppression (Freire 56). Through making profits, corporations can become, what Freire calls,
the class of ‘haves’ “even at the cost of the oppressed having less or having nothing” (Freire 58).
This is in line with the problematic utility theory and Pareto optimality where well-being and
happiness is zero-sum. This is very true in the neoliberal food system as farmers lose their
livelihoods and in some cases their lives.
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Even though food is supposed to be the sustenance for life, the neoliberal food system has
ironically become a site of oppression and death rather than a platform for life values. Neoliberal
practices leading up to the mid-2000s led to an increase in food prices, sparking a global food
crisis in 2007 and 2008. After the collapse of the world’s financial markets, speculators invested
in agricultural products and bought low and then sold high to countries experiencing crop
failures and food shortages to capitalize on the suffering and hunger of people. A large amount
of agricultural land was also converted into crops for biofuel. Structural adjustment programs
imposed on indebted countries in the global South reduced people’s ability to grow their own
food or afford to buy food (Suschnigg 228). As of May 27, 2015, there are an estimated 795
million people in the world do not have enough to eat (FAO “World Hunger”). Indeed the quest
for money and profit by the class of ‘haves’ has caused the suffering of many, proving that
“oppression – overwhelming control – is necrophilic; it is nourished by love of death, not life”
(Freire 77). In terms of the neoliberal food system, this statement is grimily accurate.
Indeed, the neoliberal food system is designed to serve the interests of an exclusive, privileged
dominant class and reduce eaters to uninformed consumers and marginalize peasants,
smallholder farmers, landless people, indigenous peoples, migrants and agricultural workers
(Liodakis 2605 and La Via Campesina “The International”). Through the commodification and
industrialization of food, the neoliberal food system has undermined the spiritual and cultural
significance of food, fragmented social relationships between eaters and food producers, and
dispossessed rural peoples of their land (Norberg-Hodge 29 and Wittman, Desmarais, and Wiebe
5).
Rather than enabling access to life goods, the neoliberal food system is contributing to the
inequitable treatment of food producing peoples by causing income instability since food
production is global and the production of commodities is moved to wherever costs are lowest
(P. Roberts xx). Under the neoliberal food system, farmers face the highest bankruptcy (W.
Roberts 45) and suicide rates compared to any other occupation. In fact, one of the tragic
legacies of the global neoliberal food system is the high rates of suicide among Punjab’s
indebted farmers whose farmlands and livelihoods have been severely undermined (W. Roberts
45). In 2003, the frustration and despair of Korean farmers became incarnate through Lee Kyang
Hae’s suicide as he stabbed himself to death out of protest outside a meeting of the World Trade
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Organization as his fellow farmers held a banner that said ‘WTO Kills’ to bring to light to the
plight of farmers who are “forced to compete in their own home market against highly
subsidized exports from the US and Europe” (W. Roberts 67). Additionally, 170 million child
labourers are exploited through their work in agriculture (W. Roberts 27). Rather than
promoting life values, well-being and happiness for all, “this transformation has been a traumatic
one for hundreds of millions of people” (Bello and Baviera 71). Not only does the neoliberal
food system suppress the human pursuit of well-being and happiness, it also contributes to the
degradation of the ecosystems that maintain life on earth.
Indeed, the neoliberal food system does not contribute to eco-system health or protect sustainable
resources because it has failed to realize that food is extremely difficult, if not impossible to
commodify and produce in mass quantities without requiring massive inputs such as
preservatives and additives to make them ready for harvest and processing (P. Roberts xiv). The
inputs needed to commodify food have resulted in soil degradation and erosion, increased animal
health problems and the over-consumption of fresh water because of large-scale irrigation
projects (Weis 108-113). It has also resulted in the bio-accumulation of toxic chemicals, such as
the excess nutrients, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, which travel through food chains (Weis
113).
In terms of environmental health impact, the neoliberal framework has given rise to practices
such as monoculture cropping which aims to maximize efficiency during harvest through the use
of machines that can collect uniform products (P. Roberts 21). To further mechanize food
production and increase economies of scale, corporate controlled farming often uses technology
such as genetically modified seeds and the use of petrochemicals as both fuel for farming
equipment and as fertilizers and pesticides (Albritton 95). This use of technology is a trademark
of the technological fetishism championed by neoliberalism which believes “that there is a
technological fix for each and every problem” (Harvey, “A Brief History” 68). Even though
technology can become destabilizing (Harvey, “A Brief History” 68), corporate food production
has embraced it.
Even though industrial food production of livestock and their by-products is the biggest polluter
compared to other industries and accounts for at least 51% of greenhouse gas emissions that
contribute to climate change (W. Roberts 26 and Goodland and Anhang 11), corporations are
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turning to technology to protect themselves rather than reducing their environmental impact.
This can be seen through the effort of agro-chemical and biotechnology corporations, such as
Monsanto and Bayer, to climate-proof their products through patenting genes that further
threaten environmental stability (McMichael 174). In the neoliberal food system, money values
are placed above life values. This prioritization of money values has had devastating effects on
food producers and has contributed to environmental degradation.
Conclusion: System Malfunction
This analysis shows that there is a discrepancy between the neoliberal food system’s perceived
purpose and actual purpose. To understand how this system malfunctions, Meadows suggest
“[paying] attention to the rules and to who has power over them” (Meadows 158). Using her
advice as a guide, it becomes clear that corporations have power over the rules and are
consistently benefiting from imbalanced relationships that favour them over food producers,
processors and eaters. In the neoliberal food system, the hegemony of neoliberalism facilitates
the one-way communication from corporations that is focused on money values rather than life
values.
In systems thinking, “systems can be nested within systems…[and] there can be purposes within
purposes” (Meadows 15). These nested purposes are called ‘sub-purposes’ and it is essential to
have harmony between sub-purposes and the overall system purpose for proper functioning.
Meadows provides the following example
[t]he purpose of a university is to discover and preserve knowledge
and pass it on to new generations. Within the university, the
purpose of a student may be to get good grades, the purpose of a
professor may be to get tenure…Any of those sub-purposes could
come into conflict with the overall purpose - the student could
cheat, the professor could ignore the students in order to publish
papers (Meadows 15-16).
When understood through the perspective of systems thinking, there is a discrepancy between the
purported purpose of the neoliberal food system, which is to promote well-being and happiness,
and the corporate sub-purpose of maximizing profits. This dissonance between purposes has
46
resulted in a system malfunction. As corporations became more involved in food systems due to
the implementation of neoliberal policies, they started to create new structures of increasing
complexity to support their sub-purpose. These new structures that are created are, what systems
thinkers call, a hierarchy within the system (Meadows 82). Ideally, hierarchies that exist within a
system serve the system’s overall purpose but there are instances when a hierarchy can break
free and cause a disruption. For instance, “if a team member is more interested in personal glory
than in the team winning, he or she can cause the team to lose” (Meadows 84). This analogy can
be easily applied to corporations which have built hierarchies that only serve to benefit
themselves rather than serving the greater purpose of enhancing well-being and happiness.
Luckily, there are other hierarchies being built to challenge the ones built by corporations. Two
hierarches that are potential alternatives to the neoliberal food system are food systems based on
food security and food sovereignty which will be explored in chapters 4 and 5 respectively.
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Chapter 4 An Evaluation of Food Security
Introduction
Food security emerged in the 1970s as a response to a world food crisis. It was “a time of turmoil
on global grain markets, rising hunger, and importantly, the height of the Cold War” (Clapp
207). Global shortages caused by poor harvests were compounded by a tripling of wheat prices
triggered by the sale of 28 million tons of surplus grain from the United States the Soviet Union
(Jarosz 171 and Fairbairn 22). The concept of food security started to gain momentum after it
appeared in the report of the 1974 World Food Conference and in the Universal Declaration of
the Eradication of Hunger and Malnutrition (Fairbairn 22). Within this declaration an important
link is made between well-being and food security. Article G states
[t]he well-being of the peoples of the world largely depends on the
adequate production and distribution of food as well as the
establishment of a world food security system which would ensure
adequate availability of, and reasonable prices for, food at all
times, irrespective of periodic fluctuations and vagaries of weather
and free of political and economic pressures, and should thus
facilitate, amongst other things, the development process of
developing countries (The Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights).
Food security also emerged from the same social framework as national security which is
concerned with the safety and well-being of its citizens (W. Roberts 84). To protect citizens,
emphasis was on ensuring food availability at the national level and was “originally centred on
how nations could better control their food supplies through market intervention, increased
production and external food aid” (Fairbairn 23). By 1981, the Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations (FAO) understood
[f]ood security in its broadest sense [as] the availability of
adequate food supplies now and in the future. In the narrower
sense, food security mean[t] food stocks and arrangements to
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govern their establishment and use as a protection against crop
failures or shortfalls in imported food supplies (as cited in
Fairbairn 23).
Since then, the definition of food security has undergone multiple iterations which this chapter
will discuss and analyze through the lens of Sumner’s theoretical model of sustainability. It will
discuss how the concept of food security has been influenced by neoliberalism and discuss if it
can facilitate well-being and happiness.
Hegemony
The hegemonic influence of neoliberalism can be seen in the discourse of food security as it
continued to evolve. Interestingly, the late 1970s and early 1980s was a time when neoliberalism
was strongly promoted by Ronald Reagan, then President of the United States, and Margaret
Thatcher, then Prime Minister of Britain, and “transformed…into the central guiding principle of
economic thought and management” (Harvey, “A Brief History” 2). The repercussions of this
change in political discourse reverberated into the conceptualization of food security in the next
two decades that followed the World Food Conference in 1974. That time period was “marked
by free liberalism, the intensification of global economic relations, and the restructuring of the
economy and the state” (Koç 253). In turn the
[c]orporate response to the [food] crisis included measures such as
a shift to the new information technologies, decentralization and
privatization, emphasis on increasing rationalization and
efficiency; deskilling of cheap labour and intensification of the
work process; and global sourcing of resources. Globalization of
the industrial and agricultural production was accompanied by an
even more dramatic trend in the globalization of the financial
markets (Koç 253).
By the 1990s it was clear that food security was enveloped in the hegemony of neoliberalism as
it shifted focus from national food security onto household food security which had “individual
purchasing power at its analytical core and [was] coupled with policy prescriptions that
favour[ed] liberalized agricultural markets and a decreased role for national governments”
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(Fairbairn 24). This marked a stark shift in thinking as food security became an issue of “micro-
economic choices facing individuals in a free market, rather than the policy choices facing
governments” (Fairbairn 24). This change of discourse demonstrates the deep hegemonic
influence of neoliberalism; instead of intervening in the free markets it had once critiqued, food
security was championing them. In fact, the FAO “also emphasizes market orientation over state
intervention” (FAO, IFAD and WFP 23).
Currently, the FAO understands food security as
[a] situation that exists when all people, at all times, have physical,
social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food
that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active
and healthy life. Based on this definition, four food security
dimensions can be identified: food availability, economic and
physical access to food, food utilization and stability over time
(FAO, “Glossary”)
The FAO further qualifies this definition by juxtaposing it to the definition of food insecurity
which is
[a] situation that exists when people lack secure access to sufficient
amounts of safe and nutritious food for normal growth and
development and an active and healthy life. It may be caused by
the unavailability of food, insufficient purchasing power,
inappropriate distribution or inadequate use of food at the
household level. Food insecurity, poor conditions of health and
sanitation and inappropriate care and feeding practices are the
major causes of poor nutritional status. Food insecurity may be
chronic, seasonal or transitory (FAO, “Glossary”).
Due to strong neoliberal influence, food security falls short on correcting the issues brought on
by the neoliberal food system. For instance, the definitions above demonstrate a strong emphasis
on the household which implies an individual responsibility to remain food secure. The
hegemony of the cult of the individual, evident in utilitarian theory and supported by
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neoliberalism, is prevalent in this model. Through invoking individualism and the importance of
purchasing power, food security also perpetuates the concept of the economic man and promotes
economic growth. The argument is that
in a growing economy, more household members are able to find
work and earn incomes [which] is essential for improving food
security and nutrition and contributes to a virtuous circle as better
nutrition strengthens human capacities and productivity, thus
leading to better economic performance (FAO, IFAD and WFP
27).
In this framework, human capacities are defined by economic performance. While there certainly
is a need for a person to be financially stable to survive, there is much more to being human than
being a consumer. Indeed, the influence of neoliberalism can be seen through food security’s
emphasis on the market and in its limited appreciation of human capacities.
Dialogue
The effects of the hegemony of neoliberalism can also be viewed through the lens of dialogue,
the second dimension of Sumner’s theoretical model of sustainability. In food security, human
relationships to food are limited to the issues of physical health, particularly hunger and
malnutrition. As Harvey articulates
for any system of thought to become hegemonic requires the
articulation of fundamental concepts that become so deeply
embedded in common-sense understandings that they become
taken for granted and beyond question…A conceptual apparatus
has to be constructed that appeals almost “naturally” to our
institutions and instincts, to our values and our desires (“Neo-
liberalism” 146).
Harvey’s statement is particularly true when considering food security; by invoking the concept
of health, neoliberal policies and practices appeal to human values and desires which make it
harder to resist and question through dialogue. This neoliberal, reductionist way of thinking has
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given rise to nutritionism and healthism which emphasizes individual responsibility over one’s
health (Brady, Gingras and Power 124). Within the dominate discourse of nutritionism, food’s
purpose is solely to provide the nutrients for physical, bodily health. Nutritionism is championed
by corporations and has led to the rise of processed foods that are manufactured to be low in fat
and fortified with nutrients (Brady, Gingras and Power 124). Just as in the neoliberal food
system, corporations communicate the benefits of these types of foods to consumers through
product labeling and nutritional guidelines which aim to legitimize and highlight nutritional
benefits while masking other types of information (Knezevic 251). Through invoking food
security, corporations are able to reinforce consumerism since, under this framework, they
should be able to decide for themselves which foods they should buy in order to live healthy
lives.
Proponents also argue that choice has expanded since “[i]ndustrial farming and
processing…have broken down limitations on food choices by growing seasons, plants’
geographical ranges, and crop failures” (Kimbrell 24). This argument perpetuates the illusion of
choice in the rational choice model and emphasizes responsibility onto the individual,
undermines welfare state activities and pushes decisions around food to the private market arena.
Instead of having dialogue between food eaters, corporations and governments, people are
caught in a culture of self-surveillance wherein they monitor their own choices to ensure that
those decisions align with the acceptable mainstream health discourse rather than discussing the
political, cultural and spiritual significance of food (Brady, Gingras and Power 124 and Carlisle
and Hanlon 6). This transition emphasizes individual lifestyle choices, an approach that has been
criticized for victim-blaming and not taking into account the complex social situations or issues
of social class that factor into health, including levels of income and the state of the environment
(Raeburn and Rootman 6).
Emphasis on the private market also reinforces the idea that food is a commodity to be mass
produced. Under the guise of enhancing access, corporate food production invokes the neoliberal
principle of rationalism by “breaking [agricultural systems] into their constituent pieces, which
could then be individually scrutinized and modified for more intensive production and more
efficient operations” (P. Roberts 22). This view on food gives way to technological interventions
that amplify these components which in turn elevates the position of corporations in the food
system. In fact, the biotechnology industry “has relentlessly pushed the myth that biotechnology
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will conquer world hunger” (Kimbrell 33). Companies like Monsanto suggest that low-
technology agriculture will not produce enough food to alleviate hunger and “[t]heir answer is
pesticide- and technology-intensive agriculture that will produce the maximum output from the
land in the shortest amount of time” (Kimbrell 6). Biotechnology proponents state that almost
“every area in the food production market is using genetic modification to produce foods that
taste better, grow faster, resist disease and improve the amount of nutrients found in the world”
(Lamichhane 44). They also suggest that developed countries have achieved food security by
applying biotechnology and that developing countries can do the same with “new inputs for
resource-poor and small scale farmers” (Lamichhane 44). If this argument is accepted, the
dialogue between corporations and farms is once again one-sided because smallholder farmers
are vulnerable to large corporate suppliers that can produce food stuffs at the low prices that
retailers demand (P. Roberts 66). In fact, farmers in the agro-industrial system are “locked into a
production chain where the choices of inputs and the use of the harvest are predetermined by
agro-chemical and food-processing firms” (Pionetti as cited in McMichael 177).
Furthermore, when this argument is examined through a critical theory lens, it becomes clear that
industrial agriculture will not truly alleviate hunger and that the claim is “simply a self-serving
agribusiness myth” (Kimbrell 7). In fact, agribusiness is one of causes of food insecurity as it has
enclosed farmland and forced peasants off the land in order to grow high-priced export crops. As
a result “millions of peasants lose their land, community, traditions, and most directly their
ability to grow their own food - their food independence” (Kimbrell 7). Indeed, many poor food
producers view food security as being too consumer focused with no reference to food producer
rights. They understand “consumption [as] such a domineering element of the food system that
production is an afterthought” (W. Roberts 92).
While alleviating hunger and malnutrition is extremely important, food security ignores the
social and environmental context in which food is produced (Wittman, Desmarais and Wiebe 3).
By ignoring the social, cultural and environmental aspects of food, food security reduces food
into a unit of consumption which furthers the corporate agenda of commodification and
continues to reduce people to cogs in the industrial, neoliberal food machine. From the
discussion above, it is clear that the one-way dialogue of food security is infused with
neoliberalism.
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Life Values
When viewed through the lens of life values, the third dimension of Sumner’s theoretical model
of sustainability, food security also falters because food security’s focus is on increasing
production and access “without particular attention to how, where and by whom food is
produced” (Wittman, Desmarais and Wiebe 3). By ignoring the social, environmental, and
cultural contexts in which food exists, food security implies a value neutral approach which
depoliticizes food systems. Indeed, “while it attempts to remedy a faulty system, it does so
without questioning the dominant political-economic wisdom” (Fairbairn 22). This has left food
security vulnerable to co-optation which opportunistic agribusinesses and corporations have
taken advantage of to promote money values.
Food security proponents argue that “[p]roper nutrition contributes to human development; it
helps people realize their full potential and take advantage of opportunities offered by the
development process” (FAO, IFAD and WFP 26). Unfortunately this view of human potential is
quite limited. A closer examination of this claim reveals that human potential is tied to neoliberal
development processes and the ability to participate as consumers. This is significant because
“[w]hen the civil commons is attacked and weakened (as exemplified by the growth machine
hypothesis), many people are left behind [and are] excluded from the benefits enjoyed by those
who can afford to pay for them” (Sumner, “Sustainability” 341). Even the FAO, an organization
that champions food security, recognizes that
[n]ot all types of growth are effective in reducing hunger and
malnutrition. Very poor people cannot participate in growth
processes that require capital or generate employment for the
educated and skilled…The greater inequality in the distribution of
assets, such as land, water, capital, education and health, the more
difficult it is for the poor to improve their situation and the slower
the progress in reducing undernourishment (FAO, IFAD and WFP
28).
The FAO also recognizes that
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[o]n average, and across the developing world since 1990-92,
economic growth has brought strong and persistent hunger
reductions…[and] [i]ncreases in the incomes of the poor are
associated with higher intake of dietary energy and other nutrients.
But in the longer term, as economies grow and countries become
richer, this relationship weakens - increases in GDP may bring
relatively fewer people out of hunger (FAO, IFAD and WFP 27).
Interestingly, the solution that is put forward is promoting inclusive markets which is the idea is
that
[w]ith increased productivity, farmers grow more food, become
more competitive and receive higher incomes. Productivity growth
in small family farms contributes to more inclusive growth, not
only by reducing the prices of staple foods but also by improving
access to food. With well-functioning rural labour markets, such
productivity growth increases the demand for labour in rural areas,
generating jobs for the poor and raising the unskilled labour wage
rate. Rural household members diversify their income sources by
obtaining better-paid off-farm work, which helps poverty and
hunger to decline” (FAO, IFAD and WFP 31).
This solution is oriented by money values, not life values, because it emphasizes economic
growth and even suggests that farmers work off-farm for better-paid work. While many food
producers may have other career aspirations, there are many that see farming as part of who they
are. Furthermore, while this solution recognizes the financial barrier to accessing food, it does
not elaborate on the fact that “[p]eople suffering from hunger are also often suffering from
racism, sexism, deep poverty, illiteracy, lack of healthcare, water, jobs and good land” (W.
Roberts 118). This solution can also be critiqued from the perspective that “[p]eople do not die
for lack of income…but for lack of access to the wealth of the commons” (W. Roberts 103).
Solutions based on money values to solve a problem caused by money values is unproductive
because it ignores the role of learning and human agency, elements that are critical to
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understanding sustainability and the building of the civil commons (Sumner, “Sustainability”
283-4).
Instead of only focusing on money values, food security should consider solutions that promote
life values because “learning to choose life values over money values will help to replace the
existing hegemony of corporate globalization with a more life-oriented alternative” (Sumner,
“Sustainability” 156). This reorientation of values can help build and protect the civil commons
which increases well-being and advances the utopian project (Sumner, “Sustainability” 235).
While food security aims to alleviate hunger and malnutrition, its narrow focus on money values
undermines its ability to promote life values and thus its ability to contribute to well-being and
happiness.
Conclusion
Through a critical theory lens, food security’s goal of reducing hunger and malnutrition, is not
enough; humans must not only survive, they must thrive. Human potential is about much more
than existing, it is concerned with realizing well-being and happiness and the food security
framework is limited in facilitating this. Unfortunately, “while the food security concept
emerging in response to the accumulation crisis during the 1970s presented some of the earlier
develop mentalist and rights-based arguments, in later years it reflected a clear neoliberal vision”
(Koç 248). Indeed, food security has been influenced by neoliberalism, a malfunctioning, yet
persistent ideology that does not promote well-being and happiness. Neoliberalism endures
because, from a critical theory and systems thinking perspective, “social structures become
stubborn, resist social change, and thus become constraining” (Murray and Ozanne 133). To
promote well-being and happiness, the neoliberal food system needs to be disrupted in a more
radical way than offered by food security.
To disrupt the system, people need to realize that
the economic system is stable only if the consciousness of the
strata and classes which compose it remains compatible with the
social relations which characterize it as a mode of production …
[and] requires that the hierarchical division of labour be
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reproduced in the consciousness of its participants (Bowls and
Gintis 147).
The statement by Bowls and Gintis explains that people are participants in reproducing the
structures that oppress them but they can also be agents that can disrupt those same structures
through their conscious refusal to perpetuate patterns of oppression. By being able to see how
reality is constructed, one can see how reality can be manipulated and changed. This is critical
because neoliberal ideology “depicts neoliberalism as an inevitable, external force rather than an
intentional project” (Fairbairn 18).
As discussed above, neoliberalism is an ideology put into practice through the creation of
policies, structures such as the WTO, and through the repetition of social patterns powered by
hegemony. To be critically conscious is to decode the encryption in which neoliberalism remains
hidden in plain sight. Critical theory argues that “ideology is what prevents the agents in the
society from correctly perceiving their true situation and real interests; if they are to free
themselves from social repression, the agents must rid themselves of ideological illusion” (Geuss
3). Indeed, “[o]nly by seeing themselves as autonomous from ruling interests can groups begin to
act in their own interests” (Sumner, “Sustainability” 283). By being able to see how reality is
constructed, one can see how reality can be manipulated and changed. Becoming critically
conscious is rejecting that neoliberalism is permanent. Instead of being listening objects,
producers and consumers must become active agents and, as Freire would say, masters of their
own thinking (124). This call-to-action mobilizes human agency and requires people to use their
capabilities to engage with the food system and restructure the relationships within it in ways
that promote counter-hegemony, dialogue and life values. By changing the relationships within
the food system, people can change the food system significantly. One movement striving to
instigate this change is food sovereignty.
Chapter 5 will explore food sovereignty and examine its potential to disrupt neoliberalism.
Sumner’s theoretical model of sustainability will be applied to understand if and how food
sovereignty promotes the three building blocks of sustainability and, in turn, well-being and
happiness.
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Chapter 5 An Evaluation of Food Sovereignty
Introduction
The food sovereignty movement is championed by La Via Campesina, a global peasant
organization representing over 200 million peasants in over 73 countries including small-scale
farmers, farm workers, and indigenous communities worldwide. As part of their movement, they
are demanding food sovereignty which is a concept that has and continues to evolve over time.
When it was first conceptualized by La Via Campesina in 1996, they defined food sovereignty as
“the right of each nation to maintain and develop its own capacity to produce its basic foods
respecting cultural and productive diversity” (La Via Campesina “Appendix 1” 197). They also
argued that “[f]ood sovereignty is a precondition to genuine food security” (La Via Campesina
“Appendix 1” 197). In 2002, it was interpreted to mean
the rights of peoples to define their own food and agriculture; to
protect and regulate domestic agricultural production and trade in
order to achieve sustainable development objectives; to determine the
extent to which they want to be self-reliant…(Patel as cited in
Agarwal 1247)
Another definition at that time was from The Peoples Food Sovereignty Network which defined
food sovereignty as
the right of peoples to define their own food and agriculture; to protect
and regulate domestic agriculture and trade in order to achieve
sustainable development objectives; to determine the extent to which
they want to be self reliant; to restrict the dumping of products in their
markets; and to provide local fisheries-based communities the priority
in managing the use of and the rights to aquatic resources. Food
sovereignty does not negate trade, but rather, it promotes the
formulation of trade policies and practices that serve the rights
peoples to be safe, healthy and ecologically sustainable production (as
cited in Patel, “What does” 189).
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In 2007, La Via Campesina once again redefined food sovereignty in the Nyéléni declaration as
the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food
produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and
their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. It puts
those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food
systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and
corporations (Patel, “What does” 190)
La Via Campesina’s definition also emphasizes land rights and “implies new social relations free
of oppression and inequality between men and women, peoples, racial groups, social and
economic classes and generations” (Patel, “What does” 190). Finally, Wittman, Desmarais and
Wiebe define it broadly as “the right of nations and peoples to control their own food systems,
including their own markets, productions modes, food cultures and environments” (2).
While there is no uniform definition of food sovereignty, the concept has “gained increasing
ground among grassroots groups, taking the form of a global movement” (Agarwal 1247). The
emergence of food sovereignty should not be ignored because “when names catch on, it is a sign
that the regime is in crisis” (Friedmann as cited in Fairbairn 21). In this case, the regime in crisis
is neoliberal food system and the concept of food security that supports it. This chapter will
examine food sovereignty as both a concept and a movement through the lens of Sumner’s
theoretical model of sustainability and discuss how it is affecting relationships within the food
system in ways that promote well-being and happiness.
Hegemony
Food sovereignty promotes a counter-hegemonic message to neoliberalism and food security. In
fact, it was initially part of “antiglobalization discourses related to issues of international trade
and agricultural subsidies” (Jarosz 170). To share their message, food sovereignty advocates
deliberately hosted parallel international meetings to demonstrate their counter-hegemonic
position to dominant discourses about food. For example, in 2009, The People’s Food
Sovereignty Forum was held and “over 600 representatives of 450 nongovernmental
organizations (NGOs) of peasants, fishers, pastoralists, indigenous peoples, youth, women, urban
dwellers, and farmworkers…gathered in Rome at a place called the Alternative Economy City”
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(Jarosz 169). Earlier that year, also in Rome, the FAO had hosted World Food Day where they
promoted the dominant food security narrative (Jarosz 168).
In fact, food sovereignty is quite critical of food security. Instead of the depoliticizing discourse
of food systems that occurs within food security, food sovereignty “stress[es] the importance of
analyzing power relations and capitalist development’s impacts upon agricultural development,
local ecologies, hunger, and poverty” (Jarosz 170). By repoliticizing food systems, food
sovereignty advocates are creating a crisis of hegemony which
occurs either because the ruling class has failed in some major
political undertaking for which it has requested, or forcibly extracted,
the consent of the broad masses…or because huge masses (especially
of peasants and petit-bourgeois intellectuals) have passed suddenly
from a state of political passivity to a certain activity, and put forward
demands which taken together, albeit not organically formulated, add
up to a revolution (Gramsci as cited in Sumner, “Sustainability” 132).
Meetings such as The People’s Food Sovereignty Forum demonstrate that food producers have
developed a critical consciousness that is enabling them to challenge dominate food discourses
and the hegemonic corporate rule in the neoliberal food system. They are demonstrating that
“individuals are not simply acted upon by abstract “structures” but negotiate, struggle, and create
meaning of their own” (Weiler 21). Viewed through a critical theory perspective, this is
significant because “[i]f people become aware that their ideas about reality are not congruent
with reality, this awareness may serve as an impetus for rational social development and change”
(Murray and Ozanne 133). Indeed, their consciousness has become a catalyst for counter-
hegemonic thought. One significant contribution of food sovereignty is the recognition that the
neoliberal food system is dominated by corporations. For food sovereignty, the key to unlocking
and restructuring the relationships within food systems is centring people and not corporations.
Instead of corporations being the node through which all food system information is relayed,
“[food sovereignty] puts the aspirations and needs of those who produce, distribute and consume
food at the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and
corporations” (Forum for Food Sovereignty cited in Suschnigg 227).
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By adjusting focus on food producers and eaters, and away from corporations, food sovereignty
is rejecting the hegemonic idea that food is a commodity and are “refus[ing] to adopt the
individualizing language that shapes the household food security frame” (Fairbairn 27). They are
also questioning the emphasis on money values “by placing great value on things with little
quantifiable economic worth, such as culture, biodiversity and traditional knowledge” (Fairbairn
27). Indeed, food sovereignty acknowledges that the
globalized food system distances eaters from the people who produce
food and from the places where food is produced – literally and
conceptually. The more industrialized, processed and distant food is,
the less connected to and knowledgeable about it the consumer
becomes. [This system] changes our relationship to our meals,
stripping meaning, cultural significance and even appreciation from
our daily food experiences. But it also undermines our capacity for
making decisions about this key determinant of our lives and our
economies (Wittman, Desmarais and Wiebe 5).
Food sovereignty recognizes not only the physical aspects of food but also the spiritual, cultural,
emotional and community value of food. From this perspective “food production is
fundamentally about relationships, not commodities that can be bought and sold” (Roberts 93-
94). Food sovereignty reasserts food as a life-sustaining good and “recognizes that the growing,
buying, preparing, and eating of food are embedded in a social and ecological relationships,
rather than primarily functioning under market determinants” (Weibe 168). Instead of framing
food as an object to be traded, food can be reimagined as something to be shared through
traditional practices such as gift exchanges (W. Roberts 98). Food activist Wayne Roberts would
call the food produced through the framework of food sovereignty as ‘Real Food’ which
acknowledges that health “comes from simpler lifestyles and richer relationships that let food
keep body and soul together” (Roberts, MacRae and Stahlbrand 1). While food security still
fragments the food system and estranges people from food, “food sovereignty is about the place
of food production in a society and culture” (W. Roberts 92). Food sovereignty keeps the
integrity of the food system intact instead of perpetuating the fragmentation encouraged by
neoliberalism. By centring food producers, processors, distributors and eaters, food sovereignty
is changing the relationships within the food system. Viewed from a systems thinking approach,
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these changes can be transformative since “changing interconnections in a system can change it
dramatically” (Meadows 16).
Food sovereignty reminds us that
[t]here are ways of getting back what the food system has taken from
us: dignity in refusing to accept what we are told we must want, and
how we must work and live; control over our lives, bodies and self-
image; the knowledge that no matter where a child is born, she will be
able to eat healthy, nutritious food and grow up free from poverty in a
world that today’s generations have ceased to destroy; and, perhaps
most of all, a rediscovery of the pleasure of eating food (Patel,
“Stuffed” 301-302).
Undeniably, food sovereignty is putting forward a counter-hegemonic discourse which has the
potential to move food systems closer to the optimum area of Sumner’s theoretical model of
sustainability.
Dialogue
According to Sumner’s theoretical model of sustainability, “dialogical engagement…can begin
to break the stranglehold of corporate globalization on the hearts and minds of ordinary people
and build a willingness to work together to construct an alternative vision where sustainability
and individual and community well-being rank first and foremost” (Sumner ,“Sustainability”
155). Food sovereignty is striving to facilitate this dialogue and “implies a diversity of
solutions…and…a set of ideas, policies and ways of eating that are sensitive to history, ecology
and culture, and that respect human rights” (Patel, “Stuffed” 317). The Nyéléni declaration
contrasts the right to shape food policy with the privilege to do so which reveals how “[t]he
modern food system has been architected by a handful of privileged people” (Patel “What does”
190). This perspective challenges the idea that “the only means of communication we have with
producers is through the market, and that the only way we can take collective action is to
persuade everyone else to shop like us” (Patel, “Stuffed” 312).
62
Food sovereignty was first introduced in 1996 by La Via Campensina at the World Food Summit
to “express both the truth of power relations within the food domain and the hope for the
democratic, widely dispersed, just distribution of those powers over food” (Wittman, Desmarais
and Wiebe 11). The movement recognizes the unjust distribution of benefits and harm of the
neoliberal food system which continues “the colonial pattern of extraction of food resources
from the South to the North” (McMichael 168). Food sovereignty seeks to re-exempt food and
agriculture from free-trade deals (W. Roberts 88). It also calls for corporate accountability and
the transparency of information to ensure that food and feed-stuffs are labelled in ways that
support consumers’ and farmers’ right to know about the contents and origin of the product (La
Via Campesina “Appendix 2” 202).
By centring food producers, food sovereignty is changing the rules of the game by rejecting
neoliberalism, increasing dialogue, and insisting that food systems should not privilege elites but
should be shaped by all (Patel, “What does” 190). The food sovereignty paradigm has a great
potential for increasing well-being and happiness because it elevates the voice of producers,
processors, distributors and eaters of food. Through food sovereignty “the peasants now see
themselves as transformers of reality (previously and mysterious entity) through their creative
labour” (Freire 174) and can choose the values that they want to pursue with their own skills and
abilities. This shift displaces the locus of control from corporate power and is an example of
globalization from below which is dialogical, counter-hegemonic and life affirming. Just as
globalization from below “rises up from below in many forms, such as community activism,
street demonstrations, information sessions, horizontal alliances, alternative media and grass-
roots networking” (Sumner, “Sustainability” 250-1) so does food sovereignty.
Indeed, food sovereignty can be understood as a global civil society network which, according to
Boulding, carries out activities such as “1. Lobbying governments; 2. Educating for world
citizenship; 3. New conceptual thinking and state-of-the-art experience; 4. A way for the North
to learn from the South; 5. Creating and maintaining information channels; 6. Activity as an
antidote to despair” (as cited in Sumner, “Sustainability” 119). Food sovereignty advocates, La
Via Campesina, do this by holding alternative summits, hosting seed celebration days, and
publishing mobilization kits and packets on how to “Say ‘NO!’ to corporate control of food and
agriculture” (La Via Campesina “Actions and Events”). These actions demonstrate how “[o]ne
way to globalize disruptions is to share local initiatives with other communities, which not only
63
has disruptive power, but also allows communities to network and learn from each other, acting
as agents in their own sustainability” (Sumner, “Sustainability” 356-357).
Instead of corporate goals being the power that drives the food system, “[food sovereignty] puts
the aspirations and needs of those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food
systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations” (Forum for Food
Sovereignty cited in Suschnigg 227). By transcending the limitations of neoliberalism, food
systems that are designed with food sovereignty in mind are not subservient to corporate power.
This is important because “[s]ocial action often involves intervening in or affecting economies”
(Newman 256). Food sovereignty has the potential to advance a cultural revolution because it
maximizes the efforts of critical consciousness and reconstructs human activities in food systems
(Freire 159). By doing this, food sovereignty repairs and improves upon the flaws of food
security because it works outside of the neoliberal ideology and increases dialogue.
Life Values
Although neoliberalism has industrialized food systems, the food sovereignty movement is
aiming to humanize them through prioritizing life values over money values. This helps us to
think of each other and respect each other as people because “ideas about food sovereignty force
us to rethink our relationships with food, agriculture and the environment. But, perhaps the most
revolutionary aspect of food sovereignty is that it forces us to rethink our relationships with one
another” (Wittman, Desmarais and Wiebe 4). This is because “[f]ood producers are more likely
to define themselves by the non-monetary values they hold and the practices they follow” (W.
Roberts 91) and, as Freire notes, “sooner or later being less human leads the oppressed to
struggle against those who made them so” (44). The quest for well-being and happiness for all
can be a commanding force that can help to distribute power to people through joint agency. This
sense of agency demonstrates that food sovereignty is an example of globalization from below as
it is diverse and unorganized and is comprised of various forms of resistance to corporate
globalization (Sumner, “Sustainability” 112). By supporting globalization below, food
sovereignty is prioritizing a life-code of value which is focused on interaction, democratic
decision making, gender equality, and environmental sustainability (Sumner, “Sustainability”
111).
64
Instead of defending increasing food production capacity to solve hunger, food sovereignty
encourages farming practices that protect indigenous knowledge and sustainable agricultural
practices (La Via Campesina “Appendix 2” 202). Studies show that small family farms have
proven to be more productive than large corporate farms in terms of output because of their
integrated approach to farming. This ecological and traditional way of farming works with nature
and recognizes the need for polycultures and efficiently uses land, water and other inputs (Altieri
122). Since food sovereignty does not give priority to trade, smaller farms are able to provide
true food security through ensuring enough production for domestic consumption (La Via
Campesina, “Appendix 1” 198). Food sovereignty also allows food producers to apply their
knowledge and engage in activities such as seed saving which protects biodiversity.
Food sovereignty also promotes life values by promoting environmental health. By practicing
peasant farming, the environment is more resilient to natural disasters related to climate change.
This is because peasant farming utilizes traditional agroecosystems and uses local plant varieties,
leverages microclimates and works with local resources (Altieri 125). Promoting practices that
protect biodiversity is also a key element of food sovereignty. This means that food producers
working within this alternative framework prohibit the patenting and commercialization of
genetic resources (La Via Campesina, “Appendix 1” 198) which ensures that food remains in the
civil commons.
To support stable eco-systems and sustainable resources, food sovereignty proponents are
fighting to ban the use of dangerous technologies including food irradiation that increases toxins
found in food as well as the development and use of genetically modified seeds, foods, animal
feed and related products. In doing so, food sovereignty invokes an important principle of
environmental justice which “affirms the sacredness of Mother Earth, ecological unity and the
interdependence of all species, and the right to be free from ecological destruction”
(“Principles”). Food sovereignty proponents acknowledge the environmental damage caused by
industrial food production including “intensification, chemical inputs, water and soil
degradation, deforestation and unsustainable resource exploitation” (Wittman, Desmarais and
Wiebe 10). By working with the environment, food sovereignty provides an argument of
sustainability similar to the one defended by Sumner:
65
sustainability is a human issue, not an environmental issue. It entails
human action toward the environment, not the environment itself. The
environment is/provides life goods, and so must be protected by the
co-operative human construct of the civil commons. In other words,
sustainability protects the civil commons, which, in turn, protects the
environment (Sumner, “Sustainability” 248).
Food sovereignty is driven by life values and strives to build the life-protecting civil commons
through centring food producers in food systems.
Conclusion
Through encouraging and engaging in counter-hegemonic dialogue focused on life-values, food
sovereignty is disrupting neoliberalism’s hold on food systems by advancing sustainability and
building the civil commons. By advancing the civil commons, food sovereignty “enables a
qualitative improvement in the well-being of individuals and communities, [and allows] them to
develop in life affirming ways” (Sumner, “Sustainability” 332). Food sovereignty supports
development from the capabilities approach perspective which understands it “as a process of
expanding the real freedoms that people enjoy and increasing their possibilities to realize
themselves as humans” (Glenholm 49). Food sovereignty proponents should continually engage
in deep reflection and action, a practice that Freire calls praxis, to ensure that they are
maintaining and building the civil commons. Food sovereignty advocates should consider
evaluating their practices on an ongoing basis using Sumner’s theoretical model of sustainability.
This is important because testing action is linked to the emergence of potential consciousness
(Freire 113). Indeed, food sovereignty has the potential to disrupt the neoliberal food system in
ways that change the relationships within it and support the optimum area of Sumner’s
theoretical model of sustainability.
66
Chapter 6 Conclusion: Building Sustainable Food Systems
A critical analysis of food systems reveal that ‘you eat what you are’ because they reflect and
perpetuate society’s values, ideologies and paradigms and also that what ‘we are’ is not fixed and
can be changed. There can, however, be a dissonance between societal values and food systems
because, as critical theory elucidates, social structures can become rigid over time and resist
social change (Murray and Ozanne 133). To change a system, people must first engage in a deep
reflection and evaluation of food systems to understand if their values and goals are being
supported. If we want well-being to flourish and to be happy then the foods we eat must also be
produced, processed and consumed in this way. This critical lens is important because as
Wendell Berry notes, “if human values are removed from production, how can they be preserved
in consumption?” (as cited in Spector 289-290). This thesis was a critical exercise to understand
if and how well-being and happiness, two important elements of human potential, are being
facilitated through food systems driven by neoliberalism, food security and food sovereignty.
Each was evaluated using Sumner’s theoretical model to understand if and how they promoted
the three building blocks of sustainability – counter-hegemony, dialogue and life values – and
thus well-being and happiness.
An analysis of the neoliberal food system exposed a system malfunction between what its
purported goal is and its actual goal. While neoliberalism states that it promotes well-being and
happiness, it does not promote the building blocks of sustainability or enable the civil commons.
An analysis of a food system based on food security revealed that it falls into the hegemonic
trappings of neoliberalism. While it speaks to health and nutrition, it does so in monological
ways that shifts responsibly onto individuals instead of addressing the issues of a fractured food
system. A final analysis of a food system based on food sovereignty revealed that it promotes the
three building blocks of sustainability and demonstrates a strong alternative to the neoliberal
food system. It demonstrates how taking ownership over what we are and what we want to
become implicates us into the food system. Through a continued effort, proponents of food
sovereignty will be able to reshape food systems in ways that advance sustainability and protect
food within the civil commons. The cultivation and ongoing praxis of critical consciousness will
be integral to the food sovereignty movement because neoliberalism is deeply embedded into
social structures and is difficult to transcend. If food sovereignty continues to promote counter-
67
hegemony, dialogue and life values it can transform food systems in ways that support the well-
being and happiness of food producers, distributors and eaters, thus opening the door to a fuller
realization of human potential and happiness.
Future research in this area could utilize Sumner’s theoretical model of sustainability to explore
and evaluate other food systems and their ability to facilitate well-being and happiness. One food
system worth examining is one based on community food security which is a community-level
response to food insecurity. It can be defined as
a prevention-oriented concept that supports the development and
enhancement of sustainable, community-based strategies: to improve
access of low-income households to healthful, nutritious food
supplies; to increase the self-reliance of communities in providing for
their own food needs; [and] to promote comprehensive responses to
local food, farm, and nutrition issues (U.S. Department of Agriculture
as cited in Berman 223).
It has also been defined as “a condition in which all community residents obtain a safe, culturally
acceptable, nutritionally adequate diet through a sustainable food system that maximizes
community self-reliance and social justice” (Hamm & Bellows as cited in Berman 223).
Examining a food system driven by the concept of community food security would be fruitful
because it shares commonalities with food security and food sovereignty but also differs. Like
food security, community food security is concerned with access. Unlike food security, it relies
on the active participation and advocacy of civil societies and holds communities, rather than
individuals or households, accountable for ensuring food security (Koç et al. 123). Community
food security has also been described as “within a hair’s breadth of meaning the same thing as
food sovereignty” (W. Roberts 85). For instance, like food sovereignty, it is a social movement
that engages “a diverse array of organizations committed to a more equitable food system”
(Fisher 297). It is focused on prevention of hunger and encourages community development that
“uses food as a vehicle for building relationships and developing indigenous resources” (Fisher
298). It differs from food sovereignty in that it does not strongly emphasize the relationships
between food producers and eaters in the global South and global North since its focus is on
“locally grown foods instead of globally sourced ones” (Fisher 298). Indeed, future research
68
should examine other emergent concepts that challenge the neoliberal food system which, in
turn, can help create sustainable food systems that promote well-being and happiness.
69
Epilogue
The Mexican fisherman reflected on his conversation with the
American investment banker and started to believe that another,
more sustainable, path towards well-being and happiness was
possible. He felt fortunate to lead a fulfilling life but realized that it
was one that he should not take for granted. Artisanal fisheries,
such as his, helped to alleviate poverty and feed his community but
were starting to feel the repercussions of over-exploited fish stocks
(Espinoza-Tenorio et al. 343). Equipped with this new sense of
consciousness and a desire to harness his talents to shape food
systems, he learned of food sovereignty. He joined the World
Forum on Fish Harvesters and Fisher Workers whose mission is to
“empower small scale fishers’ [organizations] to influence both
national and international policies that affect their rights of access,
use and control, and sustainability of the fisheries resources for
improved livelihoods” (World Forum “About”). By applying his
own creative labour, he realized that another path was not only
possible but that he was forging it himself.
70
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Appendix 1: Sumner’s Theoretical Model of Sustainability
dialogue communication monologue
life
values
money
hegemony
structured power relations
counter-hegemony
optimum area
(Sumner, “Sustainability” 425)
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Copyright Acknowledgements
From: Jennifer Sumner
Sent: Wednesday, September 9, 2015 8:29 AM
To: Jo Anne Tacorda
Subject: RE: Thesis - Jo Anne Tacorda
Hi Jo Anne
I give you permission to use the image.
And, yes, the term you came up with for my model is appropriate.
Jennifer
__________________________________________________________________
Date: September 8, 2015
Re: Permission to Use Copyrighted Material in a Master’s Thesis
Dear Dr. Jennifer Sumner,
I am a University of Toronto graduate student completing my Master’s thesis entitled “We Are
What We Eat: Cultivating Well-being and Happiness through Sustainable Food Systems”.
My thesis will be available in full text on the internet for reference, study and / or copy. Except
in situations where a thesis is under embargo or restriction, the electronic version will be
accessible through the U of T Libraries web pages, the Library’s web catalogue, and also through
web search engines. I will also be granting Library and Archives Canada and ProQuest/UMI a
non-exclusive license to reproduce, loan, distribute, or sell single copies of my thesis by any
means and in any form or format. These rights will in no way restrict re-publication of the
material in any other form by you or by others authorized by you.
I would like permission to allow inclusion of your theoretical model for a critical understanding
of sustainability as depicted below:
82
The material will be attributed through a citation.
Please confirm in writing or by email that these arrangements meet with your approval.
Sincerely,
Jo Anne Tacorda
