Third lecture (out of three) in the Master on European and Global Governance by the Institute for European Global Studies (University of Basel, Switzerland). https://europa.unibas.ch/fr/weiterbildung/cas-europe-2050/ This lecture analyses the competing narratives of transition in the global and European food systems, within the theoretical framework of the Socio-technical Transition Theory and the Multi-Level Perspective. The dominant productivist narrative of the regime and the alternative narratives of the innovative and challenging niches are presented (food sovereignty, agro-ecology, de-growth, commons, Transition Towns, Buen Vivir, Ubuntu).

1. Narratives of Food
Transition to 2050
JOSE LUIS VIVERO POL
PhD Research Fellow in Food
Governance. Earth & Life Institute
/Centre of Philosophy of Law
Course on Advanced Studies
“Europe 2050. Trends and Challenges”
Institute for European Global Studies,
University of Base Tuesday 5 April 2016

2. Multi-level Perspective on socio-technological transitions Geels (2002)
Exploring narratives in the landscape

3. Sustainability transitions are
purposefully initiated /
directed by people’s visions,
long-term goals and
narratives of transition,
in a process that is often
contested by different actors
of the system, claiming and
advocating different interests
The governance of those
transitions becomes an issue
of clash of paradigms and
power struggles
Farla et al., 2012; Berkhout, 2006;
Eames et al., 2006; Weber, 2003.

4. THE CLASH OF
PARADIGMS
IN FOOD
TRANSITION

5. Dominant
Productivist
Narrative
Hegemonic in the
regime: states +
corporations + UN
system

10. Low cost food system:
• a) Low food prices that do not reflect either food’s
multiple values to humans or production costs and
environmental externalities,
• (b) overemphasis of hyper-caloric, unhealthy and ultra-
processed food
• (c) hugely subsidised by citizen’s taxes through
governments,
• (d) wasted by tones in illogical - inefficient food chains
• e) destructive of limited natural resources, contributing
to climate change and biodiversity reduction.
• Many eat poorly (the hungry of Global South) to enable
others to eat badly & cheaply (the over-weighted of
North)

12. Value and
price of food
are two
different
issues
Fair prices
are not the
lowest
possible for
consumers

13. Lowest prices of
wheat in recorded
world history
Dominant narrative
since WWII: lowering
the price at any cost

18. 1. Sustainable Intensification (science)
2. Green Growth (UN + Governments)
3. New Green Revolution (Corporate)
4. Climat-smart Agriculture (World Bank)

20. 20
Counter-hegemonic Narratives
Struggling against current system – Building a new one

21. If we waste one third of total food production
(wasted land, money, labourforce, energy, GHG emissions) AND
humanity is proyected to increased just 20%
(from 7.2 B in 2012 to 9 B in 2050),
why do we need to increase production by 50-70%?
Academia questioning the productivist paradigm

22. FOOD SOVEREIGNTY
Balance of Power
Including commons + embeddednes
indigenous + women + + stewardship

23. Food sovereignty is the fundamental right of all peoples,
nations and states to CONTROL FOOD AND AGRICULTURAL
SYSTEMS AND POLICIES, ensuring every one has adequate,
affordable, nutritious and culturally appropriate food.
This requires the right to define and control our methods of
production, transformation, distribution both at the local and
international levels.

24. 24
What is FOOD SOVEREIGTY?
#2. WORK IN PROGRESS
BUT MATURE, plurality of
meanings, academia recently
engaged
#4. IDEOLOGICAL STANCE
(counter-hegemonic) different
from neoliberalism & alternative
to industrial food system
#1. RECENT
CONCEPT (1996)
fast development
elaborated &
lead by Vía
Campesina
#3.Shared
narrative
between CIVIL
SOCIETY claims
and some
STATES´
national policies
Bolivia, Venezuela,
Ecuador, Nicaragua,
Honduras, Costa Rica,
El Salvador, Rep Dom
Foto: Alessandra Ferrandes

25. AGRO-ECOLOGY

26. TRANSITION MOVEMENT
Contemporary collective
actions for food
(urban consumers)
Alter-hegemonic + gradual

32. 32
Food as a commons

33. 33
Who owns the
blackberries?

34. 34
Who owns
the cherries
planted in
Louvain-la-
Neuve?

35. 35

36. Tradable Good
(Commodity)
Commons
Culture
How is food regarded/valued?
Mono VS Multi-dimensional Food
Human Need
Human Right
Natural resource

37. Food valuations to be explored
• MONO-DIMENSIONAL: economic dimensions
prevail over non-economic ones.
• Value-in-exchange over value-in-use
• This food concept can be regarded as a commodity.
• MULTI-DIMENSIONAL: the economic
dimension, however important it may be, is
not dominant over the non-economic ones.
• This food concept can be considered as a commons

38. 38

39. 39
Food as a new old
commons
(innovative + historic,
urban hipsters + rural
indigenous people)
Sustainable agricultural
practices (agro-ecology)
Open-source knowledge
(creative commons
licenses)
Polycentric governance
(states, enterprises, civic
actions)

40. Social Market
Enterprises
Supply-demand
Food as private good
Public
Private
Collective actions
Communities
Reciprocity
Food as common good
Partner State
Redistribution Citizens welfare
Food as public good
Tri-centric
Governance
of Food
Commons
Systems
Incentives, subsidies,
Enabling legal
frameworks
Limiting privatization
of commons
Farmers as civil
servants
Banning food
speculation
Minimum free food
for all citizens
Local purchase
Rights-based Food
banks

41. 41
Paradigm
Shift

42. 42
Considering FOOD as a
COMMONS may be utopical…
But is the right thing to do and
the best goal to aspire
Eduardo Galeano
Uruguayan writer and activist
“Utopia lies at the horizon.
When I draw nearer by two steps,
it retreats two steps.
No matter how far I go, I can never reach it.
What, then, is the purpose of utopia?
It is to cause us to advance.”

43. 43
Eager to exchange on food as a commons
Many uncertainties & gaps remain to be
developed in a common way combining
praxis with normative social constructs
@joselviveropol
joseluisviveropol
http://hambreyderechoshumanos.blogspot.com
http://hungerpolitics.wordpress.com
Jose Luis Vivero Pol
joseluisvivero@gmail.com