Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

What Does It Mean To Do Food Justice?, K. Valentine Cadieux, Rachel Slocum

College of Liberal Arts All Faculty Scholarship

'Food justice' and 'food sovereignty' have become key words in food movement scholarship and activism. In the case of 'food justice', it seems the word is often substituted for work associated with projects typical of the alternative or local food movement. We argue that it is important for scholars and practitioners to be clear on how food justice differs from other efforts to seek an equitable food system. In the interests of ensuring accountability to socially just research and action, as well as mounting a tenable response to the 'feed the world' paradigm that often sweeps aside concerns with justice …

Subsistence Under The Canopy: Agroecology, Livelihoods And Food Sovereignty Among Coffee Communities In Chiapas, Mexico, Margarita Fernandez

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

One of the most pressing challenges facing the world today is how to sustainably feed a growing population while conserving the ecosystem services we depend on. Coffee landscapes are an important site for research on agrifood systems because they reflect global-scale dynamics surrounding conservation and livelihood development. Within them, we find both what is broken in our global agrifood system, as well as the grassroots struggles that strive to change the system by building socio-ecologically resilient, sustainable livelihoods. Research shows that smallholder shade coffee farmers steward high biodiversity and provide essential ecosystem services. At the same time, studies in the …

Food Sovereignty As Decolonization: Some Contributions From Indigenous Movements To Food System And Development Politics, Sam Grey, Raj Patel

Sam Grey

Mcdonald's Or Mesquite: Struggles On The Salt River Pima Reservation, Stefani Kim

Capstones

The Salt River Pima Indians, prior to colonization, had a strong tradition of harvesting and food sovereignity. As the tribe adapted to a more Westernized diet which consisted mainly of processed food rations, the rate of diabetes began to skyrocket on the reservation and, at one point, the tribe had one of the highest per capita diabetes rates in the world. This year, the tribe's cultural resources department will resurrect a 16-year-old community garden program originally funded by a USDA/Habitat for Humanity grant as a way to help combat health problems related to a poor diet such as diabetes and …

The Native American Organic Garden: Using Service Learning As A Site Of Resistance To The Boarding School Tradition, Donna Chollett

Anthropology Publications

As educators, we owe it to our students to enable them to transgress structural impediments and to create sustainable alternatives from the margins of the industrial agro-food system. Policies of assimilation, allotment, and enclosure of the Native American commons and ecosystems brought devastation to Native cultures. Dependence on government commodities replaced Native food sovereignty and contributed to malnutrition, obesity, and diabetes as diets responded to corporately produced and processed foods. Young people often feel disempowered and ask how they might confront such formidable forces as corporate control of our agro-food system, destruction of natural resources, and threats to human health. …

Land Grabs And Implications On Food Sovereignty And Social Justice In Senegal, Joanna Lafrancesca

Master's Theses

This thesis focuses on the case study of Senegal to examine the implications of large- scale land acquisitions on the livelihoods of small-scale farmers. I investigate the diverse perspectives of market enthusiasts, human rights organizations, peasants, the state, and international financial organizations on large-scale land acquisitions. Based on primary research, I argue that the state of Senegal plays an active role in permitting “land grabs” and that they pose a threat to food sovereignty among Senegalese host communities. Lastly, I argue there needs to be a broader understanding of long-term consequences and risks to insure social justice in areas affected …

Food Sovereignty: An Alternative Paradigm For Poverty Reduction And Biodiversity Conservation In Latin America, M Jahi Chappell, Hannah Wittman, Christopher M. Bacon, Bruce G. Ferguson, Luis García Barrios, Raúl García Barrios, Daniel Jaffee, Jefferson Lima, V. Ernesto Méndez,, Helda Morales, Lorena Soto-Pinto, John Vandermeer, Ivette Perfecto

Environmental Studies and Sciences

Strong feedback between global biodiversity loss and persistent, extreme rural poverty are major challenges in the face of concurrent food, energy, and environmental crises. This paper examines the role of industrial agricultural intensification and market integration as exogenous socio-ecological drivers of biodiversity loss and poverty traps in Latin America. We then analyze the potential of a food sovereignty framework, based on protecting the viability of a diverse agroecological matrix while supporting rural livelihoods and global food production. We review several successful examples of this approach, including ecological land reform in Brazil, agroforestry, milpa, and the uses of wild varieties in …

Food Sovereignty: An Alternative Paradigm For Poverty Reduction And Biodiversity Conservation In Latin America, M. Jahi Chappell, Hannah Wittman, Christopher M. Bacon, Bruce G. Ferguson, Luis Garcia Barrios, Raúl Garcia Barrios, Daniel Jaffee, Jefferson Lima, V. Ernesto Méndez, Helda Morales, Lorena Soto-Pinto, John Vandermeer, Ivette Perfecto

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Strong feedback between global biodiversity loss and persistent, extreme rural poverty are major challenges in the face of concurrent food, energy, and environmental crises. This paper examines the role of industrial agricultural intensification and market integration as exogenous socio-ecological drivers of biodiversity loss and poverty traps in Latin America. We then analyze the potential of a food sovereignty framework, based on protecting the viability of a diverse agroecological matrix while supporting rural livelihoods and global food production. We review several successful examples of this approach, including ecological land reform in Brazil, agroforestry, milpa, and the uses of wild varieties in …

Diversified Farming Systems: An Agroecological, Systems-Based Alternative To Modern Industrial Agriculture, Claire Kremen, Alastair Iles, Christopher M. Bacon

Environmental Studies and Sciences

This Special Issue on Diversified Farming Systems is motivated by a desire to understand how agriculture designed according to whole systems, agroecological principles can contribute to creating a more sustainable, socially just, and secure global food system. We first define Diversified Farming Systems (DFS) as farming practices and landscapes that intentionally include functional biodiversity at multiple spatial and/or temporal scales in order to maintain ecosystem services that provide critical inputs to agriculture, such as soil fertility, pest and disease control, water use efficiency, and pollination. We explore to what extent DFS overlap or are differentiated from existing concepts such as …

Food Security And Smallholder Coffee Production: Current Issues And Future Directions, Martha Caswell, V. Ernesto Méndez,, Christopher M. Bacon

Environmental Studies and Sciences

In recent years, there has been growing discussion within the specialty coffee industry about the preva- lence of seasonal food insecurity in coffee growing communities. The idea that coffee producers lack re- sources to feed themselves and their families flies in the face of Fair Trade and other sustainable coffee ini- tiatives, which were designed to ensure a viable livelihood and improved conditions for small-scale coffee farmers around the world. Though these certifications represent an important step toward delivering better prices to farmers, they are inadequate tools to stand alone against the formidable and entrenched barriers faced by this population. …

Fair Trade And Development: A Changing Paradigm, Daniel Jaffee

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Book chapter.

By the time the fair trade movement celebrated the 20th anniversary of its founding in 2008, it had been transformed virtually beyond recognition. From a marginal European movement characterized by small ethical companies, non-profit charities, solidarity groups and alternative trading organizations (ATOs) selling coffee and handicrafts to a small group of politicized consumers through alternative world shops, fair trade has become an international market system with annual sales of nearly US $5,000m. (€3,500m.) (FLO 2010), reaching mass audiences of mainstream shoppers across the global North with a wide range of food and non-food products originating from both small …

Medicinal Plant Use And Health Sovereignty: Findings From The Tajik And Afghan Pamirs, Karim Aly Kassam, Munira Karamkhudoeva, Morgan Ruelle, Michelle Baumflek

Sustainability and Social Justice

Medicinal plants are indicators of indigenous knowledge in the context of political volatility and socio-cultural and ecological change in the Pamir Mountains of Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Medicinal plants are the primary health care option in this region of Central Asia. The main objective of this paper is to demonstrate that medicinal plants contribute to health security and sovereignty in a time of instability. We illustrate the nutritional as well as medicinal significance of plants in the daily lives of villagers. Based on over a decade and half of research related to resilience and livelihood security, we present plant uses in …

Agroecological Transition In Cuba: Towards A Better Way Of Life, Donna Chollett, Bruce Ferguson, Koyu Furusawa, Mari Furusawa, Stephen Hollis, Audrey Hollis, Alley Kent, Sheehy Skeffington, Masuru Sugai

Anthropology Publications

The current financial and fuel crises threaten food security in poorer nations and among the poor in wealthier countries. Sustainable food production benefits communities and their food supply and can maintain farming systems in less developed agricultural regions. Many small farmers have long practiced organic agriculture, but face pressure to adopt green revolution farming, using chemicals and commercial seed. Some are resisting this, but lack the technology to apply organic methods on a larger scale. Cuba provides an instructive example of a nation that confronted a sudden food and fuel crisis by adopting organic agricultural technologies across production systems that …