URBAN FOOD COMMONS, GOVERNING THE URBAN FOOD CHAIN AS A COMMON
Commons Lab contributed to the digital Summerschool The Sustainable City 2022. We gave a lecture about urban food commons, governing the urban food chain as a common.
Abstract
Our urban food system is broken. In Antwerp children are coming to school with empty lunch boxes. At the same time, the number of obese people is increasing. Our current food logistics led to adverse climate effects and bullshit jobs. A great amount of the food gets wasted. Food has evolved from a local resource to a national asset and then to a transnational hyper-capitalistic commodity. A product with the main purpose to be sold by the producer and through various middlemen be bought by the end user, the consumer. Farmers (out of necessity) produce food more and more as mass products but do not get fair prices and are now encountering limits in their growth (cf. legislation on nitrogen emissions). Human beings can eat food as long as they have money to buy it or means and knowledge to produce it. But we have lost a lot of the knowledge of local food production and food processing. We lost the tradition of sharing food. We see food as anything but a common. For this presentation, we focus specifically on the food case to study how the idea of the commons can contribute to a sustainable city where social justice and engagement are central.
As Commons Lab, we are searching for a sustainable and socially fair transition pathway out of this ‘crisis’. This quest starts with exploring the normative values of food. We reframe food as a common to determine transition trajectories and food policy beliefs. Food as a local resource, that we can produce, share, process, distribute, consume together. As citizens, as a community, we can set up, maintain, and govern another food chain.
Commons transition starts with small scale food commons experiments. We develop new communities, knowledge, insights. We try to assembly commoners, their knowledge, and networks into a local food council. Together with local government, local entrepreneurs, local knowledge institutions. To set up a local food strategy, to govern the urban food system as a common. Food as a common seems to be a relevant framework, also for active citizens.