Review: Together at the Table: Sustainability and Sustenance in the American Agrifood System
The potential and challenges for alternative food systems to create major change in the way we grow and eat our food is the focus of UC Santa Cruz sociologist Patricia Allen's newest book, Together at the Table. Allen, the associate director and social issues specialist at UC Santa Cruz's Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, systematically weighs the strengths and weaknesses of the sustainable agriculture and community food security movements, and in the final chapter of the book suggests specific strategies for how we can work to improve and build the capacity of these movements to create change that addresses all aspects of sustainability- ecological, economic viability and social equity for everyone in the food system. Two areas she highlights have particular relevance for our work in California, especially as the UC Davis campus and the UC Agriculture and Natural Resources division prepare to hire the first W.K. Kellogg-funded endowed Chair of Sustainable Food Systems for the campus-based Agricultural Sustainability Institute (ASI). Allen suggests that we need to:
- Develop a broad-based vision for an alternative agrifood system that goes beyond the traditional ideological framework.
- Continue to broaden constituencies and engage them in democratic processes that can provide political power to move us toward significant change in the agrifood system.
Develop a broad-based vision for an alternative agrifood system that goes beyond the traditional ideological framework.
In Chapter 4, Allen describes the dominant approach that guides research and education in sustainable agriculture programs. This focuses on natural sciences, production innovations, and farm-level projects, mostly at the expense of resources devoted to social equity issues (i.e., connections with food security, marketing, food/ag policy, consumer and farmworker health). She notes that sustainable, agrifood systems research and education must be larger in scope and more truly interdisciplinary than the current involvement of mostly production-oriented natural science disciplines, which she says, except for farm-level studies, have not generally included the social, political and economic components needed to encourage sustainable agriculture.
Continue to broaden constituencies and engage them in democratic processes that can provide political power to move us toward significant change in the agrifood system.
Allen discusses this concept in several chapters. In Chapter 7,"The Politics of Complacency: Rethinking Food System Localization," she says that we need both participation in local food system actions, and the linking of local efforts in larger movements that involve national and international politics and policies. Some of this is happening through non-profit organizations such as the Community Food Security Coalition and its partners, as well as through the Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture, the national campaign to promote sustainable agriculture and food policies. Yet, there are other constituents we have just started to reach, including urban and regional planners, engineers or schools of business. These and other disciplines would bring valuable insights and knowledge to our understanding of sustainable food and agricultural systems.
The socio-political realities both in the halls of the academy as well as in the community are humbling. One needs to resist both the temptation to only look at the positive achievements in building sustainable communities in particular places, or to become completely overwhelmed by the dominant, concentrated food system that seems at times, to operate at the expense of local alternative efforts. Allen suggests in Together at the Table that we need to work at many levels in the food system simultaneously, from the local to the international. To do that well, we need the involvement of many people with different expertise and local knowledge. Moreover, we must acknowledge the importance of each of our contributions and communicate with each other effectively if we really want to change our food system to one that is more sustainable and equitable.
Reviewer's Note:
At UC SAREP, we have tried to enlarge the ideological framework of sustainable agriculture through our definition of a sustainable, community food system:
A sustainable community food system is a collaborative network that integrates sustainable food production, processing, distribution, consumption and waste management in order to enhance the environmental, economic and social health of a particular place. Farmers, consumers and communities partner to create a more locally based, self-reliant food economy. One of the most important aspects of sustainable community food system projects is that they increase resident participation to achieve the following goals:
- A stable base of family farms that use sustainable production practices and emphasizes local inputs;
- Marketing and processing practices that create more direct links between farmers and consumers;
- Improved access by all community members to an adequate, affordable, nutritious diet;
- Food and agriculture-related businesses that create jobs and recirculate financial capital within the community;
- Improved living and working conditions for farm and food system labor;
- Creation of food and agriculture policies that promote local or sustainable food production, processing and consumption, and
- Adoption of dietary behaviors that reflect concern about individual, environmental and community health.
This new framework has been difficult to introduce and implement. However, in the last several years, we have begun to see more interest from students who want to study aspects of sustainable food systems; faculty in other departments interested in food system research; and cooperative extension personnel who are incorporating sustainable food systems concepts into their outreach programs. UC Davis has a wonderful opportunity to take these suggestions seriously as the new campus Agricultural Sustainability Institute is developed with a food systems focus.
