A review of Weighing In (Julie Guthman, UC Press, 2011)

As anyone in the food movement can tell you, obesity has become the singular issue of the movement. In her new book Weighing In, geographer Julie Guthman of the University of California, Santa Cruz, sets her sights squarely on the singularity of this issue, arguing that "Those who want to redress the problem [of obesity] put a great deal of effort into educating people to make better choices rather than into reforming the policies that allow bad food to be produced or mitigating the consequences for those harmed."

She does not stop there.  She goes on to lambast BMI (body mass index) as a blunt instrument and to skewer obesity alleviation programs that focus too much on individual choice.  Guthman argues that something called "healthism" - the attachment of a moral or ethical component to decisions made regarding health, and especially food - has turned the food movement into a sort of evangelical effort to influence the lifestyle of individuals.  That lifestyle, Guthman argues, will have very little effect on obesity, because the most likely culprit for the increase in obesity is not overeating and lack of exercise, but obesogens - environmental toxins and other substances thought to cause obesity by disrupting the endocrine system and stimulating estrogen production.

Her arguments hold together thus far; it is convincing that individual choice is much too central in the food movement today, particularly with the dearth of policy oriented work, and her arguments for environmental obesogens are backed by convincing evidence.  However, her assertion that the creation of alternative food institutions should be abandoned in favor of policy and anti-capitalist work rings of the ivory tower, a quality unfortunate in much Marxist critique.

While Guthman is correct to attempt to move the food movement away from individual choice and towards more traditional social movement interventions, she fails to see the wisdom in creating the alternative institutions necessary to replace capitalist agriculture.  Both anti-capitalist and policy work need to be a central focus of the food movement, because the institutional context in which food is produced creates obesogens and other types of toxic food.  Guthman gets this right.  However, it is also necessary to create an alternative institutional context that can eventually replace the existing ones.  Together, these are the creation and destruction of social change.

Guthman's book is a necessary read for anyone in the food movement.  It tackles the cutting edge questions of the day, undermines much of the institutionalization (and probably co-optation) of the local food movement, and provides a strong anti-capitalist vision for the future of the movement.  Hers is a timely and profound voice calling the movement back to its justice-oriented roots. Listen to her.

Let's stop talking about obesity.

I'm glad Eric Schlosser has publicly adopted the food justice paradigm in his recent Washington Post op-ed, Why being a foodie isn't 'elitist.'

I'm saddened that it took criticism from industrial food advocates to finally gain acknowledgment that food justice is the only acceptable paradigm for the food movement, and that years of criticism from food justice advocates went ignored.  Unfortunately, because of this, Schlosser appears to wield the poor as a political tool instead of having a true dedication to the plight of the oppressed. Anyone with any significant involvement with the food movement (I have been involved in both Alabama and North Carolina) should recognize that the movement has absolutely no answers for the poor and that most movement interventions are targeted at the privileged-lifestyle left.

Leaders like Schlosser may finally be understanding the necessity of addressing injustice for a movement to be successful, but the practices of the rank-and-file in the movement only reinforce its elitist status. Farmer's markets in trendy neighborhoods, $800-a-year CSAs and cooking demonstrations are no substitute for a robust policy agenda that genuinely remakes the food system.

While I'm glad Schlosser is on the right side, I'm cynical about his motivations. I wonder how much work he has actually done in poor neighborhoods and his argument seems like one of political convenience. Furthermore, to suggest that the food movement has any workable answers (i.e. empowerment not charity) to issues of hunger and food insecurity is to either be completely naive or outright lying.

The fact of the matter is that the industrial food system produces affordable food, and the food movement does not. Industrial food advocates are right - the food movement is elitist, but Schlosser's arguments are a step in the right direction. I have another step to suggest.

Let's stop talking about obesity.  Medical professionals have long branded the poor and oppressed as deviant, alternately disciplining that deviance with punishment and working to change that deviance through medical intervention. All the talk about obesity serves the purpose of branding the poor as deviant because they are poor - it further "others" them. Moreover, the BMI was developed using white bodies as the norm, meaning as usual, whiteness becomes the standard by which all others are judged.

The poor deserve good food because they are human beings, not because it is our ("the privileged's") job to ensure that they meet some standard of bodily normality. They also deserve the option to be allowed to choose bad food.  In fact, this line of reasoning calls into question whether largely white leaders like Michael Pollan and Schlosser (and myself for that matter) should have any say at all about how food is produced, distributed and consumed among the poor. Food sovereignty should be the goal, not technocratic fixes to bodies constructed as deviant by medical science.

Schlosser's op-ed is a step in the right direction. Now the question is, are the poor going to serve as a political volleyball, or is the movement going to bend towards a real justice paradigm?

Reclaiming our Right to the City

Influential French philosopher Henri Lefebvre argued that justice in late capitalism is about the "right to the city."  In this he meant that not only outcomes are important, but more so control over the processes that produce those outcomes.

As this blog makes abundantly clear, I am concerned about control over the processes of food production, particularly by those made hungry by the food system. There are many ways to do this: experiments with food policy councils produced mixed results, some effective but undemocratic, some democratic and ineffective, and so on. Still, the notion that city dwellers - the racially, economically and socially oppressed especially - should control the process of food production can be expanded to an understanding of related and parallel processes and should provide opportunities for alliance building.

Take, for example, housing. Substandard housing exists in areas that have been abandoned by whites and capital. Because poverty almost always corresponds with these areas, real estate investors are dis-incentivized to put money into housing in those neighborhoods. Why invest in an inner city when the suburbs are much more profitable?

Now, consider the phenomena of food deserts - geographic areas that lack traditional grocery stores or outlets for healthy food in general. These areas are served primarily by convenience stores and fast food restaurants. The process behind the production of food deserts and the production of substandard housing are exactly the same. Like real estate investors, grocers see no need to invest in inner city neighborhoods when suburbs offer a larger market.

What is clear is that substandard housing, food deserts, and poverty are located spatially in the same geographic area and that the processes producing these conditions are far outside the control of the residents of inner city neighborhoods.

A closer examination of injustice in transit, health, jobs, environmental degradation and other spheres reveals that injustice is almost always located in the same geographic area, and this spatial injustice underpins the potential for the building of transformational alliances. Housing advocates, food justice activists and others are natural allies in the struggle against the non- or anti-democratic processes of the global economy.

These allies must struggle to regain control of the city, to reclaim the processes making their neighborhood, and yes, to assert what Lefebvre called their right to the city.

Race, Integration, and a Unified Food Movement

The local food movement has a race problem.

In recent years, many academics have pointed this out, the foremost being Julie Guthman at UC Santa Cruz.  The crux of the issue is that the abstract aims and goals of the movement, such as ending GMOs and dealing with obesity, fail to resonate with communities of color; and, when white groups try to address issues like food security that are more resonant with these communities, they often lack the multicontextual skills to garner any support.

Furthermore, those pulling the triggers on food policy at the local level are very often white and college educated. The dominant narrative (think Michael Pollan) within the local food movement represents only the interests of the lifestyle left and has a very elitist bent. The movement addresses structural issues in regards to small rural farmers, but fails to address structural issues on the consumption side as well and the connection between food and wider justice concerns.

This blog aims to articulate a different vision of the local food movement, a vision that I call food justice. While lifestyle and cultural issues are very important and should not be ignored, the food justice approach pays close attention not only to structural issues in regards to farmers but also structural issues in regards to food consumption and production in general. In other words, the agribusiness food system destroys the small family farm and produces hunger, food insecurity, and obesity. Moreover, the larger economic system produces conditions of poverty which lead to hunger, food insecurity and obesity. A food movement that is a real movement addressing issues of justice must understand the structural causes of and connections between small farm decline, food hardship, obesity and poverty.

This is not to say that lifestyle choices and culture are unimportant. However, food related behavior is connected to structural injustices produced by the system. Consider that many low income people eat at fast food restaurants regularly because of the inexpensiveness of the menu items. These people develop lifestyles and cultural norms surrounding food through repeated engagement with cheap food, creating what sociologist Pierre Bourdieu called a “culture of necessity.” Of course, there are ways to eat well on the cheap, but certainly these aren’t culturally “normal” with low-income people or even well-off people for that matter. Ultimately, the lifestyle change to better food for low-income people is complicated by the high cost of good food.

The local food movement must therefore work on both structural issues of poverty and access and cultural/lifestyle issues surrounding food consumption because changes in culture/lifestyle have an effect on structures and changes in structures have an effect on culture/lifestyle – they are mutually constitutive.

What does race have to do with this? Two things.

First, though not all black and Latino community gardens are addressing the broad structural issues, the only organizations addressing these issues at all are black and Latino community gardens. There are a number of reasons for this.

• White community gardens do not have the first-hand experience with food hardship, and to address it would be a significant step outside their self-interest. 
• Addressing structural injustices compromises hard-won alliances that white community gardens have developed with moderate and conservative white folks and organizations. Simply put, issues of justice are threatening to white community garden’s constituencies.  

In this criticism, I do not mean to argue that white community gardens should be making justice related arguments. In general, they should serve their people's needs and interests. However, if white community gardens move to create institutions that claim to be for everyone, they cannot shut out the critical discourse of black and brown community gardens.

Second, it has been my experience that the solutions provided by the food justice faction of the local food movement differ from those of the movement broadly. The white side of the movement has basically consumption-oriented solutions – food labeling, "eat local" campaigns, farmer’s markets and CSAs, while black and Latino gardens are focused on production-side solutions such as job creation, novel urban ag systems that include aquaponics, solar power, and soon vertical gardening and cooperatives. Ultimately, these two approaches are complimentary, and it would behoove whites and people of color to work together in this regard.

To sum up, the local food movement can be enriched by the holistic approach of food justice.  Food justice understands the dialectical relationship between food culture and the structure of the food system and attacks on all fronts.  Race has been a primary divider between the food justice movement and the larger local food movement, in some respects because of self-interest and in others because of exclusion. Activists and participants in the food movement would be served well to integrate the interests of everyone into a broader, more comprehensive justice-oriented narrative.

The Allen Plan and Ways Forward

Will Allen's Plan: Providing food, jobs  

Until very recently, the typical strategy for a local faction of the alternative agriculture movement included farmers markets, subscription plans, institutional purchasing and distributorships.  This approach appealed to high end buyers, supported small family farms, and focused almost myopically on market-based solutions to the small farm crisis.  However, this path can go only so far as the high capital turnover times in agriculture, stemming from high production times, make agriculture a poor investment.  

Consider an investor looking at an investment in steel production or in agriculture.  Since turnover times are much shorter in steel production than in agriculture, it makes good sense for the investor to invest in steel. Investors are more likely to invest in steel than agriculture because it takes longer to make a tomato than to make steel. This is why American agriculture is subsidized to the tune of 16 billion dollars a year, subsidies which allow large farmers to market at below the cost of production and make farming a lucrative investment. With the current structure of subsidies, the small family farm and urban agriculture will never be a good investment because of the natural limitations to agricultural production and the lack of government support for these enterprises.


While national level subsidies are unlikely to change in the near future, subsidies for local agriculture can be developed by state and local governments. In fact, fiscal sustainability and growth for urban and local agriculture hinges on the ability to leverage support from governments. 

I want to next outline a simple, but effective policies and arguments to push local governments towards subsidies for local and urban agriculture.

• Argument: The region has a legacy of agricultural production, and that legacy should be protected by the government.  

Policy tools: land trusts, tax abatement, agricultural zoning

• Argument: Local agriculture produces jobs and economic development (see Allen Plan).  

Policy tools: direct payment, land trusts, tax abatement, agricultural job training programs, increased availability of public land for agricultural production, "sin" taxes on high fructose corn syrup and other bad foods earmarked for ag. 

•  Argument: Local agriculture relieves food insecurity through economic development and providing access to healthy food.  (The single most important item for addressing food insecurity is economic development.  People have little to eat because they are poor and eat bad food because it is cheap).  

Policy tools: direct payment, land trusts, tax abatements, agricultural job training programs, subsidized farmers markets (municipality pays farmers to provide fruits and vegetables at a discounted price), institutional purchasing, increased availability of public land for agricultural production, "sin" taxes on high fructose corn syrup and other bad foods with proceeds earmarked for ag.

While this is not an exhaustive list, the strategy is markedly different from previous strategies in that it focuses heavily on government-subsidized economic development and relief of food insecurity. 

It also operates on the assumption that food is urbanizing quickly, a reflection of urbanization processes across the globe, and attempts to develop a strategy appropriate for that urbanization.  Even many farmers who may consider themselves rural are in fact in metropolitan areas, and, clearly, they are utilizing urban markets.  

Ultimately, the goal is to eliminate the food system that produces, primarily, hunger, food insecurity, and bad food, and replace it with an urban-based food system that distributes good food fairly and sustainably.