Jennifer Sumner

Putting the culture back into agriculture: civic engagement, community and the celebration of local food

This paper reports on the case study of a community-supported agriculture (CSA) farm in south-western Ontario, Canada. As an exemplar of urban agriculture, Fourfold Farm CSA operates from an alternative agriculture paradigm and is built upon the socio-ecological practices of civic engagement, community and the celebration of local food. Analysis of in-depth, key informant interviews with members of the CSA as well as the co-founders reveals the extent to which the farm is much more than a source of healthy, organic food. The paper outlines the ways the CSA operators and their members articulate a deeper endeavour to link urban food consumers with food producers through cultural activities. The discussion concludes with a call for more social research in agriculture as well as a broader effort to articulate the ways urban agriculture can contribute to putting the culture back into agriculture and creating sustainable systems of farming.

The politics of eating: Food practices as critically reflexive leisure

Abstract We eat every day; it is both leisure and work for all of us. And yet, dramatically few of us have examined food practices with a leisure studies lens. Closer scrutiny, however, reveals a deeply political practice embedded in popular culture. Three cases are used to highlight the politics of leisure and food: the Slow Food Movement, the food justice movement, and the organic farming movement. Each case represents a particular dimension—pleasure, activism, and empowerment—of a political practice that is grounded in reflection, resistance, and alternative visions. Together they constitute a form of critically reflexive leisure that broadens our understanding of the field, builds interdisciplinary relationships between leisure studies and other disciplines, and helps us to better take into account vital issues such as sustainability, health, and climate change.

Governance, Globalization, and Political Economy: Perspectives from Canadian Adult Education.

The concept of governance has become increasingly popular over the past 15 years signifying its growing acceptance in a number of key sectors of society. Is governance a neutral term that is merely a synonym for government, or does it signify a shift to neoliberalism? Working from a political-economy perspective, this article will explore the concept of governance, link it to the broader concept of globalization, and examine how it can affect the field of adult education using Canadian examples. Depending on the values-orientation chosen, governance, globalization, and adult education can contribute to a society that questions the pretensions of organized power while building the public good.

Organic Solutions? Gender and Organic Farming in the Age of Industrial Agriculture

Organic agriculture evolved as a direct challenge to these negative trends, based on a philosophy that promotes a more holistic system that cares for soil, plants, animals, people, and communities. While this philosophy has been co-opted by large corporate actors only interested in the price premium associated with organic products, it nevertheless has inspired many people to take up, or convert to, organic farming.

Reading the world: Food literacy and the potential for food system transformation

Abstract In the field of adult education, literacy is a contested concept, so it is not surprising that terms like food literacy are also highly debated. While some associate food literacy with individual food shopping and preparation, others look to it as a means to engage with larger issues of global import. Given that food literacy is a fairly new term, its meaning remains fluid as various stakeholders manoeuvre to control its meaning and thus mould policy that will serve their interests. One such attempt has recently been undertaken by the Conference Board of Canada, a not-for-profit organisation that carries out research paid for by both the private and public sectors. Using a political economy framework, this article critiques the Conference Boards definition of food literacy and develops a more comprehensive meaning for this contested term. It highlights the work of Paulo Freire and the new Brazilian dietary guidelines to demonstrate how narrowing the parameters of the food literacy debate obscures the crises that plague the global food system and restricts the potential for food system transformation.

Sustainable Horticulture and Community Development: More than Just Organic Production

In the age of globalization, sustainability and community development are intimately connected and ultimately challenged. Sustainability is vague and so co-opted as to be almost meaningless, while community development is often reduced to economic development, without any consideration of how this could affect overall sustainability. Amidst such confusion, what does sustainable horticulture mean and how can it contribute to community development? This paper will present a new meaning for sustainability, tying it to the concept of the civil commons. From this baseline of understanding, it will then give fresh meaning to the term sustainable horticulture, allowing it to become a vehicle for the improvement of human and environmental well-being, not a means of making ever-increasing private profits, regardless of the social, environmental, and even economic costs. The organic approach forms a natural alliance with sustainability, blending to produce a form of horticulture that has the potential to be economically constructive, socially responsible, and environmentally sound. Such a sustainable horticulture would contribute to community development in the full sense of the term, not as endless growth for rootless investors but as the unfolding of potential for more than just the lucky few. In our globalized world, four out of every five people have been made poor, the climate has been destabilized, and we experience endless war for control of dwindling resources. Horticulture can either exacerbate these problems or help to solve them. A truly sustainable horticulture would not only be organic, but also produce social, environmental, and economic justice, thus contributing to local community development on a global scale and becoming part of what has been referred to as sustainable globalization.

Framing the Social, Ecological and Economic Goods and Services Derived from Organic Agriculture in the Canadian Context

Consumer support for organic products continues to grow in Canada and the US. At the same time, the characteristics of organic agriculture and the wider social and political context in these countries have limited broader endorsement of organic and other forms of alternative agriculture, with the result that consumer understanding in North America of the ‘value proposition’ of organic agriculture is lagging in comparison with the rest of the world. The recent growth in targeted research funding for organic agriculture is providing much-needed documented evidence from Canada and the US, summarized in this document, of the broad social, ecological and economic goods and services (SEEGS) derived from organic agriculture. However, to further transform recognition of these benefits, the interrelated issues inherent in SEEGS will increasingly have to be tackled by multidisciplinary teams of researchers partnering with organic producers. In addition, we propose two approaches, one regional in scope, a pilot-scale watershed initiative to demonstrate the diverse benefits of organic agriculture, and more broadly, promotion and use of the concept of organic agriculture as a form of ‘civil commons’, as a meaningful framework and tangible concept to help promote sustainability and a shift in social consciousness to encourage broader support and endorsement of organic agriculture in North America as a prototype of sustainable agriculture.

Sustainable leisure: building the civil commons

ABSTRACT The paper takes up the challenge of exploring the relationship between sustainability and leisure by developing the notion of sustainable leisure. We first set the stage by discussing the broader ideological context of neoliberalism and explore the potential of sustainability, and sustainable leisure, to become potent countervailing forces. We next introduce the notions of civil commons and life goods as they are key elements of sustainability and, ultimately, sustainable leisure and suggest that leisure, understood as a life good, has the potential to build, enhance or preserve the civil commons. Three examples of leisure forms – farmers’ markets, social movements and community-based tourism, are then assessed to demonstrate how sustainable leisure works in practice. The paper concludes by encouraging more research to both test and to improve our conceptualization.

Waging the struggle for healthy eating: food environments, dietary regimes and Brazil's dietary guidelines

ABSTRACT The struggle for healthy eating is a nascent social movement that represents active resistance to the hostile food environments created by multinational food and beverage corporations. Using a political economy approach and leveraging Winsons [2013. The industrial diet: the degradation of food and the struggle for healthy eating. Vancouver: UBC Press] concepts of dietary regimes and the industrial diet, this paper will examine the strengths and limitations of Brazils new dietary guidelines and discuss its role as a precursor to a new dietary regime that incorporates social justice and sustainability.

Critical encounters: introduction to special issue on leisure and food

The exploding interest in food over the last decade has had dynamic and far-reaching effects on the social sciences and yet its specific influence on leisure studies has been surprisingly limited. In spite of this anomaly, food movements, community gardens, ethnic restaurants, farmstays, wine tours, food festivals and taste trails all testify to the potent intersection of leisure and food. As long-time friends and collaborators, we have always worked towards the goal of bringing our respective fields (food studies and leisure studies) together. Co-editing a special issue on the topic seemed a logical next step. In the call for papers, we stated: “we are viewing the relationship between food and leisure broadly, and seek manuscripts related to all aspects of food as it pertains to the leisure and tourism fields.” In the call for papers, we relied on Reardon (2000) who conceptualised food as