Routledge Handbook of Food as a Commons

Jose Luis Vivero-Pol, Tomaso Ferrando, Olivier De Schutter, Ugo Mattei, editors (Routledge, 2019)

Food is usually considered either a market-based commodity or a government-supplied necessity. The authors describe a third option: food as a resource collectively governed by producers and consumers, perpetuating age-old traditions and cultures while adapting to modern times with a need to manage resources for sustainability. They combine a holistic, global analysis with an openly communitarian, anti-capitalist, anti-mega-agribiz bias that may disturb some readers—but even if you’re totally pro-capitalist, they show alternative models of functioning within established markets. It’s also intersectional (examining the sometimes-conflicting needs of human rights, poverty eradication, and regenerative agricultural practices) and examines both historical and contemporary perspectives, going back to the enclosure acts that removed land from the commons hundreds of years ago—and recognizing that eating is not only a nutritional act, but also a way of preserving culture and building community at the same time.

This important resource isn’t a traditional anthology (where each chapter is disembodied), but a true collaboration; the authors consistently refer to each other’s chapters. I found that very refreshing. I’d even call it an act of love.

The book is also a major research work, with hundreds of notes and references (mercifully separated out at the end of each chapter). It draws case studies from around the world (among them Canada, Cuba, Hungary, South Africa, the UK, and the US), some in considerable depth and others in brief overviews.

A few among many points (noting the first time each shows up in my notes, as many show up several times throughout the book), including some that I agree with and some I have concerns about:

• Food solutions can help solve many other planetary crises (p. 16)
• Commodification both raises prices and erodes community values (p. 26)
• Food scarcity is artificial; much is wasted and/or poorly distributed (p. 33)
• Commoning can reinvent food systems (p. 43)
• Current approaches to charity food distribution and food waste are unacceptable because they stigmatize poor people and inflict low-quality, often culturally inappropriate food on folks who see no other choice (pp. 48-49); both charity and agriculture must also be designed to pay workers fairly (p. 124) and not to silence poor people or acquiesce to oppression (p. 128)
• Local governments can have a major impact; several cities have signed the Milan Urban Food Policy Act to create a sustainable and just urban food system (p. 78); good local governance can make charity unnecessary (p. 122) or place restrictions on or eliminate subsidies to large multinational food businesses (p. 125)
• Treating food as a public good means addressing freeloaders and hoarders, as well as corporations that privatize profit but socialize costs (p. 88); that’s more likely if it’s organized as a commons (p. 96)
• To understand poverty, study the rich and the industrializers (pp. 142-143)
• Traditional culture is not a cure-all; issues like gender equality (p. 151), resource depletion, low productivity, and encroachment by corporate junk food, high-meat diets, etc. need to be addressed
• Successful commons are typically self-governed and solve conflicts through resource-management rules that address four components: the resource, community, rules that govern access, and the value the resource creates (pp. 174-175); they don’t have to be homogeneous (p. 198)
• Big Ag’s privatizing of resources through patenting, enclosures, and other methods can be thought of as a theft of traditional agricultural knowledge (p. 176), often drawing on traditional methods and seeds but sequestering that knowledge and those resources (p. 218, p. 221); its emphasis on developing pesticide-resistant plants is an attack on the environment and public health (p. 192)

Since my review is already long, I’ll skip my notes on the second half of the book, many of which deal with country/region-specific practices.

One big criticism: This topic was so fascinating that I took ten pages of notes. BUT I also put up with a very un-reader-friendly writing style (mired in dense academese) and spent five months reading just a few pages at a time to get all the way through it. I would love to see more academics write for ordinary human beings with the goals of readability and content absorption.