This presentation (the fourth of a PhD seminar on governance of the food system) presents the counter-hegemonic paradigm of food as a commons, a different view of food based on the multi-dimensional values it carries, many of them essential to human beings. Departing from different schools of commons, and using the idea of common resources as social constructs (and thus politically agreed upon), the author unfolds the main faultlines of the industrial food system (based on the idea of food as a commodity) and presents the pillars for a transition towards a more sustainable and fairer food system, based on partner states, social enterprises and self-regulated collective actions.

1. 1
JOSE LUIS VIVERO POL
PhD Research Fellow
in Food Governance
FOOD AS A
COMMONS
A paradigm for a fair and
sustainable transition
Photo:ShenghenLin,Flickr

2. 2

3. Commons are material / non-material resources,
jointly developed and maintained by a
community/society and shared according to
community-defined rules, irrespective of their
mode of production (private, public or
commons-based means), because they benefit
everyone and are fundamental to society’s
wellbeing
3
Photo: ukhvlid, Creative Commons, Flickr

4. Scholars’ & People’s Commons
People have commons in common (diversity)
Academics have theorized from different epistemologies (schools
of thought)
• Historical Approach (describing institutional diversity)
• Legal Approach (slighly reductionist, mostly a duopoly)
• Economic Approach (highly reductionist, mostly a monopoly)
• Political Approach (recognising diversity of social arrangements)
• Activist Approach (struggle for old commons, inventing new
commons): praxis & theory as counter-hegemonic and alter-
hegemonic to capitalism (neoliberalism)

5. 5
Economic School: reductionist + theoretical

6. 6
25% of Galicia is onwed
in communal property
Private
property
Legal
Approach
9% of Europe
is communal
property

7. 7

8. Different epistemologies, confusing vocabularies
• Water: private good (ECO), public-private-collective
ownership with different bundle of rights (LEG), public
good (POL), commons (HIS)
• Knowledge: public good (ECO), public-private-
collective (LEG), public-private (POL), commons (HIS)
• Health/Education: public goods (ECO), public goods
provided by public & private means (POL), non-
defined propietary regimes (LEG), private goods (HIS)
• Food: private good (ECO), private good provided by
private, public & collective means (POL), public-
private-collective properties (LEG), public-private-
collective owned & manged (HIS)

9. 9
AIR
WATER
FOOD
SUNLIGHT

10. Commodity
Commons
Culture
Food dimensions
Human
Need
Human
Right
Natural
resource

11. Food as a commodity
mono-dimensional approach whereby
economic dimension of food prevails and
overshadows non-economic dimensions.
Price (value-in-exchange)
11Photo: Dean Hochman, Flickr

12. Food as a commons
means revalorising different
dimensions relevant to
human beings (value-in use)
& reducing the commodity
dimension (value-in
exchange)
12
Food commons are what a
society does collectively,
through private, state and self-
regulated provision, to
guarantee everybody eats
adequately in quantity and
quality everyday

13. 13
Consideration of
food as commodity
is social construct
that can / shall be
reconceived
WHY?
Creative Commons

14. 14
Food is essential
for human life…
… so access to food cannot
be exclusively determined
by the purchasing power

15. 15
Only the economic dimension
Objectification & commodification of food,
depriving & neglecting the other dimensions
Every food has a price
Maximizing profit not nutrition
(value in exchange dissociated from value in use)
Food is rival & excludable
Economic concept VS political, legal and
historical approaches
Food access is the main problem
Ample consensus in science & policy makers:
access is limited by price, law & property

16. 16
The actual way of
producing, distributing
and eating food is
unsustainable and it
cannot be maintained
as a such for the next 50
years
IAASTD (2008)
UNEP (2009)
UNCTAD (2013)UK Foresight (2011)

17. 17
Planetary
Boundaries
Climate Change
Oil Peak
Radical change
UK Gov
IAASTD
Business as usual
Increase productivity
Improve access

18. 18
The TRANSITION towards a fairer & more sustainable
food system needs a different narrative
Recognizing & valuing the multiple dimensions of
food = FOOD AS A COMMONS

19. 19
Industrial Food System Food Commons System
Mono-dimensional Food as a
commodity (value in exchange)
Multi-dimensional Food as a
commons (value in use)

20. TRANSITION MOVEMENT
Contemporary collective
actions for food
(urban consumers)
Alter-hegemonic + gradual

21. Food as a commons Food as a commodity

22. 22

23. 23

24. 24
Food as a new old
commons
(innovative + historic)
Sustainable
agricultural practices
(agro-ecology)
Open-source
knowledge (creative
commons licenses)
Polycentric
governance (states,
enterprises, civic
actions)

25. Social Market
Enterprises
Supply-demand
Food as private good
Public
Private
Collective actions
Communities
Reciprocity
Food as common good
Partner State
Redistribution Citizens welfare
Food as public good
Tri-centric
Governance of
Food
Commons
Systems
Incentives, subsidies,
Enabling legal
frameworks
Limiting privatization
of commons
Farmers as civil
servants
Banning food
speculation
Minimum free food for
all citizens
Local purchase
Rights-based Food
banks

26. 26
The Re-Commonification of
Food will take generations

27. 27
Considering FOOD as a
COMMONS may be utopical…
But is the right thing to do and
the best goal to aspire
Eduardo Galeano
Uruguayan writer and activist
“Utopia lies at the horizon.
When I draw nearer by two steps,
it retreats two steps.
No matter how far I go, I can never reach it.
What, then, is the purpose of utopia?
It is to cause us to advance.”