Elsevier

Journal of Rural Studies

Volume 68, May 2019, Pages 171-181
Journal of Rural Studies

Politics of scale in urban agriculture governance: A transatlantic comparison of food policy councils

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2019.01.018Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Food governance on the local scale is both socially and spatially constructed.

  • Politics of scale elucidate processes of social-political inclusion and exclusion in food policy council governance.

  • Analysis of scale framing, negotiating, and matching allows for a better understanding of food policy councils.

  • Important conclusions with regard to justice in local food systems can be made.

Abstract

Local food systems are increasingly receiving political support across the globe. As part of this trend, food policy councils (FPCs) are generally considered to be ideal governance platforms in the transition to just, sustainable and democratic localized food systems. However, insight into the governance processes to transform local food systems is lacking. This article analyzes the politics of localizing food systems at play in the FPCs of Ghent (Belgium) and Philadelphia (Pennsylvania, USA). The focus is on the development of urban agriculture in both cities, and includes an analysis of the politics of scale through three scalar practices of scale framing, scale negotiating, and scale matching. This analysis reveals that differences in the way in which the politics of scale are played out in both FPCs resulted in the creation of different opportunities and constraints for urban agriculture development. The article shows that attention for politics of scale in FPCs can help identify dynamics of socio-political inclusion and exclusion and power struggles in the governance of urban agriculture. The article formulates two governance principles: understanding local food systems as multi-scalar issues, and the explicit adoption of procedural justice as a core objective in governance processes.

Introduction

The growing dissatisfaction with the globalized and industrialized agri-food system has fed the idea that local governments should become involved in food issues and promote sustainable food policy (DeLind, 2006; Lyson and Raymer, 2000). Due to the withdrawal of the state from food systems issues (Blue, 2009; Renting and Wiskerke, 2010), both international and local policy levels have gained higher relevance in the food governance landscape (Oosterveer and Sonnenfeld, 2012). Efforts to invoke or reconfigure the local scale in the food governance regime have - among other factors - spurred the growth of food policy councils (FPCs). FPCs originated in North America in the 1980s. Since then, they have resonated with local governments worldwide (although FPCs can also be situated at regional or national levels; Agyeman, 2013; Harper et al., 2009). A FPC can be defined as a policy advisory body, meaning that it operates outside regulatory government structures, which seeks food systems change by influencing existing political processes and institutions (Schiff, 2008). FPCs generally focus on the representation of different segments in the food system, on multi-stakeholder collaborations, knowledge sharing and building, and shifting power to the local level.

FPCs are in many cases civil society organizations where government employees may or may not participate. However, increasingly FPCs are being set up formally by governments as part of cities' comprehensive sustainability plans which commonly place explicit emphasis on sustainable and local food systems (McClintock, 2010; Mansfield and Mendes, 2013; Morgan, 2015; Partalidou and Anthopoulou, 2016). Local food systems are believed to contribute to sustainable development by addressing ecological, sociocultural, and economic issues that the dominant globalized and industrialized food system tends to externalize (O’Hara and Stagl, 2001). FPCs are considered as ideal platforms to address the various perspectives, interests and actors involved in local food initiatives. The cross-sectoral nature of local food issues requires interdepartmental cooperation or coordination. The effectiveness of local governmental initiatives is also very dependent on support from civil society. This complexity of actors and interests points to local food as a governance issue (Mendes, 2007), not exclusively as a matter of governmental policy development or urban planning. Moreover, FPCs are considered ideal institutions to integrate justice concerns, not only because they embed concerns for the ecological and health consequences of the industrial agri-food system, but also because they are localized forums with a great capacity for democratic, socially inclusive participation and equitable social change (Purifoy, 2014).

A series of authors, however, warn against overly positive assessments of efforts to localize food systems (Born and Purcell, 2006; Dupuis and Goodman, 2005; Hinrichs, 2003). More specifically, insight into the role and impact of FPCs in localizing the food system is lacking (Scherb et al., 2012). The steering capacity of FPCs, especially concerning the relation between sustainability and justice in local food systems, has only received scant attention (Lo and Delwiche, 2016; Purifoy, 2014).

The purpose of this article is to critically assess the role of governance processes (here FPCs) in promoting justice in local food policies and practices. In order to include the government as an active stakeholder, we analyze government-created FPCs and select the FPCs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (i.e. the Philadelphia Food Policy Advisory Council) and of Ghent, Belgium (which is named Gent en garde). To gain insight into how FPCs support sustainable and just local food systems, their governance principles have to be critically assessed (Crivits et al., 2016). This implies an analysis of their objectives, stakeholder involvement, and decision making processes and outcomes. Importantly, we acknowledge that there are numerous contingent contextual factors (e.g., historical events, social, political, and economic conditions, or particularly influential stakeholders) that strongly influence the governance process. Moreover, FPCs evidently frame strategies in a way that responds to the most urgent urban issues (Prové et al., 2016). Yet, we consider it incomplete to accept context as the sole determining factor in governance processes and argue that a focus on social relations is equally important.

Two key aspects of the research approach have to be explained First, the key focus in the analysis is on how governance processes in FPCs deal with the issue of scale. The article adopts the concept of politics of scale to look at scale as a social construct. The concept allows to analyze a political dynamic that would not be identified if the “local scale” was not problematized as such. (Re)localization is a political process of defining what and who the “local” represents. Inevitably, in this process, sociopolitical inclusion and exclusion of stakeholders and their interests or values takes place. The choice for the local or urban scale should therefore be considered as a politically contested activity (Prové, 2018; Smith, 1990). Indeed, whether local food policies and practices contribute to a more just city depends on the particular agendas in a context (Born and Purcell, 2006). The key research questions are therefore how FPCs address the local scale; how a particular scaling steers political action; and what the impacts are of a particular politics of scale.

Second, FPCs commonly take action in various fields such as urban agriculture, public procurement, school meals, recycling and composting. For reasons of brevity, this article focuses on FPCs' work related to urban agriculture. Furthermore, as urban agriculture has become an increasingly relevant research topic (Prové, 2018; van Veenhuizen, 2006), and simultaneously involves a range of different practices, stakeholders, and objectives, it is an insightful case to study the governance processes of urban agriculture in FPCs.

The analysis advances insights into urban agriculture governance in two ways. First, by exploring the politics of scale in FPCs, we demonstrate that urban agriculture governance processes should engage in thoughtful deliberation about the scale of FPC's work, especially when considering the relation between their policies and matters of justice. The local or urban is not merely local or urban, but entails practices and stakeholders at various scales. Second, by focusing more critically on the notion of procedural justice in the analysis, we identify contested power relations and sociopolitical inclusion and exclusion of relevant practices, stakeholders, and objectives that emerge in the rescaling of food policies (Kurtz, 2002). Furthermore, by comparing a European and a North American case, we extend the focus on justice in local food systems beyond the North American context (Darly and McClintock, 2017).

The following sections elaborate first on the theoretical connection between procedural justice in local food policies and practices, and politics of scale; and then on the methodology. The results section demonstrates how the two FPCs prioritize different practices, stakeholders, and objectives through the politics of scale framing, scale negotiating and scale matching. Subsequently, we reflect on the implications of our findings in understanding procedural justice in FPCs and make suggestions to engage in constructive and reflexive approaches to urban agriculture governance. The article concludes that a transatlantic analysis of procedural justice in the context of FPCs contributes to academic debates on governance of local food systems.

Section snippets

Conceptual framework: procedural justice and politics of scale

Urban agriculture can be defined as “all forms of food growing in and around urban areas” (McClintock, 2014; Verje et al., 2015), such as guerrilla gardens, community gardens, rooftop farms, indoor farming and commercial crop production. In this broad understanding, motivations for urban agriculture vary from food production, to reducing urban heat island, preserving green spaces, social integration, stabilizing farm income etc. (Chrisman, 2005; Hodgson et al., 2011; Smit and Bailkey, 2006; van

Comparative case study method

A case study based method (Berg and Lune, 2012) was used to analyze how politics of scale in FPCs enable and constrain urban agriculture practices and developments. The case study method consists of in-depth, systematic investigation within a specific context, with a focus on nuance, detail and wholeness (Baarda et al., 2005; Bromley, 1990; Stake, 1995). Because FPCs and urban agriculture are complex and relatively novel, the boundaries between these phenomena and their context are not clearly

Results

The data used in this article are explored in light of the scalar practices of scale framing, scale negotiating, and scale matching with the aim of illustrating how the politics of scale in FPCs influence urban agriculture governance. The comparison of the Philadelphia and Ghent FPC is discussed below.

Discussion

A series of scholars have called for critical analyses on the claim that local food policies and practices contribute to just, sustainable food systems (Agyeman, 2013; Avelino et al., 2016). Therefore, the main objective of this article has been to critically assess the role of governance processes (here FPCs) in promoting (procedural) justice in local food policies and practices. Our analysis of politics of scale in the FPCs of Ghent and Philadelphia has shown how food governance on the local

Conclusion

FPCs are currently among the most comprehensive and flexible governance tools to discuss agriculture and food issues and will, accordingly, likely gain relevance in food systems governance in the coming years. Precisely because of their projected relevance, this article wanted to critically explore whether and how FPCs actually contribute to just and sustainable food systems. We identified that FPCs in Ghent and Philadelphia both take advantage of the momentum for the emergence of the local

Acknowledgements

Funding for this research was provided by ILVO, the Flemish Research Institute For Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. The authors would also like to thank colleagues at Penn State University and Penn State Extension for their assistance in the fieldwork and elaborate feedback on the research. Many thanks also to the reviewers who provided useful comments on earlier drafts.

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