What’s the debate about food systems all about?
Alternative paradigms for the food Systems Sustainability: Productionism, Life
Science Integration, and Ecological Integration.
Required Readings
Lang and Heasman Chapters 1 and 2.
Allen, Patricia, et al. “Expanding the Definition of Sustainable Agriculture.” Sustainability in
the Balance: Issues in Sustainable Agriculture. UC Santa Cruz Center for Agroecology and
Sustainable Food Systems (1991).
Reading Questions
-‐ What are the different components of the “food system” or “world of food” that the
authors identify? What does it mean to study them in isolation versus in an
integrated way?
-‐ What is a “food paradigm”? What are the different paradigms and what makes them
coherent perspectives and different from each other?
-‐ What is the “Food war”? What are they areas of conflict? Who are the combatants in
this war?
-‐ The Allen et al. piece was written in 1991. Comparing with the discussion in Lang
and Heaseman, how far do you think we have we come in our discussion of food
systems sustainability since then? Why or why not?
Food Systems I
Fall 2016
4
22 Sep How did we get to this food system?
Historical Background I: Property, Land, and Capitalism
Required Readings
Simon Fairlie. 2009. “Short History of the Enclosures in Britain” The Land.
http://www.thelandmagazine.org.uk/articles/short-history-enclosure-britain
Locke, J. 1689. “On Property.” Second Treatise of Civil Government
http://www.constitution.org/jl/2ndtr05.htm
Smith, Adam. 1776. The Wealth of Nations. Book 1, Chapters 2 and 7.
http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN.html
Additional Readings
Coase, Ronald. 1960. “The Problem of Social Cost.” The Journal of Law and Economics.
Hardin, Garrett. “The tragedy of the commons.” Science 162.3859 (1968): 1243-1248.
Tansey and Worsely. “Modern Food: where did it come from?” The Food System, A Guide.
Reading Questions
-‐ What is private property? As opposed to what? Where did it come from?
-‐ What were the arguments for and against enclosure? Specifically, what is the “tragedy
of the commons”?
-‐ What does private property have to do with the division of labor?
-‐ What was meant by “agricultural improvement” in the debate about enclosures?
How does this relate to the history of contemporary food system and the “food
wars” debates?
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