by Kristen Lowitt, Jill Clark, and Peter Andrée 

Food systems are in crisis. For social movements and organizations working at the front lines to build more sustainable and just food systems, this crisis also represents an opportunity. Civil Society & Social Movements in Food System Governance provides an array of examples from the Global North of how members of food movements are attempting to make change by getting involved in food system decision-making, or ‘governance’, both inside and outside governments. Local government engagement is exemplified in the case of Correns, France, where organic food advocates have harnessed municipal government to further sustainable community development in their rural community. Formal government engagement at the national level is examined in a case study of participation in the national food policy consultation process in Canada. While another chapter highlights the case of social movement engagement in the World Committee on Food Security.

Food governance is about more than simply working with governments. Governance refers to all of the relationships, processes, rules, practices, and structures through which power and control are exercised and decisions are made, whether by companies, organizations, governments, Indigenous authorities, or international institutions. The case of the YYC Growers and Distributors, a new food producer’s cooperative in Alberta, exemplifies the creation of collaborative food system governance mechanisms outside of government, though the chapter on YYC also shows how local and provincial governments had to be engaged to ensure success.

These are examples from just four of the ten chapters covered in this book, which can be thought of as a primer for food system activists working to strengthen alliances and governance around their own innovations. Published in February 2019, Civil Society & Social Movements in Food System Governance includes chapters featuring case studies from Canada, the US, Europe, and New Zealand. Most chapters are grounded in research supported through the FLEdGE project.

To set the scene for the on-the-ground case examples that follow, the book begins by introducing the concept of neoliberalism, or the predominance of the private sector and markets as prime concerns, as a defining feature of contemporary food systems. The introduction also reviews the range of ways that social movements characterize the food system and seek to make change—from food security, to right to food, to food sovereignty.

In Chapter One, the authors present an original framework for thinking about the variety of forms of social movement actors’ engagement in food system governance. The framework suggests that these forms may be situated along a continuum, emphasizing how social movements experience and work with power.

Governance Engagement Continuum: The role of food movements

Civil Society and Social Movements in Food System Governance illustrates four main ideas:

1. Food movements are increasingly engaging in governance to have a wider systemic impact.
2. Food movements engage in governance at a variety of scales, though there is an emphasis on the local scale.
3. The variety of forms of governance engagement can be placed along a continuum when considering the power that social movement actors wield.
4. Building relationships with other actors based on mutual trust and commitment is central to achieving change. This volume highlights how many of the relationships built through local food  initiatives may become the foundation for broader collaborations.

By examining and comparing a variety of ways social movements engage in decision-making, at a range of scales, the book offers insights for those considering contemporary food systems and their ongoing transformation by social movements. Alongside the cases featured in this book, the framework presented in Chapter 1 is helpful for other communities and researchers to examine what is happening with food in their own backyards.