This document discusses food as a commons and presents arguments for considering food through a multi-dimensional lens that values non-economic aspects in addition to economic ones. It notes that viewing food only through an economic commodity perspective fails to recognize important non-economic dimensions related to human needs and rights. The document advocates transitioning toward more sustainable and just food systems by recognizing food as a commons and valuing its multiple dimensions, including through innovative and customary commons-based food alternatives.

1. 1
JOSE LUIS VIVERO POL
PhD Research Fellow
in Food Governance
How to re-claim our
food commons?
Meaningful food to crowd-
feed the world

2. 2
PRIMUM VIVERE DEINDE
PHILOSOPHARE
#1. Definitions and schools of thought on the common
#3. The PARADOXES of the Global Food System
#2. Defining FOOD AS A COMMONS: normative social c
#4. How to scale up INNOVATIVE & CUSTOMARY
food alternatives

3. 3

4. 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
4
Photo: ukhvlid, Creative Commons, Flickr

5. 5
Economic School: reductionist + theoretical

6. 6
25% of Galicia is onwed
in communal property
Private
property
Legal School

7. 7
AIR
WATER
FOOD
SUNLIGHT

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

9. Food as a commodity
mono-dimensional approach whereby
economic dimension of food prevails and
overshadows non-economic dimensions.
Price (value-in-exchange)
9Photo: Dean Hochman, Flickr

10. Food as a commons
means revalorising different
dimensions relevant to
human beings (value-in use)
& reducing the commodity
dimension (value-in
exchange)
10
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

11. 11
Consideration of
food as commodity
is social construct
that can / shall be
reconceived
WHY?
Creative Commons

12. 12
Food is essential
for human life…
… so access to food cannot
be exclusively determined
by the purchasing power

13. 13
HUNGER IN THE US

14. 14
If we could imagine a good
food system, how would it be?

15. 15

16. 16
The paradoxe of
the INDUSTRIAL
FOOD SYSTEM
Foto: Patty´s Flickr Creative Commons

17. The food industry is the 2nd biggest: A BIG CAKE
(10% GDP & 7 trillion USD in 2015)

18. 18

19. 19
800 MILLION HUNGRY PEOPLE

20. 20
EU Food Charity
Non universal
Non accountable
Non demandable
No right holders
and duty bearers
Money-restricted
3.8 Billion €
in 7 years

21. 21

22. 22
160 million chronically
malnourished
19 million severely
wasted children
HUNGER is largest
contributor (35%)
to child mortality
1.4 BILLION OVERWEIGHT
(300 MILLION OBESE)
2.3 BILLION MALNOURISHED PEOPLE – WE EAT BADLY

23. 23
OBESITY

24. 24
Food System Paradoxes
FOOD PRODUCERS STAY HUNGRY
800 million hungry people, or more (SPI 2013)
70% are food producers
FOOD KILLS PEOPLE
Food-related diseases are a primary cause of
death (6.5 M deaths per year).
FOOD IS (INCREASINGLY) NOT
FOR HUMANS
47% of food for human consumption,
FOOD IS WASTED
1.3 billion tons end up in the garbage every
year (1/3 of global food production) enough
to feed 600 million hungry people.
Foto: Fringe Hoj Flickr Creative Commons

25. 25
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

26. 26
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)

27. 27
Planetary
Boundaries
Climate Change
Oil Peak
Radical change
UK Gov
IAASTD
Business as usual
Increase productivity
Improve access

28. 28
The TRANSITION towards a fairer & more sustainable
food system needs a different narrative
Recognizing & valuing the multiple dimensions of
food = FOOD AS A COMMONS

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

30. 30

31. MY OWN RESEARCH: Economic dimensions of food
VS Non-economic dimensions
Food Commodity Group
Economic dimensions of food
preferred over non-economic
• Market-minded or for-profit
sentences are preferred and
economic dimensions are
dominant.
Food Commons Group
Non-economic dimensions of
food preferred over economic
• Public-minded or not-for-profit
sentences are preferred
and/or not only economically
sentences are selected.
• This group has a
predominantly multi-
dimensional valuation of food
whereby dimensions of food
other than economic are also
(equally or highly) valued.

32. Field results (work in progress)
Total dataset Global online
Guatemala
FNS
Belgium FBG
N=170 N=100 N=37 N=28
Mono-dimensional
Economic dimensions are
preferred
Food as a commodity
20% 18% 35% 7%
Multi-dimensional
Non-economic dimensions
are preferred
Food as a commons
80% 82% 65% 93%

33. 33
FOOD SOVEREIGNTY
Mostly rural food producers
(family farms),
Valuing multiple dimensions
(food is NOT a commons)
Customary commons-based
food systems
Ideological counter-hegemomic struggle
Foto:IanMackenzie
Foto:F

34. 34

35. 35
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)

36. 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

37. Networks:
discovering shared
policy beliefs and
goals

38. Communities of
practice: developing
shared knowledge,
social learning

39. System of influence

40. 40
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.”

41. 41
I am eager to exchange on food as
a commons
Many uncertainties & gaps remain
to be develop in a common way
combining praxis with normative
social constructs
@joselviveropol
joseluisviveropol
http://hambreyderechoshumanos.blogspot.com
http://hungerpolitics.wordpress.com
Jose Luis Vivero
Pol
joseluisvivero@gmail.com