Feeding the City Symposium - 25th June 2014 Giovanni Orlando Panel 2 Reconnecting producers and consumers: the experience of solidarity purchase groups (Giovanni Orlando Goldsmith University, London), Francesca Forno (Università di Bergamo), Daniela Passeri (Gasalpa, Siena)

1. Reconnecting producers and
consumers:
the experience of solidarity purchase
groups
Symposium ‘Feeding the
City’
Siena School for Liberal
Arts
June 25-26, 2014

2. Sustainable development
Brundtland definition (WCED 1987):
“Development that meets the needs of the
present without compromising the ability of
future generations to meet their own needs”

3. Problems with the idea
of sustainable development
•
“Development that meets the needs of the
present without compromising the ability of
future generations to meet their own
needs”
•
Which needs exactly?
•
Whose needs exactly (at home and
abroad)?
•
…And aren’t needs constantly changing

4. Which way forward? Option 1
•
Ecological modernization
•
Resolving the apparent contradictions of
economic growth and environmental
conservation through a combination of
clean technologies and other smart
practices
•
Reconciling the material benefits of
industrial society with environmental
conservation: we can, indeed, have our
cake and eat it too

5. Which way forward? Option 2
•
Thinking ethically (sustainably) about
consumption
•
Animal welfare, fair trade, sustainability
considerations (e.g. organic, low-input),
provenance, quality
•
Knowledge as power, removing the veil
•
People’s power
•
Alternative food networks

6. Alternative food networks
“Network”: Primary producers, food artisans,
intermediaries (but genuinely interested in
promoting ethical and high-quality food),
consumers and others, like restaurateurs,
food writers, social entrepreneurs

7. A typology of alternative food networks:
•
Face to face: farmers’ markets, farm
shops and roadside stalls, pick-your-own,
box schemes, home deliveries (online
purchases)
•
Spatial proximity: consumer cooperatives,
fairs (farmers’ markets), gastronomic
tourism routes, arrangements between
farm shops (Bottega di Stigliano)
•
Spatially extended (social distance?):