A Social Movement in Food?

After our class discussion a few weeks back on whether or not there is currently a social movement going on with food, I felt a little disheartened. I mentioned in another blog post that I do believe we are in the midst of a social movement, despite it perhaps lacking a few characteristics. For one, as we discussed in class, there is no central message. However, there are central messages. Just because there are many facets of our current food system that activists are trying to change, I do not believe that it cannot be called one singular movement. In fact, I believe that the fact that there are multiple points of agenda within a social movement regarding food strengthens any social movement that may or may not be occurring. I recently found an article portraying this exact argument published in the San Francisco Chronicle, for which I have provided a link below. The authors pointed out that within the current movement, assuming that there is one, there are overarching goals of health, environmental, and human rights issues. The reason why it is difficult to pull out one central goal of the movement is because the multitude of problems with the current food system are all intertwined with one another. One cannot separate issues of toxins in our crops with farm workers rights. Similarly, animal rights issues related to factory farms cannot be separated from antibiotics in our meat. The consolidation of grocery stores cannot be separated from urban food deserts. The list goes on.

Given this problem defined by the existence of too many problems, I believe it is actually a good thing for the overall movement. Since the problems with the current industrial food system are extensive, they touch many people and, perhaps more importantly, a diverse array of people. As a result, there is a greater chance of getting a diverse population of individuals to advocate for change within the system. And fortunately for the movement, positive changes regarding certain issues will likely result in positive changes in others due to the interconnectivity of the various food-related issues.

The article mainly discussed the failure of Proposition 37 in California, arguing that the failure of an anti-GMO law does not mean that there is no social movement, as Michael Pollan recently suggested. The authors argued instead that the current food movement can be compared with other social movements such as the civil rights movement. While every social movement has setbacks and failures and often struggles to be one unified entity, they often succeed at achieving their goals even if it does occur one hundred years later. This article gave me hope that although it may take some time, if food activists continue to persevere, despite initial downfalls they may still win out in the end.

http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/Prop-37-Food-movement-has-just-begun-4058131.php