Food retailers are powerful actors of the agro-industrial food system. They exert strong lock-in effects that hinder transitions towards more sustainable agri-food systems. Indeed, their marketing practices generally result in excluding the most sustainable food products, such as local, low-input, small-scale farmers’ products. Recently in Belgium, several initiatives have been created to enable the introduction of local products on supermarket shelves. In this article, we study three of those initiatives to analyse if the development of local sourcing in supermarkets opens up an opportunity for a transition towards more sustainable agri-food systems. We conceptualise transitions as a shift in governance and ethical values and adopt a pragmatist approach of ethics combined with the systemic perspective of transition studies, to evaluate the impact of these initiatives. Our analysis shows that they mainly contribute to the reproduction of the incumbent agri-food system. It also highlights that first, to be a driver for sustainability transitions, food ethics need to be systemic i.e. relate to a systemic understanding of problems and perspective of sustainability, including social justice. And second, it highlights that governance arrangements involving not only representative organisations of the various agri-food and non-agricultural actors, but also actors upholding ethical values that are currently missing in conventional supply chains and representing excluded and marginalised interests, favour the uptake of such systemic ethics by incumbent actors. Hence, systemic ethics and inclusive governance are key features for initiatives to contribute to a sustainability transition.
Systemic ethics and inclusive governance: two key prerequisites for sustainability transitions of agri-food systems
Résumé
en
Food retailers are powerful actors of the agro-industrial food system. They exert strong lock-in effects that hinder transitions towards more sustainable agri-food systems. Indeed, their marketing practices generally result in excluding the most sustainable food products, such as local, low-input, small-scale farmers’ products. Recently in Belgium, several initiatives have been created to enable the introduction of local products on supermarket shelves. In this article, we study three of those initiatives to analyse if the development of local sourcing in supermarkets opens up an opportunity for a transition towards more sustainable agri-food systems. We conceptualise transitions as a shift in governance and ethical values and adopt a pragmatist approach of ethics combined with the systemic perspective of transition studies, to evaluate the impact of these initiatives. Our analysis shows that they mainly contribute to the reproduction of the incumbent agri-food system. It also highlights that first, to be a driver for sustainability transitions, food ethics need to be systemic i.e. relate to a systemic understanding of problems and perspective of sustainability, including social justice. And second, it highlights that governance arrangements involving not only representative organisations of the various agri-food and non-agricultural actors, but also actors upholding ethical values that are currently missing in conventional supply chains and representing excluded and marginalised interests, favour the uptake of such systemic ethics by incumbent actors. Hence, systemic ethics and inclusive governance are key features for initiatives to contribute to a sustainability transition.
Auteur(s)
Sibylle Bui1
, Ionara Costa1
, Olivier de Schutter1
, Tom Dedeurwaerdere1
, Marek Hudon2
, Marlene Feyereisen3
1
UCL -
Université Catholique de Louvain = Catholic University of Louvain
( 92863 )
- Place de l'Université 1 - 1348 Louvain-La-Neuve
- Belgique
2
ULB -
Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management [Brussels]
( 54792 )
- Avenue Franklin Roosevelt 42, 1050 Bruxelles
- Belgique
Université libre de Bruxelles ( 303388 )
3
Université de Liège
( 93075 )
- Place du 20-Août, 7 4000 Liège
- Belgique
Langue du document
Anglais
Nom de la revue
Agriculture and Human Values
(ISSN : 0889-048X, ISSN électronique : 1572-8366)
Publié par Springer Verlag
Revue non référencée dans Sherpa-Romeo
Vulgarisation
Non
Comité de lecture
Oui
Audience
Internationale
Date de publication
2019-06
Volume
36
Numéro
2
Page/Identifiant
277-288
Financement
Belgian Science Policy Office, projet FOOD4SUSTAINABILITY (contract BR/121/A5) et Commission Européenne,
projet GENCOMMONS (ERC Grant Agreement 284)
Belgian Science Policy Office, projet FOOD4SUSTAINABILITY (contract BR/121/A5) et Commission Européenne,
projet GENCOMMONS (ERC Grant Agreement 284)
Domaine(s)
Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]/Sciences agricoles/Agriculture, économie et politique
Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]/Sciences agricoles/Agriculture, économie et politique
Sciences de l'Homme et Société/Economies et finances
Sciences de l'Homme et Société/Economies et finances
Sibylle Bui, Ionara Costa, Olivier de Schutter, Tom Dedeurwaerdere, Marek Hudon, et al.. Systemic ethics and inclusive governance: two key prerequisites for sustainability transitions of agri-food systems. Agriculture and Human Values, 2019, 36 (2), pp.277-288. ⟨10.1007/s10460-019-09917-2⟩. ⟨hal-03280636⟩