The rise of food democracy.

• Author: Halweil, Brian
• Position: ESSAY

The National Touring Association, one of the largest lobbying groups in Norway, representing walkers, hikers and campers, recently joined forces with the nation's one and only celebrity chef to develop a line of foods made from indigenous ingredients to stock the country's network of camping huts. For instance, someone staying in a mountain cottage in Jotunheimen National Park would dine on cured reindeer heart, sour cream porridge and small potatoes grown only in those mountain valleys. Sekem, Egypt's largest organic food producer, has developed a line of breads, dried fruits, herbs, sauces and other items made entirely from ingredients grown in the country. The brand is recognized by 70 per cent of Egyptians, and sales have doubled each of the last five years. In Zimbabwe, six women realized that their husbands, who are peanut farmers, were literally getting paid peanuts for their crop while they bought pricey imported peanut butter. These women decided to invest in a grinder and are now producing a popular line of peanut butter from local nuts that sells for 15 per cent less than mainstream brands. In Nebraska, in the United States, a group of local farmers got together and opened a farmers grocery that stocks only foods raised in that State. They found suppliers of bacon and baked beans, sour cream and sauerkraut, and virtually all major grocery items, all from Nebraska.

What ties together these disparate enterprises from around the world? At a time when our food often travels farther than ever before, they are all evidence of "food democracy" erupting from an imperialistic food landscape. At first blush, food democracy may seem a little grandiose--a strange combination of words. But if you doubt the existence of power relations in the realm of food, consider a point made by Frances and Anna Lappe in their book Hope's Edge (see UN Chronicle, Issue 3, 2001). The typical supermarket contains no fewer than 30,000 items, about half of them produced by ten multinational food and beverage companies, with 117 men and 21 women forming the boards of directors of those companies. (1) In other words, although the plethora of products you see at a typical supermarket gives the appearance of abundant choice, much of the variety is more a matter of branding than of true agricultural variety and, rather than coming from thousands of farmers producing different local varieties, they have been globally standardized and selected for maximum profit by just a few powerful executives.

Food from far-flung places has become the norm in much of the United States and the rest of the world. The value of international trade in food has tripled...