From “old school” to “farm-to-school”: Neoliberalization from the ground up
By P. Allen, J. Guthman. 2006
296 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Farm-to-school (FTS) programs have garnered the attentions and energies of people in a diverse array of social locations in the food system and are serving as a sort of touchstone for many in the alternative agrifood movement. Yet, unlike other alternative agrifood initiatives, FTS programs intersect directly with the long-established institution of the welfare state, including its vestiges of New Deal farm programs and public entitlement. This paper explores how FTS is navigating the liminal terrain of public and private initiative, particularly the ways in which it interfaces with neoliberalism as both a material and discursive project. It examines the political emergence of school food programs and finds that FTS is strikingly similar to traditional school programs in objectives, but differs in approach. Yet, in their efforts to fill in the gaps created by political and economic neoliberalization, FTS advocates are in essence producing neoliberal forms and practices afresh. These include those associated with contingent labor relationships, private funding sources, and the devolution of responsibility to the local, all of which have serious consequences for social equity. The paper also discusses how FTS programs are employing the rhetoric of neoliberal governmentality, including personal responsibility and individual success, consumerism, and choice. While these may be tactical choices used to secure funding in a competitive environment, they may also contribute to the normalization of neoliberalism, further circumscribing the possibilities of what can be imagined and created to solve social problems.
Subfields: General Agricultural and Biological Sciences, Plant Science
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/77260a4412edd46f6db151ff305d3fe976f34bf9
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In General Agricultural and Biological Sciences
In Plant Science
Citations in the corpus
- Farm to school programs: exploring the role of regionally-based food distributors in alternative agrifood networks (2010, background): “According to Allen and Guthman (2006, p. 407) , the NSLP, which encourages ‘‘the domestic consumption of nutritious agricultural commodities and other food,’’ has disproportionately benefited large-scale growers who sell their product through long and complex commodity chains.”
- Food as Commons or Commodity? Exploring the Links between Normative Valuations and Agency in Food Transition (2017, background): “safety-nets, corporate social responsibility, reducing food waste, certification for niche markets), seeks to mainstream less socially and environmentally damaging alternatives and invents different narratives, apparently new and transformative, but actually compatible with neoliberal values and the”
- Who decides what is fair in fair trade? The agri-environmental governance of standards, access, and price (2010, background): “The question is how will Fair Trade respond to this challenge? Will Fair Trade seek to re-define itself to dodge a core element still stated in its internationally accepted definition? Or, will Fair Trade make the deeper change from within? Three immediate actions that FLO could adopt include: (1) c”
- Quality Food, Public Procurement, and Sustainable Development: The School Meal Revolution in Rome (2009, background): “In this perspective, school meals are assigned a role that goes well beyond the commercialized view of the service that prevails in countries like the UK (Morgan, 2006) or the United States (Allen and Guthman, 2006).”