“You want my money? Dance!”

Consumers, the state, and a just transition in the food system

Abstract

An understanding of the role of consumers will be essential to academic and practical efforts to contribute to a just transition in the food system. In this article, I argue for the importance of examining consumers’ role, not only in terms of individual or household behavioural change, but also with respect to broader potential political-economic developments. By providing a schema for possible consumption-related approaches that would feature varying degrees of state involvement, I encourage reflection on the extent to which justice may be realized as climate change is addressed through food system interventions. I emphasize that hybridized approaches may be possible, and that initiatives that may be constrained within a capitalist political-economic framework nevertheless hold the potential to showcase trajectories toward longer-term post-capitalist food futures. On balance, some restraints on individual freedoms regarding food consumption habits may be inevitable if structural transformations are to be achieved that will adequately support climate-change mitigation, yet justice-oriented considerations will need to be weighed in terms of how such restraints would be pursued. I base these observations on research that included interviewing farmers and representatives of alternative food organizations in Ontario and Québec. Themes covered include public and government views on local food and ecological agriculture, challenges related to initiatives such as Community Supported Agriculture, the complexity of dietary transitions, and various possibilities for the state to help reshape producer-consumer relations.