How should we go about understanding the food system?
It depends on who you ask: economists, botanists, farmworkers, food company CEOs, and public health advocates will all give you a different answer. Land & Labor argues that we should think about the food system in terms of our treatment of land and food workers and as a reflection of dominant political ideologies that create and perpetuate inequality (capitalism, racism, neoliberalism, colonialism, etc.)
How exactly is political ideology reflected in our treatment of land and labor?
There are infinite answers to this question. Land & Labor offers a way of thinking that can applied to many aspects of the food system:
Political ideology influences the creation and perpetuation of institutions.
Institutions chose to employ specific practices motivated by political ideology.
Practices and norms directly affect treatment of both land and labor.
Okay… but I need an example!
In his book The Hamlet Fire: A Tragic Story of Cheap Food, Cheap Government, and Cheap Lives, historian Bryant Simon examines the social causes of a modern industrial disaster: a fire in a chicken processing plant in Hamlet, North Carolina that killed 25 people. These 25 people were trapped in their never-inspected workplace behind doors locked to prevent theft.
Using state records, oral histories, and contemporary reporting, Simon reveals that the fire was not a freak accident. It was the inevitable result of decades of lax regulation, racial discrimination, and antiunion sentiments.
Here is the final equation:
Capitalism (the dominant ideology) requires food corporations (the institution) to put profit above humane treatment of employees (practices and norms). In this case, it caused the death of 25 employees (treatment of labor).
There was a political and ideological reason for why the plant was being run in a way that endangered the employees and damaged the natural environment. That connection is what Land & Labor hopes to illuminate in all other areas of the food system.
Listen to an interview with Bryant Simon about The Hamlet Fire (Eat This podcast, 2018).