The limits of localism
- localism is limited unless linked into wider networks
- local and fair food initiatives cannot achieve systemic change
- popular grassroots social movements do not have the capacity for systemic economic/political change
- social innovators should develop alternative models for sustainable societies
Commenting on Lentil As Anything’s pay-as-you-feel supermarket slated to open for business in July this year, social commentator, fair food advocate and farmer, Michael Croft, wrote on Facebook: “A heart warming initiative by Lentil As Anything, but it is not system changing.
“No consumer or post consumer waste reduction scheme can or will change the existing food system… waste reduction schemes merely make the existing food system marginally more efficient.”
Lentil As Anything is a Melbourne vegetarian restaurant without fixed prices. Diners pay what they think the meal is worth or what they can afford. Their supermarket will be stocked with food sourced from food-rescue program, Food Without Borders, an enterprise similar to Sydney’s Oz Harvest.
The trouble with localisation
Michael’s Facebook post triggered responses, including from some associated with the fair food movement. The movement seeks fair prices for the farmers who supply consumers with nutritious foods produced with minimal environmental impact.
Responses critiqued localism, a philosophy espoused by the Transition Towns movement and by many in the permaculture design system. David Holmgren, the co-originator of permaculture, is an exponent of localism, usually called ‘localisation’ or ‘relocalisation’, in his region of Central Victoria around the town of Hepburn.
Localisation has philosophical links to the bioregional movement that came out of the US in the 1990s. Here in Australia it was taken up by permaculture practitioners some of whom taught it in their design courses. I have found no mention of bioregionalism by Transition Towns participants, suggesting it was a social movement that did not penetrate the UK, where Transition Towns came out of, and by the time Transition Towns started in Australia around 2007, had been largely forgotten by permaculture people.
Responding to Michael Croft’s post on Facebook, Judith Hitchman summed up the critique around the potential for systemic change through local initiatives:
“The Real Junk Food project does great work too. And does nothing to change the production system. All these initiatives sadly actually support the underlying system.”
Local needs to link to bigger networks
That is also the critique of retired UNSW professor, Ted Trainer. Ted lectured in limits to growth and developed a friendly critique of localisation — which he supports — and of permaculture, community gardening and Transition Towns, among others. While supporting such initiatives as models for a sustainable society, Ted says they live under delusion if they think of themselves as capable of changing our socioeconomic system. That aligns with Judith Hitchman’s critique. (disclosure: I worked with Ted Trainer at UNSW in the nineties)
Another to critique localism while also being a supporter was an Australian food sovereignty advocate. We were discussing the growth in numbers of fair food initiatives such as food co-operatives, community supported agriculture (CSA), multifarm CSA delivery services, organic food buyers’ groups and other schemes that were popping up in our cities at the time. He said that all of those small, local initiatives are good, but local stays local unless linked into a larger-scale network working for change. Those were not his exact words but they capture his meaning. He supported those developments but, and this is the impression I got, he thought they formed a fractured rather than cohesive social movement.
The idea of developing alternative systems like those local food enterprises for deploying now, and later in some future sustainable society, was promoted by ex-NASA astrophycisist, Robert Gillman, during his Australian visit in the mid-1990s to attend a permaculture conference in Adealaide. Publisher of In Context magazine at that time, Robert drew on the analogy of the inventor in their garage, saying that we should go ahead and develop models now so that when they are needed we open the garage door and say: “Here’s what you have been looking for”.
Lentil As Anythings restaurant and supermarket would fit Robert Gillmans idea as would other initiatives found in permaculture and Transition Towns. They are components of a future society emerging within the present system.
Mainly benefits locals
Local initiatives benefit local people but not necessarily anyone else. For example, there is a food co-op at the other end of my suburb. It benefits members, who are people within travel distance of it who can get to it to collect their weekly organic food box on the day it operates. Those are distance and time constraints to any broader participation. The food is sourced from Sydney’s organic wholesale market.
It is a great initiative, however unless it links to other, similar enterprises, its benefit stays local, as that food advocate said. Linking can lead to advocacy, and we see the potential for this, now, in the initiative of northern NSW fair food advocate, Joel Orchard, who with others has started a website to link community supported agriculture projects. That gives prominence to those enterprises and, potentially, bring an advocacy/political voice.
It is similar for the farmers’ markets dotted here and there around the city. They mainly benefit those close by. You could say they could be of greater benefit were they replicated in other locations. True. However, questions have been raised about whether the production volume and the number of organic farms in the region have reached their capacity and now have limited ability to grow the sector.
What those farmers’ markets and food co-ops do, though, is support the livelihoods of organic farmers. Not all those farmers are local, however.
A supportive critic
Ted Trainer sees localisation as the future at the same time he dispells the potential for ideas like permaculture, Transition Towns and similar initiatives to create deep systemic change.
He sees them more as reformist movements and models for some alternative, sustainable society. Ted realises they have no deep revolutionary potential when it comes to changing the dominant neoliberal system. Whatismore, they often primarily benefit those with the financial resources to pay the higher prices for the foods, goods and services they offer, or those committed and frugal enough to be able to pay higher prices. That market stratification fits well with how capitalism works. Fair food advocates can do little about it because it is the normal functioning of the economic system they seek a viable place in. Thus, it must be accepted that we will have a stratified food system with some types of food for those with sufficient discretionary income and cheaper food from the supermarkets for those without choice in how their food budget is spent.
Writing in The Trainer Papers, Ted says people in socially progressive movements fail to see their movements’ limits.
“In my view few green people or transitioners recognise the huge distinction here between trying to reform consumer-capitalist society and trying to replace its major structures and systems.”
He goes on to say:
“What do we have to do in order to eventually achieve such huge and radical changes? The answer goes far beyond the things that green/transition people are doing now, such as setting up community gardens, food co-ops, recycling centres, Permaculture groups, skill banks, home-craft courses, commons, volunteering, downshifting, etc.
“Yes all these are the kinds of institutions and practices we will have in the new sustainable and just world so it is understandable that many people within the Eco-village, Transition Towns and green movements assume that if we just work at establishing more and more of these things then in time this will have created the new society. I think this is a serious mistake.
“Firstly these things are easily accommodated within consumer-capitalist society without threatening it, as the lifestyle choices and hobby interests of a relatively few people. They will appeal to only that minority potentially interested in composting or organic food or Permaculture etc. Larger numbers will not come to them unless they understand why they should… Just establishing more community gardens and recycling centres does little or nothing to increase that understanding.”
An emerging realisation
The comments following Michael Croft’s Facebook posting, and similar social media conversations on similar topics, suggest there is a critique of neoliberal capitalism slowly emerging among those in socially progressive alternative movements.
Whether it will coalesce into some kind of cohesive, quasi-political movement for systemic change at the economic/political level remains to be seen.
What to do?
If we accept Ted Trainers’ critique of Transition Towns, permaculture, community gardening and others as seeking to reform the dominant system rather than replace it, but at the same time being components of a future sustainable society, the logical path to follow is to develop those systems as models for both present and future deployment.
Will this lead to cognitive dissonance in supporting something that will not achieve the systems change some would like it to? Perhaps. We all live with dissonance in our lives, with contradiction between what is and what we would like. Maybe, then, we accept this and support those initiatives like Lentil As Anything’s rescued food supermarket while at the same time working towards a society capable of enduring over the centuries without trashing the world it so closely depends on. The question is to do that, where are the organisations that could provide leadership?
More on the Lentil As Anything supermarket: https://www.broadsheet.com.au/melbourne/food-and-drink/article/lentil-anything-launch-pay-you-feel-supermarket-rescued-food
Lentin As Anything: lentilasanything.com
The Trainer Papers: https://pacific-edge.info/2010/02/the-trainer-papers-1/
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