Download Settling Shared Uncertainties: Local Partnerships Between

Settling Shared Uncertainties: Local
Partnerships Between Producers
and Consumers
Claire Lamine
T
wo different kinds of phenomena which occurred in the last years on different
scales will be the starting point of the reflection offered in this paper. The first one,
largely studied and commented upon, is the succession of food crises, occurring on a
large scale, and concerning the entire global food system. The second one is the emergence of alternative systems linking producers and consumers on a local scale. Should
we associate these two facts, and consider that these local partnerships are perhaps an
attempt to set up new forms of insurance against global food uncertainties?
Uncertainty is of course intrinsic to many aspects of social life, but what will be
addressed here are the specificities of food uncertainty. I will show that uncertainty
is intrinsic both to production and consumption, due to the organic and metabolic
nature of production and consumption processes (Fine 1994). Producers and
consumers therefore share a fundamental potential uncertainty even though it takes
different concrete forms on both sides, as will be described. On the basis of three
different case studies of long-term subscription schemes to a weekly box of fruits and
vegetables - a long-distance scheme and two local ones1 - this paper considers whether
these schemes address both producers’ and consumers’ uncertainties.
We will find out that they do not suppress all kind of uncertainties but nevertheless
allow producers and consumers to settle together their respective uncertainties. On the
producers’ side, the main form of uncertainty is linked to the variations in production
and sales. Since in these schemes, consumers pay in advance and prices are set
beforehand, producers are sure to sell their products (at least the part they intend to
market through this system) at a given price. The way consumers’ uncertainties are dealt
with by these systems will prove to be more complex. On their side, uncertainty relates to
the characteristics of products and their capacity to address concerns for safety, dietetics,
taste, and ethics. Yet, we will see that in these schemes, another form of uncertainty
arises: the uncertainty about the assortment of products in the box. Consumers do not
choose their products, the assortment depends on the crop, the weather or other hazards.
Therefore, the system relies on a radical uncertainty imposed on consumers regarding
the assortment of products and the quantity of each; a necessary uncertainty to address
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Sociologia Ruralis, Vol 45, Number 4, October 2005
©European Society for Rural Sociology
ISSN 0038−0199
Settling shared uncertainties
325
the uncertainty about the quality of the products. I will demonstrate that these systems
offer the opportunity to exchange unacceptable uncertainties, linked for example to the
use of chemicals or to animal feeding practices, for both a mix of necessary and sufficient
guarantees (no chemicals, no animal products in animal food), or promises (a better taste,
a better dietetic quality, or a production system respecting certain ethic values), but also
for acceptable uncertainties, the main one being the uncertainty about the assortment
of the box. It will appear that the system allows consumers to reduce their qualitative
uncertainties (safeness, taste, origin etc.) and farmers to reduce their uncertainties of
quantitative nature (sales and prices). This common settling of shared uncertainties is
nonetheless dependent upon two conditions.
First, it accompanies what is a double re-framing of the transaction. In effect, it involves
not one but a whole series of transactions and a number of identified consumers within a
specific definition of both production and distribution systems. This definition assumes
the irregularity of the agricultural production and products instead of suppressing it as
in the case of industrial food chains. As this irregularity is due to the different kinds
of metabolic processes taking place in production, such as climatic hazards, insects
attacks, or variations in the growth of products, the metabolic nature of production and
consumption processes, previously described as the basis of producers’ and consumers’
uncertainties, becomes the basis of a common settling of these shared uncertainties.
Second, while all schemes rely on the fact that a certain number of consumers will
take out long-term subscriptions, thereby accepting the irregularity of production, only
local partnerships, as opposed to distant schemes, imply a negotiation by producers and
consumers of this specific production and distribution system.
For these reasons, local partnerships translate a conception of quality that results
from interactions between actors rather than from pre-defined and exogenous criteria
as suggested by ‘conventions theory’ (Eymard-Duvernay 1989; 1995; Thévenot 1995).
Furthermore, they suppose a fundamental change in the conception of demand and,
associated with that, in the place of consumers who now take an active part in those
schemes that involve them the most. This aspect is not often addressed by the above
mentioned theories nor by the sociology of market relationships (Cochoy 1999;
Dubuisson-Quellier 2003), which, though it analyses in detail the functioning of food
chains and the professional actors within them, is markedly less interested either in the
representations, perceptions and practices of consumers or in interactions between the two
extremities of the chain. Market sociologists, rural sociologists, or economists often study
food systems without linking them to consumers’ concerns and practices. On the other
hand, consumers’ representations and practices are usually analysed by anthropologists
and food sociologists with little interest in the actions of the food chains (Tovey 1997;
Guthman 2002). In recent years, however, several authors, largely originating from other
disciplines such as geography, political economy or environmental studies, and often
employing actor-network theory (Callon et al. 2000), have specifically sought to unite
these different strands (Goodman and Watts 1997; Whatmore and Thorne 1997; Lockie
and Kitto 2000; Marsden 2000; Goodman 2004). The scientific program drawn by these
scientists invites us to study the interactions between actors within the food chain and
consumers in a symmetrical way. This means looking at how buying, cooking and eating
practices can be taken into consideration simultaneously with modes of producing and
selling, thereby affecting the configuration of production and distribution networks.
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The shared metabolism, basis of uncertainties shared by consumers and producers
Food sociologists and anthropologists have emphasised a fundamental anxiety that is
intrinsic to food (Fischler 1990; Poulain 2002); an anxiety inseparable from the mechanism
of incorporation. Distinct from other products, food crosses the borders between the outside
and the inside of the body. The consumption of food products has highly a distinctive feature
which, though banal, is far from being just anecdotic: the eater transforms the food, first
through possible culinary action then through ingestion. Furthermore, the food also affects
the eater. Of course, medicines are also metabolised into the body and affect the individual.
What makes the critical difference, however, is that the eater has no symmetrical power to
transform medicines as he/she does with food through cooking. This metabolic nature is in
itself a source of uncertainty: the individual as ‘nourisher’, who cooks foodstuffs to compose
meals, does not exactly know what their reception will be, while the individual as ‘nourished’
does not exactly how the meal will be.
What I want to emphasise here, is that the metabolic nature of foods and the doubts
and risks that they intrinsically carry, are common to producers and consumers. The
farmer does not know exactly what will be the effects of changes in the production
process. Wine-producing, with all its multiple parameters and its numerous phases,
is a good example but the same is true is for any agricultural production process. If a
producer replaces one tomato variety with another, supposedly better-tasting variety, will
he/she harvest at the same period, in comparable quantity, with a comparable shelflife? Even though technical assistance and marketing information guide the producers’
decisions, doubts always remain, due notably to those elements that reflect the
embeddedness of agriculture in natural processes and that can not be entirely codified:
quality of soil, climate variations etc.
In this way, the metabolic nature of food and the uncertainty it generates concern
not only consumption but the entire agro-food network from one end to the other.
We can talk of a ‘shared corporality’ of production and consumption activities, of
the ‘intercorporality’ of food flesh and our flesh, food and body both being material
substances (Stassart and Whatmore 2003). Consumers give picturesque expressions
of this shared corporality when, for example, an interviewee evokes the comparison
between flaccid fromage blanc and flabby thighs or, in a less metaphorical way, when
others talk about animal feeding and link it to their reluctance to eat meat. Consumers’
uncertainties result partially from their suspicions about metabolic production
processes or transformation. As they are also linked to the metabolic nature of food
consumption, uncertainty is intrinsic to all the stages of the ‘eating chain’, from buying
to eating through cooking (Corbeau 1992). At both ends of this eating chain, the
metabolic nature of the processes it encompasses generates a fundamental potential
uncertainty that is shared by consumers and producers, though it takes different
forms on both sides. In the next section, I will show how box schemes, and specifically
local partnerships between producers and consumers, respond to the respective
uncertainties of each.
Local partnerships: responding to uncertainties
In the last decades, production and distribution systems founded on the mutual
Settling shared uncertainties
327
commitment of producers and consumers have appeared in many different countries.
Though diverse, they share common principles: consumers take out a long-term
subscription and are committed to buying the farmers’ production and to accepting its
irregularities. Can we consider that these schemes respond to the uncertainties shared by
producers and consumers and, if so, how?
A brief history and geography of local partnerships
In Japan, the first Teikei - organisations linking producers and usually urban consumers,
on the principle of a direct distribution without intermediaries - were created in the
1960s. Most Teikei bring together several different producers. As farms are usually
small, an isolated producer can not provide varied assortments and a sufficient quantity
of products for a large group of consumers. This makes them close to the co-operative
movement, also very active in Japan. In addition to being an alternative marketing system,
Teikei also take on social responsibilities and intervene in schools and education.
Similar systems began to appear in the 1980s in the United States and Canada, with the
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) schemes. CSA’s emergence is partly linked to
the ‘back to the land’ movement of the 1960s and 1970s, but also both to the developing
farm crisis which brought a multiplication of farm bankruptcies, and as a response to
a growing general concern amongst people for their food’s quality (Kloppenburg et al.
1996; Hinrichs 2000; Allen et al. 2003). CSAs aim at building ‘bridges between town
and country’ as a Canadian farmer puts it, and at ‘feeling the support of consumers’ in
a context of economical difficulties and distance2. In these North-American systems,
the producer and the consumers form a group which discusses the cultivation plan and
negotiate the price of the subscription (Henderson et al. 1999). Moreover, consumers
are involved in the tasks linked to food distribution, and sometimes even to production.
In 2004, local partnerships had reached all continents. In Japan, one in four families
belongs to these schemes. In other countries, the phenomenon remains more marginal,
involving in the United States and Canada about 1400 organisations, that is about 100
000 families. Local partnerships start to appear in some southern countries such as
Brazil or Vietnam. The movement is growing quickly in the United Kingdom and in
many other European countries.
Inspired by the North-American experiences, a few farsighted people sought, in
2001, to develop a similar system in France, the focus of this paper. Today, more than
a hundred box schemes exist in France, taking a number of different organisational
forms: private companies involving consumers as individuals (an example of which
forms the first case study in this paper), cooperative farms (the second case study) or
schemes run by social insertion organisations for unemployed and low qualified people,
and finally organisations linking producers and consumers directly within the context of
family-based farming systems within which consumers form a group, like in the NorthAmerican CSA-systems. These I shall call ‘local partnerships’ and these make up the
third case study explored in this paper. In total, 15,000 to 20,000 French families were
involved in such local partnerships in 2004.
Local partnerships belong to the ‘alternative agro-food networks’ (Goodman 2003)
or ‘agro-localists movements’ (Buttel 1997). We can define these alternative food
networks through what they contest, which is global deregulation, globalisation, and/or
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degradation of agro-ecosystems. We can also define them through what they enhance
and the values they defend: a re-distribution of value through the network, a common
construction of trust between producers and consumers and the articulation of new
forms of political association and market governance (Whatmore et al. 2003). In all
cases, local partnerships form only a small part of the full range of ‘alternative food
networks’ which also include farmers’ markets, diverse cooperative forms such as
consumers buying groups, and many fair-trade organisations.
From weekly boxes of agricultural products to local partnerships
The three schemes studied here take the material form of weekly boxes composed
of diverse agricultural products (fruits and vegetables). All three schemes are
characterised by long-term subscriptions and the variability of the assortment,
with the impossibility for consumers to select their products. A stable price is set
in advance and the boxes are paid for prior to delivery. The box is provided every
week, and is either left in a depository in town (for example a neighbourhood centre,
a bookshop, sometimes an individual’s backyard etc.), that is relatively close to the
consumers’ homes, or, in some cases, is picked by the consumers at the farm. Beyond
these common characteristics, the systems are very diverse. They include one or
several producers, only fruits and vegetables or an assortment of different products
including meat, eggs, honey, cheese or other transformed products. Some might
operate all-year-round, others only seasonally. Of the three cases studies discussed
here, the first one will be used as a counterpoint as it is a long-distance scheme. The
other two are local partnerships.
The first is Bio-Paris, a box composed and delivered by a company importing
and exporting organic products from 400 producers in France and other countries,
established in the grocery market of Rungis near Paris. Up to 1800 boxes are
prepared every week. Even though there is a long-term subscription, this is not a local
partnership as the producers are spread over the whole country and even abroad.
Hence we might refer to this as a ‘distant’ partnership.
The second is Coop-Veggies, a box composed by a co-operative farm located in the
Marseille area and delivered to several towns in the area. With around 300 members,
the system supposes a lasting commitment and allows punctual and direct interaction
between producers and consumers, though the latter are not constituted into any
formal group or organisation.
Finally, Provence Box is a system established to ‘share the harvest’ of a farm located
close to Marseille between a group of about 70 consumers who have grouped together
to run the system and take charge, alongside the producer, of the distribution tasks.
This system belongs to a CSA-type network of local partnerships which emerged in
south-eastern France in 2001 and which is developing in other areas. By mid 2004, the
network had brought together around 40 different groups. In this scheme, the boxes
are considered as members’ shares of the coming harvest and are paid for before the
beginning of the season at a price negotiated between consumers and producers based
on farm costs and incomes.
My empirical data was collected, firstly, through 42 in depth interviews of producers
(or, in the case of Bio-Paris, the person responsible for the boxes) and consumers, some
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of whom were directly involved in box schemes and, secondly, through documents
and observations related to the three box schemes (e.g. distribution of the boxes and
interactions between farmers and consumers). The evolution of the local network
was also observed through participation at the first International Congress of Local
Partnerships’ in Aubagne, France in February 2004 and at the annual general meeting
of the Provence network in May 2004. Drawing on these three cases, I return to the
initial question raised in this paper: in what ways do such schemes respond to the
uncertainties shared by both producers and consumers?
For producers: a reduction of economic uncertainty
The main source of uncertainty for producers is linked to possible variations in
production and sales. For the latter, uncertainty diminishes with local partnerships
because producers benefit from the commitment of a relatively stable number of
consumers over a long period of time. The subscription forms are called ‘commitment
contracts’ and are not merely a ‘subscription’. The commitment contract for Provence
Box for instance states that through this system, the consumer guarantees “to the
farmer an income and the certainty of selling all of his [sic] harvest thereby contributing
to maintaining his [sic] activity”. Symmetrically, the farmer is committed to “distributing
every week the harvest which members of the organisation take as a box”. The notion of
‘harvest sharing’ suggests that the entire production is disposed of in this way. In fact,
although this is the case for some farmers, most of them sell part of their production
through other distribution circuits (to wholesalers, on markets, and at the farm itself).
Uncertainties from variations of production are also reduced in these systems due
to the specific marketing mode. Farmers can significantly limit their losses because
the system allows the smoothing out of production variations. Where there is overproduction, the box assortment is adjusted, whereas in conventional distribution circuits
the prices are usually cut and products can be refused. Producers also limit their losses
because they do not have to grade their products. Almost any fruit or vegetable can be
put in the boxes whereas in other systems, the farmer would have to sort them out and
maybe throw away those that would be unclassified. In the case of Bio-Paris though, as
opposed to the two other schemes, it is of course the organic wholesaler composing and
selling the boxes more than the producers themselves who benefits from this reduction
of uncertainty. Even though the company claims fidelity to its suppliers, one can imagine
that it is not always possible to guarantee sales to 400 different producers.
For consumers: a local response to food safety uncertainties but also to other forms of
concern
On the consumers’ side, uncertainty often appears to be linked to recent food crises. But
uncertainty is not entirely contemporary. Food uncertainty is often seen as a consequence
of abundance, the uncertainty about quantity of food being replaced by an uncertainty
about its quality, in a context of abundance. Yet, historians have demonstrated that food
scares have a long history (Ferrières 2002; Kaplan 2002). They have questioned the radical
nature of this presumed shift in consumer concerns from subsistence to substance. At
all times and in all human societies, there have been, besides uncertainties over food
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quantity, fears and uncertainties about the impact of food on health. These uncertainties
concern both the immediate and the long-term impact of food. The fear of food poisoning
or intoxication relates to a more general suspicion about the transformation of primary
products and the possible addition of toxic elements in this transformation. Examples
include suspicious meat pies in the Middle Ages, the accusations of flour adulteration
made against bakers (Kaplan 2002), still occurring in the 1950, or, most recently, the
consequences of the BSE crisis, whose dissemination in a globalised food market had a far
greater impact on consumers’ trust than any previous food scares. But food uncertainties
also concern - and concerned in past times - the long term impact on health, as illustrated
by the case of the pain à la reine, under Louis XIV, in which bakers from the suburbs
bringing their brown bread to Paris’ markets, claimed the white bread baked by in-town
bakers had long term disastrous effect on health, in a conflict that was one of both dietary
concern and corporatist power (Ferrières 2002).
If food uncertainty is not limited to current times, neither is it exclusive to issues of
food safety, despite the dominant presence of this issue in the media, in the political
world and in day to day discussions. The research that underpins this paper demonstrates
that consumers are far from being in a constant state of anxiety, and that their degree
of concern varies both with degrees of mediatisation and with individual products and
situations. Moreover, uncertainty is not only, and for many products not even principally,
a concern over food safety. Many contemporary interpellations go far beyond the issue of
food safety and risks. They deal with dietetics, medical discourses about how to eat well,
taste and hedonism, but also ethical and environmental aspects of food production and
consumption. Consumers’ uncertainties and concerns are multiple. They can be classified
in two main categories; concern for the self, and concern for the environment (Lamine
2003). The concern for the self - based on the expression of Foucault (1984) - includes
notions of food safety, care for one’s body and health, gustative pleasure and sharing.
The concern for the environment includes respect of the environment but stretches to
ethical conceptions of consumption. Moreover, consumers’ uncertainty is also linked to
the abundance of products, making choices more difficult and in some cases leaving them
bewildered (Cochoy 2002). To answer the question whether local partnerships respond to
consumers’ uncertainty over food safety, health and taste while symbolising ethical and
environmental choices, we need to look at the emergence of these systems, firstly at the
macro, and then at the micro, level.
Are box schemes an answer to the uncertainties linked to food safety? The history
of their emergence in different countries seems to supports the premise that this
follows sanitary crises. In Japan, the Teikei originated partly from a growing concern
about pollution, especially following the identification of Minamata disease in the
1950s and the intoxications due to the contamination of fish and shellfish by mercury.
Furthermore, the Japanese Organisation for Organic Agriculture, which helps and
promotes these alternative systems, was founded in 1970 by physicians.
What about our French cases? Even though the person interviewed at Bio-Paris refers
to a former experimentation of this scheme in Holland, where the company’s manager
originates from, there are reasons to think that its success has a lot to do with recent
food crises. The Coop-Veggies leaflet begins explicitly with an allusion to these crises:
“the cow madness and the men’s reason”. Several Provence Box systems were created
following public meetings held by alternative social movements on the issue of food
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and food safety. In the three systems, the producers commit themselves to growing
fresh and local products, to using safe techniques and materials and to respecting the
environment. If the first two systems are exclusively organic, Provence Box producers
can either farm as certified organic producers or can ‘follow organic procedures’
without having certification. In all cases, whether they are formally organic or not, these
systems can, in themselves, provide no formal guarantee of safeness over and above
organic certification3. Nevertheless, interviews with consumers reveal that a strong
presumption of a causal link between industrial practices and food risks brings some of
them (if they can afford it) to adhere to production and distribution systems where this
perceived presumption is lower, or even reversed. We can talk here of a reversal from a
presumption of a negative causal link functioning as a suspicion, towards a belief in a
positive causal link.
As the belief in greater safeness remains fragile among most consumers, the
proximity to producers can play a crucial role in reinforcing it, which makes the
difference between distant schemes and local partnerships all important. An organic
farmer talks about this fragility as expressed by a client as well as his own response:
She was all upset because her physician had told her that it was useless to eat organic
because the water was polluted. She was saying, ‘I don’t know what to eat anymore.’ And he
isn’t wrong, her physician. On our farm, we know our water. But if we were using the water
of the nearby river, there are chemicals inside. I wouldn’t have told her that he was crazy, or
that he didn’t understand. I told her, We do what we can.
Before his client’s doubts, which he considers justified, this farmer denies any
measurable and direct causality, giving his client a promise of safety much more than a
guarantee. This promise is nonetheless inserted in a sincere and honest account and a
narrative of the process of production which aims at making it tangible. What the farmer
is proposing here is more a commitment concerning the way the food is produced,
rather than a formal guarantee on the product (Stassart 2003). Direct relationships and
proximity allow doubts to be clarrified and act as a complement to the organic label,
which appears to be insufficient in this instance.
In most local partnerships belonging to the Provence Box CSA- type networks,
proximity and direct relationships appear more valued by consumers and by the
network than organic certification. The network’s charter talks about ‘proximity farms’
and ‘proximity farmers’. In Japan also, if Teikei systems respect the rules of organic
production, the promoters of these systems mark their differences from a purely
technical conception of organic agriculture by claiming: “We were more concerned by
local production than by organic techniques, we were looking for solutions to protect
family farms”4.
It should be noted that the discussion reported above on water quality and food
safety took place at a market and not in the context of a box scheme. Any form of direct
interaction between farmers and consumers can a priori mediate such promises through
proximity. The specificity of local partnerships must therefore be looked for elsewhere
than merely in direct relationships and proximity. For local partnerships, this reversal
from a presumption of a negative causal link between industrial production practices and
food risks towards a belief in a positive one is strengthened by a juxtaposition of global and
local systems and their respective consequences. In other words, the change of scale is
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decisive. Uncertainties generated by global food crises are answered through guarantees
and promises provided in the frame of local systems. Because things are not perceived
as going well on a large scale, these systems propose a change of scale. More generally,
a series of crises and events that have been as global as the world agro-food system, has
made consumers aware of the industrial methods linked to globalisation. Against this,
logic of proximity is better able to re-construct consumers’ trust (Murdoch and Miele
1999). With the food crises of the 1990s, which revealed flaws in conventional agrofood networks, two reactive strategies have emerged. The first has been an institutional
response, consisting of integrating new ‘quasi-objects’, such as traceability procedures,
food safety agencies, committees, embargoes etc., to re-establish the trust at global
level (Goodman 1999). This was the objective of the setting up of new legislative and
institutional systems around 1999 in France and other European countries. The second
solution consists in connecting food network actors together more closely. Whereas on a
global scale, the construction of political, technical, social and sanitary choices regarding
food seems in crisis (Poulain 2002), partnerships between producers and consumers at
local level suggest other modes of collective construction of these choices5. Of course,
both responses co-exist, and the development of brand names and private certifications
by corporate retailers can be considered as an intermediary one, which should not lead us
to too rapid a conclusion that profound changes in the paradigms of agro-food systems
analysis are taking place.
Besides the food safety issue, adhesion to a box scheme also offers a response to
consumer preferences for environmental protection through the choice of production
techniques. It can also offer a resolution to dietary uncertainty. All the leaflets of our
different box schemes promise sane and diversified products. Yet, in the same way that
these schemes cannot provide a complete guarantee of freedom from sanitary risks and
can, in fact, only guarantee the non use of chemicals, it is also impossible for them
to provide a complete guarantee concerning their nutritional superiority. That does
not, however, prevent consumers from frequently expressing the hope that they are
getting better products in terms of diet. The schemes guarantee, at the very least, that
the products are fresh (‘cropped the day before delivery’, states the Coop Veggies leaflet,
for example) and that they have not been transported long distances or conserved too
long. Moreover, the consumer who conceives his weekly menus according to the box’s
assortment, and with the help of the recipies usually provided, will certainly reach the
amounts of fruit and vegetables generally recommended for a balanced diet. Finally, we
might note that a dietician is involved in the Provence Box network, not as a professional
but as an ordinary member, a status she is keen to specifiy at the numerous meetings
she addresses where she puts forward expert arguments that contribute in all likelihood
to legitimate this concern for diet.
How these systems deal with the concern for taste: the case of tomatoes
Establishing valid links between these schemes and the taste of the products involved
is always going to be tenuous for taste superiority is highly subjective and difficult
to measure; although a number of assessment systems do strive to get beyond such
limitations (eg. Teil 1998). When questioned on taste, many of the schemes’ consumers
stated that when they joined, they were not certain of any inherent superiority but rather
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considered that there would be a chance that such products would taste better. They were
generally satisfied on this score. Therefore, as before, it is the promise of a better taste,
rather than a guarantee, that is provided. Yet, it is precisely this question of taste that
reveals one of the most interesting negotiations between producers and consumers. Let
us consider the case of tomato. The tomato is often present in judgements over product
quality, both amongst producers and consumers who talk about it more than about
any other fruit or vegetable. “A tomato that you buy at the supermarket, that is chalky
- you feel like you were eating plastic; and a tomato that has the taste of the tomato,
the difference is there ”, says a consumer. The words most often used by consumers to
differentiate tasty and tasteless tomatoes are, respectively, ‘sweet’, ‘red’, ‘melting’, ‘firm’,
and ‘thick’ against ‘tastes like water’, ‘hard’, ‘chalky’, ‘plastic’. The ‘tastes like water’
epithet of bad tomatoes contrasts with the ‘tomato taste’ of good ones. However, when
we look at producers’ perceptions of consumers’ taste, one can but wonder at the implicit
misunderstandings. As one Coop Veggies farmer put it:
Today people talk a lot about taste, but in fact it is standardising. (…) The tomato has to be
nice and red with lots of water, a good tomato that has a good taste but that is a bit soggy,
for example varieties that are good but not firm, that become soggy when they are ripe, lots
of people don’t want that. They want a tomato that is hard, that has no taste but that is firm.
How does this farmer manage to satisfy his consumers then? A compromise has to
be found between two different incompatible sensory characteristics: the taste and the
firmness (if we simplify, a good tomato cannot be firm, and a tomato which is firm
is likely to be insipid). This compromise is expressed in the balance between taste
and consistency. The farmer quoted above tries to put in the box “tomatoes which are
firm - which are red, which are good but which are nevertheless firm”. Thus example
of tomatoes confirms that quality, far from being imposed from above on the actors
concerned, is the result of more or less stabilised interactions between these actors
as described by the theory of conventions (Eymard-Duvernay 1989; 1995). But these
interacting actors are generally limited to professional food chain actors, as is the case
with distant box schemes such as BioParis. In the case of Coop Veggies quoted above,
there is no organised and direct dialogue between farmers and consumers, even though
there can be informal interactions such as at farmers’ market at which this farmer
participates every week where he occasionally meet some of ‘his’ box scheme members.
Only in the case of the Provence Box CSA-type schemes, do consumers take an active
part in these interactions. Where farmers and consumers negotiate directly, those
different characteristics of the production process which influence product quality can be
openly discussed. This is demonstrated in the choice of product varieties, which change
according to both the sensory judgements of farmers and/or consumers (as illustrated by
the quotations above) and the need to stagger the harvest due to market and conservation
considerations. Indeed, old and non-hybrid varieties, though they may taste better are
often more perishable, and farmers, as well as consumers, risk losses.
Hence negotiation is made possible through a process of symmetrical learning,
through which farmers learn of consumers’ taste and culinary uses while consumers
are made aware of the production and distribution constraints under which the farmers
work. As a result of such discussions, compromises, such as the inclusion of two
different varieties of tomatoes in the same box, can result. However, negotiations can
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and do fail either because consumers do not agree among themselves on the desirable
characteristics (taste or longevity, for example) or because other determinants prevail.
One former member of a local partnership scheme reported that he was disappointed by
the quality of the tomatoes provided in his box, while at the same time seeing the best
tomatoes being delivered to good restaurants by the farmer.
If box schemes respond in part to consumers’ uncertainties about safety, diet, taste
and the environment, they nevertheless offer promises rather than guarantees. The
only guarantees that can really be codified are those concerning place of production
(identified in all cases and local for Coop Veggies and Provence Box), product freshness, and
production processes. But these schemes rely less on establishing causal links between
processes of production and the different dimensions of quality than on the generalised
distrust consumers have towards industrial food chains. This could be thought of as a
belief in a limited causality, clearly expressed by the farmer quoted above; the limit being
acceptance that causality can not be quantified and measured (just as the exact quantity
of each product in the box can vary from one box to another and can not be guaranteed
to consumers). These assumed causal links do not provide a total control, but they gain
their solidity from belonging to a more global frame of reference (Dourlens 2000). The
whole system is made transparent to consumers while the whole relationship between
producers and consumers is formalised in the long-term subscription to these weekly
boxes and, in the case of Provence Box, in the collective discussion meetings. Therefore,
these box schemes respond to consumers’ uncertainties not only through guarantees, but
through a mix of guarantees and promises. The consumer, joining these systems with
a mix of uncertainties, will be offered, first, a combination of codified guarantees about
proximity, freshness and production practices, second, non-codified promises about food
safety, dietetics, and taste and, finally, acceptable uncertainties about the assortment
of the box. What these schemes offer to the consumers are incomplete certainties:
incomplete because they are composed of promises and not only guarantees and because
they include acceptable uncertainties concerning the irregularity of composition and the
aspect of products.
Acceptable uncertainties are necessary to reduce unacceptable uncertainties
What may appear paradoxical in the systems observed here is that the reduction of
farmer uncertainty over sales and the parallel reduction of consumer’s uncertainty over
food safety, diet and taste imply another kind of uncertainty on the part of the consumer:
uncertainty concerning the box assortment.
No choice in the transaction but negotiation of choice before the transaction
In contrast to a product assortment constituted in a market or supermarket, the consumer
has no possibility, in the schemes observed here, to choose the different products or the
quantity of each. The consumer cannot decide to take twice more or twice less tomatoes
this week than last week. He has no hold on the exact composition of the assortment or
on the quantity of each product. Both are decided by the producer. Is this lack of choice
not prohibitory? Acceptance of this imposition on the assortment, the quantity, but also
the time and place of the transaction, is perhaps surprising. Indeed, the main reason why
Settling shared uncertainties
335
some people leave the scheme and do not renew their subscription (in some schemes,
this can be as many as 50% of members), seems to be linked to this absence of choice
and to the fact that, for some people, there is often simply too much food, leading them
to throw part of it away (Allen et al. 2003).
Why though do consumers accept this limitation in their choice? One rather prosaic
answer is that consumers simply do not want to spend a lot of time and thought (Cochoy
2002) on selecting vegetables and fruit. In this sense, box schemes respond well to
consumer concern for good choice. Interviews show that consumers appreciate the
guarantee of regular supply offered by these box schemes. They receive fresh products
every week6, they save time because they get in only one transaction an assortment of
products that would normally be bought through several transactions, the monetary
aspect of the transaction is simplified and, finally, they get better prices for similar
products. These advantages have their counterparts for farmers: guarantee of regular
sales; saving of time; facilitation of transactions, lower marketing costs and so on. Most
members also appear to like the fact that the assortment is a surprise. It prompts fresh
ideas to cook, occasionally aided by the recipes that accompany the boxes.
More profoundly, we might present this as an inversion of the logic of mass production
that seems to give priority to individual choice. Yet, instead of being apparently free and
individual, the choice is here explicitly imposed in the transaction itself. Does it mean that
consumers renounce to their freedom of choice? No, because choices are made before
the transaction, and these choices concern the production process and distribution more
than the products themselves. If these boxes respond to various forms of concern, within
the aforementioned limits, through the notion of incomplete certainty, it is by means of
the specific organisation of the transaction. This transaction takes longer than usual
transactions and involves consumers collectively and not individually. It also includes a
larger section of the food chain. It is not limited to the moment of purchase but includes
other stages up and down the chain. Although all stages are also potentially present in
any purchase, even in conventional systems (in that the consumer buys with a projected
future use of the products and receives information about the process of production
through a label or by the seller), in most cases, there is no negotiation over the process
of production. Coop Veggies offers the possibility of occasional discussions, for example
at the farmers’ market. Yet, in the case of Provence Box, choices are negotiated in the
collective discussion meetings which gather consumers and farmers. Therefore, local
partnerships, in their most inclusive forms, combine the total delegation to the producer
during the transaction by each individual consumer regarding product choice and, at the
same time, the strong implication of all consumers taken collectively in the negotiation
with the producer over the conditions of production before the transaction.
This is what I mean by the double re-framing of the transaction: there is initially
a whole series of transactions, not a single transaction, that pre-define systems
of production and distribution and, within certain cases, engages a collective of
consumers, and not individual consumers. The commitment of a large enough
number of consumers is what allows the producer to combine, from small quantities
of different products, a marketable product. These two aspects are inseparable and
lie at the heart of the three box schemes studied here. Local partnerships add a third
re-framing: the possibility of a negotiation by producers and consumers together of
both production characteristics and product characteristics, and the clarification of
336
Lamine
the interdependence between both. In the case of Provence Box this third condition
implies that consumers are not taken as individuals but as a group.
The fundamental acceptation of the double irregularity of production and of products
In addition to renouncing choice of the assortment of products, by which consumers
accept the irregularity of production, consumers also accept a second kind of irregularity,
that of the products themselves. Such an accepted irregularity stands in contrast to the
graded and standardised products of conventional circuits. Whereas the packaging and
advertisements of conventional systems imply that ‘we have done everything so that this
product will satisfy you’, in the case of box schemes the clients are rather told ‘you have
to accept the imperfections of our products’.
Here then, irregularity is linked to authenticity, the ‘original’ diversity of fruits and
vegetables, otherwise denatured by standardisation in conventional chains. This natural
diversity of fruits and vegetables products echoes, for consumers, larger biodiversity
concerns (Boltanski and Chiapello 1999). A further kind of authenticity results from
the irregularity of the assortment. The fact of not being allowed to choose and being
forced to accept what ‘nature’ provides also acts as a sign of authenticity, like Proust’s
reminiscences which come upon us and ‘force us to think’ (Deleuze 1966).
This double irregularity of production and products is more than just a sign
of authenticity for consumers. It is the core of the system and the basis of the cooperation between its actors. If one compares the marketing system of box schemes
to that of conventional circuits, one notes that in the latter, any irregularity in the
products themselves is removed through grading. Irregularity in production volumes
is compensated by sourcing strategies. If there is any over-production, the retailer
is unlikely to take the surplus and buy more than can be sold, other than through
discount schemes and special offers which generally result in a lower price being paid
to the supplier. If, on the other hand, there is under-production and the producer is
not able to supply enough, sales may be lost and the farmer not re-used as a source
for retailer products (Jacquiau 2000).
For fresh products, corporate food chain actors have to reconcile the often opaque
and erratic supply from producers with consumer demand for standard and constant
products (Debril 2000). Although the imbalances here frequently result in there being
both winners and losers, this is not inevitably the case if food chain actors anticipate
such fluctuations: suppliers can inform retailers about their production levels and
retailers can guarantee outlets by committing themselves to buy certain quantities.
Hence food chain actors exchange guarantees concerning, in one direction, product
quantity and, in the other direction, product quality. Transparency thus becomes a
shared principle and the basis for durable operations of conversion between offer and
demand - albeit often a supposition of relatively homogenous and undifferentiated
consumer demand.
In our box schemes we can identify two operations of conversion. The first is
the composition of assorted boxes from a number of relatively small production
systems. This operation involves a degree of planning (type of product, number
of boxes, different suppliers). However, it cannot be separated from a second
operation of conversion which involves the consumers more directly and allows the
Settling shared uncertainties
337
regulation of demand at a level which, if not totally fixed, is at least foreseeable. In
the example of Bio Paris, the exact number of boxes is known a few days in advance.
For Provence Boxes, it is stable throughout the whole season. Unlike in conventional
producer-retailer chains, it is the consumer who places him/herself in a position of
foreseeability. In return, the foreseeability guaranteed by the farmer is not that of the
exact composition of the boxes, but rather the quality, the freshness, the safety and
the origin.
This exchange of foreseeabilities allows farmers and consumers to reduce their
respective uncertainties, that relating to quantity on the side of the producers, and
quality on the side of consumers. As the foreseeability with respect to quantity offered
by consumers is linked to the distribution system, while the foreseeability with
respect to quality offered by producers relates to the production system, both have to
be re-defined together. Although farmers might initially appear to benefit more from
an unsymmetrical foreseeability of the arrangement, the schemes examined here
do nonetheless offer consumers a minimal foreseeability since the leaflets usually
include an approximate list of the following week’s box content.
The schemes explored here offer the means to plan production and to re-arrange it
by smoothing out the inherent irregularities of supply (climate hazards, insects attacks,
bad harvest etc.) through box composition. They require not only the symmetrical
commitment of both farmers and consumers, but also instruments of committment;
contracts, members’ list, production plan, places of delivery, boxes, and so on. If the
absence of human mediations in corporate food networks makes different kinds of
instrumentation necessary (Barrey et al. 2000), the presence of human mediations
in the schemes here do not exempt them either. The operation of these schemes
also requires a certain amount of flexibility. Ultimately, if too many products are
affected at the same time by hazards, what can be put in the boxes to guarantee their
distribution? Bio Paris may be able to ‘juggle’ with around 400 suppliers, but the two
other systems Coop Veggies and Provence Box require other solutions such as recourse
to farmers outside the scheme. Such flexibility relies largely on the networks they
form within their geographical area.
Common metabolism: a basis for overcoming shared uncertainties
In addition to the win-win gains where a reduction of uncertainty over quantity is
exchanged for a reduction of uncertainty over quality, these schemes also enhance the
naturality of production by respecting the natural variability of agricultural processes.
This stands in stark contrast to corporate food networks which strive to control
and minimise variability in the biological components of production. In consumer
discourses, the ‘unnatural’ is linked to such ‘artificial’ and sometimes ‘suspect’
transformations. Consumers interviewed for this research describe as ‘non-natural’
those products whose production incorporates conservation and transformation
processes, is either chemically or industrially transformed, or have been subjected
to undue forms of artificialisation such as artificially ripened fruits, meat coming
from animals fed with ‘non vegetal additives’ and so on. More generally, industrial
food chains have become detached from nature (Cronon 1991) and natural variability
through substitutionism and appropriationism (Goodman and Watts 1997; Murdoch
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Lamine
2000). The downside of this detachment are the ‘boomerang effects’ of nature (Beck
1992) of which the BSE crisis is the most recent manifestation.
Box schemes, for their part, are organised around these natural irregularities and
the respect of natural metabolisms. The conception of these schemes relies precisely on
an attachment to nature. Moreover, this respect of natural metabolism helps to reduce
consumer uncertainties by offering an alternative to the suspicious and interventionist
metabolic processes of conventional agro-food chains; all the more suspicious that they
are invisible (Fischler 1998). There is here, therefore, a fundamental difference in the
nature of the relationship between producers and consumers, not only because that
relationship becomes durable and based on collective commitments, but also because
these schemes invite scrutiny of the metabolic acts of production; they effectively open
its ‘black boxes’. These agro-food systems reveal and link the different elements of
the metabolic relationship corresponding to the different stages of the eating chain
(production, transformation, cooking, and ingestion). They prompt consumers to
buy, cook and eat differently. Furthermore, cooking and food practices are partially
modified by this change in provisioning through the recipies and information leaflets
that accompany the boxes 7. These leaflets are intermediary objects, in the sense given
by Vinck (1999), between agricultural production and consumption but also cooking.
They provide production reports (how many leeks were sown, when the bean harvest
will begin, when the peaches start to ripen, how salads were unfortunately damaged
by insects and so on) as well as the list of products composing the boxes. They also
provide recipies and cooking tips and occasionally information on the health benefits
of a particular product. Hence they include aspects of all the elements of the chain production, transformation, cooking and, finally, ingestion.
Clearly, the metabolic acts of production are made more directly visible and
accessible in local partnerships. Except in the case of Bio Paris, where producers are
distant, most schemes rely upon inviting consumers to visit the farms when they
wish, giving them a potential physical access to the process of production. Although
this possibility makes up for the absence of sensory access in the moment of
transaction (in the sense that consumers can not see, touch or smell the products that
they are buying), few of the adherents to the scheme take up the offer. Neither do all
consumers come to the meeting held at the farm at the beginning of a season in the
case of Provence Box. Nonetheless, the potentiality of this access and this encounter
renders tangible the promises offered by the schemes.
Uncertainty and the analysis of agro-food systems: the changing place of the
consumer
This paper has shown how box schemes allow a reduction of shared uncertainties,
through a double re-framing of the producer-consumer transaction. It has also
demonstrated how local partnerships add a third dimension, as the definition of
production and distribution processes can be discussed and negotiated by producers
and consumers. In this last section, we will demonstrate that this kind of system
does not necessarily suppose the sort of radical change in the paradigm of agrofood systems, that are commonly linked to issues of proximity, territoriality, and
interpersonal relationships (Van Der Ploeg 2000), but rather introduces both an
Settling shared uncertainties
339
alternative reading of the consumer’s place and a different conception of demand.
Certainly, local partnerships such as Coop Veggies and Provence Box operate at the
local scale and through direct circuits. However, the case of Bio Paris demonstrates
that distant systems, with no direct interaction between producers and consumers,
can generate a similar kind of functioning, based on an equivalent re-framing of the
transaction. Direct interactions are replaced by artefacts such as a telephone hotline
and the reference in each weekly leaflet to the producers of the products offered in
the box. Yet, even within corporate food networks, such proximity can be re-injected,
for example by giving the names and addresses of producers or even an invitation to
visit their farms. More than a radical change from the modernisation paradigm of
conventional industrial agriculture to a supposedly re-territorialised and ecologicallyembedded new paradigm (Goodman 2004), what we see here is the co-existence
of both models with strong inter-penetration, as exemplified by the way corporate
producers and retailers increasingly ‘value’ locality and naturalness.
Similarly, the principle of collective commitment amongst consumers is not
necessarily synonemous with direct circuits and proximity, as the existence of numerous
consumer cooperative schemes demonstrates. Furthermore, while proximity is certainly
important for local partnerships, this is not limited exclusively to territoriality. The issue
here is proximity itself, far more than territory and identity. Local partnership schemes
are fundamentally different to those labels founded specifically on territorial identity
and notions such as ‘terroir’, for example Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée in France. The
consumers are not distant purchasers who seek local identity through the consumption
of a labelled product coming from a distinct ‘terroir’. They are consumers who share
common concerns. The frequency with which issues of land emerge during debates
and meetings within local partnership schemes, demonstrates the extent to which this
is a shared interest amongst both consumers and producers, particularly in peri-urban
spaces. Even though their own particular network is expanding rapidly, the first Provence
Box schemes were created in the south east of France, where the agricultural land is
particularly under threat from urban growth.
If these box schemes cannot be said to represent a paradigmatic shift, there is
certainly evidence that they offer a possible reconceptualisation both of the role of
the food consumer and of demand through the re-framings, examined above, that
are inherent in these schemes and through the specific links between producers and
consumers that they engender. Nevertheless, it cannot be claimed that the distinctiveness
of these systems lies only in the creation of social links between producers and
consumers, for the social nature of market relationships exists not only in direct and
durable relationships but also in impersonal and discontinuous forms: the market is
intrinsically social and cultural (Chantelat 2002). All transactions are by nature, social.
That having been said, there are significant differences between such systems and
more conventional ones in the conception of transactions as social relations. Because
of their common principle of long term commitment, all the schemes, even the distant
ones like Bio Paris, offer an alternative to the classical transaction in which a consumer
is ultimately free to disengage from the social relations of the transaction if it proves
unsatisfying. Additionally, these box schemes give consumers the possibility to interact
directly with the producer. In a supermarket, the consumer can not expect to enter into
discussion with the farmer responsible for the products bought.
340
Lamine
However, the main difference between conventional systems and these alternative
forms lies in the active role of both producers and consumers that the latter permit.
In conventional systems, producers and consumers often see themselves as more
passive actors in the food chain dominated by corporate food retailers and their
intermediaries. In box schemes, producers and consumers become active in their
reciprocal relationships in a system which is formalised by bilateral contract. In the
case of distant schemes like Bio Paris, the bilateral contract does not directly involve
the producers but their representatives, though producers are present through the
engagement made ( for example, the Bio Paris contract states: ‘with this system you
will contribute to the conversion to organic production of x hectares of land’). At the
other end of the scale, in the case of Provence Box, the system is not only formalised
by a bilateral contract but is also constructed by producers and consumers together.
Since consumers are integral to the organisational structure, the scheme strengthens
those links which are usually often weak or non-existent not only between producers
and consumers but also between consumers themselves.
This shift towards the active roles of both producers and consumers is linked to a
change in the place of demand within such transactions. The way these schemes take
irregularities into account suggests that demand should no longer be considered as an
external factor as it is in conventional systems (Goodman 2004). In terms of demand,
food consumption is continuous and long-term but irregular: we eat every day, but
(generally) eat different things. At the ‘supply’ end of the chain, agricultural production
is also a continuous, long-term and irregular process. At each end demand and supply
are heterogeneous. In between, the choice of consumers is usually discontinuous and
instantaneous. So, how can transactions, which are generally discontinuous and shortterm, link two processes which are, on the contrary, not only continuous and long-term
but also irregular ? How does the adjustment operate ? The usual response is to say that
this adjustment occurs at the macro-economic level.
But, and this is my point, it can also occur on a micro level, as illustrated by these box
schemes which allow the adjusting of consumption to the irregularity of production.
Instead of supposing that consumer demand is homogeneous, at least within the
context of marketing targets, and instead of rendering supply homogenous (despite
the natural heterogeneities of the production process) as conventional systems do
(Whatmore and Thorne 1997), these schemes link two heterogeneities. On one
side, the individual irregularity of demand is limited or even removed through the
aggregation of consumers to the level of a group. On the other side, the irregularity
of supply is rendered acceptable to consumers, through the integration of irregular
products into an assortment on which some regularity is guaranteed (regularity of
variety, regularity of quality). To put it another way, demand irregularities are made
foreseeable or are removed while supply irregularities are externalised, because they
can be accomodated through assortment adjustment. These two complementary
points help us to approach the reality of agricultural production processes and
of consumers demand, both of which are intrinsically irregular. They reveal a redefinition of the relationship between production, transaction and consumption. The
consumer accepts adjustments to his/her consumption according to the production;
this adjustment being facilitated by a re-framing of the transaction within a long
term subscription that is, in fact, a series of different transactions. This adjustment
Settling shared uncertainties
341
at the local scale sits in opposition to the over-sizing of agro-food chains in terms of
production or to the disproportionate public measures taken to reassure consumers
about the safeness of their food (such as, most recently, the slaughtering of entire
herds in the case of BSE) 8.
But this adjustment is not easily achieved. It depends upon the reciprocal
processes of learning mentioned above. These are made possible by the different
spaces of discussion created in these schemes: weekly leaflets in all three cases, a
hotline in the case of Bio Paris, informal discussions during the delivery, at the market
or during punctual visits to the farm for Coop Veggies and Provence Box, and finally
regular meetings on the farm in the case of Provence Box.
In local partnerships, these spaces for discussion permit the confrontation of producers’
and consumers’ perceptions and practices, so that both partners can reach an agreement
on the definition of ‘good practices’ and ‘good products’. The examples of irrigation water
and tomato varieties cited above illustrate that agreements on a common definition might
indeed require negotiation. The different forms of uncertainty that exist on both sides
can be discussed in concrete terms. In this way, accounting for different concerns (for
example, safety, diet, taste, ethics etc.) does not imply a deconstruction of the products into
distinct identifiable properties which match consumer choice, as in marketing science
(Miller and Rose 1997; Lockie 2002). Rather, they rely on a deliberation process involving
the direct confrontation of producers and consumers. As such, a diversity of concerns
can be articulated, and groups of consumers can attract both those interested in the
alternative and militant aspects of the schemes and those who enter them predominantly
to obtain safe products. There is, therefore, a change in the place of consumers because
local partnerships allow them to take an active role within, and open a space for, collective
negotiation between producers and consumers instead of limiting familiarity to such
locales as farmers market, the neighbourhood shop or even the supermarket.
Conclusion
The three box schemes investigated here have shown how the reduction and transformation of uncertainty can be operationalised through a system that takes the
irregularities of production into account. The producer obtains guarantees of a mainly
quantitative nature through sales and income. The consumer obtains guarantees of a
more qualitative nature concerning production practices, freshness and origin. These
guarantees are combined with incomplete certainties corresponding to promises of food
safety, taste or dietic quality. Such guarantees and promises allow consumers to accept
uncertainties over the composition of the box, an acceptation which lies at the heart
of the system. This system thereby offers an alternative to unacceptable uncertainties
(linked, for example, to the use of chemicals in intensive farming systems, where the
social object is imposed and appears as illegitimate) through a mixture of necessary and
sufficient guarantees and acceptable uncertainties, in a context where consumers can
adhere to a social object which they consider as legitimate.
In the case of local partnerships, as distinct from distant box schemes, this sorting
out between more or less acceptable uncertainties takes place at the local scale, albeit a
local scale that often depends upon wider networks. The most complex schemes, such
as Provence Box, are constructed around direct relationships between producers and
Settling shared uncertainties
342
consumers which can include the negotiation of production processes. This renders
visible the interdependence between production process and product characteristics,
and the irregularities that result from to the metabolic nature of the former. The
narrative transactions that take place in these diverse confrontations between producers
and consumers allow both to discursively construct the connectivities between them
(Goodman 2002). The settling of uncertainties relies on a sharing of the decisionmaking process which creates new active links between producers and consumers from
the planning of crops to the ingestion of food. Neither are these schemes disassociated
from the social conditions of farming, as they claim to take farmer income and working
conditions into account as well of issues of access for poorer families, an important future
area of research.
Of course, these partnerships remain very local and concern relatively small numbers of
individuals. One cannot deny the influence of corporate food networks and their growing
role and impact on agriculture when, in France, 75% of all food products are bought in
supermarkets. But this influence is always partially reversible and one should not ignore
the possibilities of translating consumer concerns into concrete changes in production
and distribution practices (Lockie 2002). The cases studied here illustrate such processes
of translation and change which can occur in agro-food systems. Taking this analysis
further, it would be interesting to study whether such processes can also affect food chain
circuits and even corporate food networks. The extent to which these alternative systems
are elements of a continuum of transformation or merely isolated cases in the face of a
uniform block of industrial agro-food chains is uncertain. Certainly, we need to move away
from the constraining dualism of the long-circuit/short circuit polarity.
The impact of these alternative experiences on existing production systems
requires further investigation. Beyond the atomized impact which Appadurai (1986)
calls the ‘little pressures of consumers’, we might envisage alliances between such
food movements and other agricultural and environmental movements (Buttel
1997; Hassanein 2003). These local partnerships are forms of political engagement
(Dubuisson-Quellier and Lamine 2004), alongside boycotts and ‘buycotts’ and fairtrade. Do they reveal a loss of confidence in more conventional modes of political
action ? These local contracts between producers and consumers might indicate a
growing preference for local and tangible actions of engagement and committment
on the part of both sets of actors.
Notes
1
2
3
4
This research was realized in the frame of a doctoral dissertation concerning more generally
the “ intermittent ” organic consumers (Lamine, 2003), and carried on in a research program
called ‘Produce, sell and consume: attachment to nature and sustainable development’.
(INRA-CNRS-ULg), involving French, Belgian and English scientists and financed by the
French Ministry of Research.
Discussions at the ‘International congress of local partnerships’, Aubagne, France, February
26-27th, 2004.
The organic label, defined in the E.C. by the european rule CE2092/91, regulates the process
of production and does not say anything about the products. We can talk of an obligation of
means, and not of results.
At the ‘International congress of local partnerships’, Aubagne, France, february 26th, 2004. In
Japan, there was no certification system for organic agriculture until recently. The government
Settling shared uncertainties
5
6
7
8
343
seems willing to normalize it, which is controversial in the profession.
We can also suppose that other alternative food networks such as some fair trade systems try
to achieve the same goal on a more global, less local scale.
Just like the farmer, it is interesting for the consumer to have access to products that are sold
quickly because this means they are freshly harvested. ‘Fresh’ is one of the most frequent
qualifications in the interviews with consumers.
In the United Kingdom was edited a book entitled ‘Boxing Clever Cookbook’, from Jackie
Jones.
Even though this disproportion between human lives saved and animals slaughtered can be
considered proportioned to the result which was sought, that is the re-construction of trust
(M-A. Hermitte, in Barthe Y, Callon M., Lascoumes P. (2001) Agir dans un monde incertain.
Essai sur la démocratie technique (Paris: Seuil): 302).
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Claire Lamine
Eco-Innov
National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA)
BP 01
F-78850 - Thiverval-Grignon
France