A Call for Polycultural Arguments: Critiquing the Monoculture Rhetoric of the Local Food Movement

I purchase shares of community supported agriculture (CSA), shop at farmers' markets, and belong to a food cooperative. I am also white, middle-class, and partake in these behaviors for environmental and community-building reasons. I am, in many ways, the typical locavore. I fit neatly into the narrative offered by local food movement rhetoric about why we should alter our food system. I enjoy meeting the farmers that grow my food and knowing where my food is grown. I think it important that any meat I eat is raised humanely. And I believe my actions, when combined with the actions of others, have the potential to make a positive impact on the environment and economy. Alison Hope Alkon and Julian Agyeman (2011) remind us, however, "such a consistent narrative, along with the movement's predominantly white and middle-class character, suggests that [the movement] may itself be something of a monoculture." They explain, "It consists of a group of 'like-minded' people, with similar backgrounds, values, and proclivities, who have come to similar conclusions about how our food system should change" (p. 2). This essay explores how this monoculture is constructed through the arguments of movement rhetoric. By identifying the practices and motivations these arguments advocate, I illustrate the common appeals of movement rhetoric and ask whom these arguments exclude. The analysis examines three different texts: Barbara Kingsolver's (2007) Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, Colin Beavan's (2009) No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet, and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process, and Bill McKibben's (2007) Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future. Currently, popular local food rhetoric excludes low-income individuals, leaving them absent, and/or lacking attention to systemic barriers that prevent movement participation. However, opportunity exists to begin incorporating more experiences and knowledge into movement rhetoric to construct a polycultural movement. I begin by briefly discussing existing critiques of the local food movement before engaging in my analysis. I conclude with a call for inclusion of more diverse voices into movement arguments. CRITIQUES OF THE LOCAL FOOD MOVEMENT The local food movement has become the target of considerable critique. This essay relies heavily on those critiques that have come from the food justice movement, which point to the lack of inclusion of peoples of color and low-income individuals in movement activities and concerns. Food justice advocates have taken the local food movement to task for its lack of attention to working conditions of farm workers (Brown & Getz, 2011; Gray 2014), systemic barriers to food access (such as legal, economic, and historical barriers) (Guthman, 2011; Gottlieb J Minkoff-Zern, Peluso, Sowerwine, & Getz, 2011), and the maintenance of cultural traditions (LaDuke, 2011; Norgaard, Reed, & Van Horn, 2011). These cultural critiques are made alongside those that have targeted the movement for its lack of global perspective. Charles Kenny (2011) calls for a more cosmopolitan approach to food consumption, a position that emphasizes the energy and land efficiency in food production, rather than specified rules about how far away one should get her food or how exactly that food should be produced. James McWilliams (2009) may be the most vocal critic of the movement's local focus. His major critique is that the movement lacks consideration of global populations, ignoring that local agricultural systems are not possible in every place on the globe, nor have locavores been able to explain how such a system might justly feed the global population. In consideration of this global context, he writes, "If we don't figure out how to produce that food in a sensible and sustainable manner, one that honors future generations, our localized boutique obsessions are going to appear comically misguided (if not downright tragic) to future historians" (p. …