Hello there! Welcome to my blog about alternative food networks (AFNs) in the beautiful City of Vancouver. This blog was created to present the final form of my project for my cultural geography class. Cultural geography can be defined as how people do place making in the world. I’m interested in the place making of AFNs; specifically how and why they are emerging. I decided to present my work in the form of a blog to allow for creativity and to share my own experiences with AFNs. This can be argued as a form of storytelling which Michel de Certeau encourages in his book The Practice of Everyday Life. Before I continue I should state that I have had an interest in food for as long as I can remember. Growing up, my family grew various vegetables and herbs in our backyard. I first appreciated the garden when my grandpa grew cherry tomatoes; those are just so darn delicious! Our neighbours also had bountiful gardens so I guess you could say I was exposed to a form of AFNs since I was a child. Perhaps this is why I am interested in them.

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          Before my family moved away from my childhood home a year and a half ago, one of the paths I frequented when running was along the Central Valley Greenway from Joyce skytrain station to Trout Lake. For those of you who don’t know Vancouver well, it is a path that’s almost always next to the Expo and Millennium skytrain transit network, for both pedestrians and cyclists. Throughout the years I noticed community gardens popping up. I first encountered them about five or six years ago and thought the concept was pretty neat.

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          Many Global North cities are exploring this form of cultivation. There is a current trend on empowering local food and its identity in its urban context. These can be identified as alternative food networks, as mentioned above. In short, they are a different form of producing and consuming food. The commodity chain is a lot shorter compared to global food networks (GFNs). Much of the time it goes from farmer to short transportation to consumer. How and why this is coming to be can be explained from different perspectives. Some examples include having a nutritional or food science standpoint, an environmental sustainability standpoint, an economic standpoint, or even a community sustainability standpoint. It may be a combination of some of these views as well. Literature on AFNs or movements has recently emerged due to growing concerns and criticisms about the large scale industrial food system and GFN. However, also in part due to criticisms of how these networks have flourished and what role the state plays (or not plays) in the process. These alternative systems of producing food include direct agricultural markets as well as organic or sustainably grown food, usually at a local scale. Some goals are to provide consumers a closer relationship with the producer(s) of their food, to increase accessibility to locally grown food, and to deliver education on the process of food production.

 

          Referring back to Certeau’s book, he argues that there are strategies and tactics. Strategies refer to official rules or regulations that an apparatus (usually part of the state) has set. Tactics on the other hand refer to how people bend rules in everyday life. It is their way of dealing with those who have power over them while to some extent, be in their favour. Using tactics usually involves poaching from the apparatus which means to take ideas set by the apparatus and to alter them to make them to their advantage. In this light, the people have agency and are not completely controlled by the apparatus. An example that my professor, Dr. Justin Tse uses is:

 

 

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          Much of the literature that I encountered argues that AFNs are the tactics to the strategic GFNs. I agree with this.  The biggest stump right now seems to be uncertainty about what will happen if and when AFNs become an apparatus themselves. Through my research I am still unsure myself but conclude that people involved with AFNs do have agency and are passionate about changing the way people view, produce, access, and consume food.

 

          In my blog I will talk about how I think policies and neoliberalism play big roles in alternative food networks. As examples, I will share my experiences at Vancouver Farmers Market, community gardens, and Zero Waste Vancouver. Zero waste was something I encountered nearing the end of my research. It is a concept that hasn’t been widely talked about and I think it fits in with AFNs.