Towards a More Participative Definition of Food Justice

ARTICLES

Towards a More Participative Definitionof Food Justice

Clement Loo

Accepted: 12 January 2014

� Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Abstract This paper argues that the definition of food justice must be defined in

more participatory terms. Current accounts of food justice tend to emphasize dis-

tributional inequalities. However, there is broad recognition that these distributional

inequalities are the result of participative inequalities and that the participation of

marginalized groups in advocacy plays an important role in creating just food

systems. In addition, thinking of food justice in more participative terms also

suggests a more well-rounded and comprehensive approach to dealing with

inequalities within the food system. One manner in which the concept of food

justice can be redefined to better capture the importance of participative justice is by

considering what is required for informed consent.

Keywords Environmental justice � Food deserts � Food justice � Informed

consent � Participative justice � Social justice

Introduction

To paraphrase Allen (2010), the effective promotion of food justice requires having

concrete goals to guide efforts. The setting of these goals, in turn, requires that

scholars, activists, and practitioners have a robust and comprehensive understanding

of the disparities associated with food systems.

That being said, the definitions of food justice currently being offered by scholars

and activists omit important aspects of the disparities inherent to food systems.

Present definitions tend to conceptualize food justice in distributive terms as being a

matter of improving wages and conditions for those working in the food system and

ensuring and the fairness in which fresh and healthy food is distributed amongst

C. Loo (&)

University of Minnesota Morris, Morris, MN, USA

e-mail: [email protected]

123

J Agric Environ Ethics

DOI 10.1007/s10806-014-9490-2

eaters. However, the commonly appealed to case-studies of inequalities within food

systems—even those offered by proponents of distribution-centric definitions of

food justice—suggest that participative disparities are at the root of the most

important distributional disparities.

This suggests that there has been a failure to adequately recognize food justice’s

participative aspects. If Allen (2010) is correct, and that a robust and comprehensive

understanding of food system disparities is required for an effective strategy to

achieve food justice, then only considering the distributive disparities within food

systems is insufficient. Rather, to understand food injustices requires understanding

the root causes and the dynamics of structural hierarchies that underlie or contribute

to injustices. To properly diagnose and address disparities in food systems, those

concerned with food justice must examine the participative inequalities that are the

basis of material and distributive injustices. Redefining the concept of food justice

in more participative terms could help to make this clear.

While developing a new and fully comprehensive definition of food justice is

outside the scope of this paper, I offer a suggestion for a first step towards such a

definition. Since participation at the very least requires the informed consent, work

on informed consent in biomedical ethics might be informative in incorporating a

more participative element into definitions of food justice. Specifically, such work

indicates that food justice involves stakeholders being: (1) informed of the likely

benefits and risks of decisions affecting their food system, (2) provided with

sufficient information to be able to understand the implications of those risks and

benefits, (3) adequately educated so that they are competent to make decisions, and

(4) able to assent or dissent from decisions without coercion.

Distribution, Participation, and Justice

One way to think about the distinction between distributive and participative justice

is in terms of endpoints versus process.1 Those who define justice in distributive

terms understand justice as being primarily a matter of endpoints. If one is focused

primarily on distributive justice one tends to be concerned more with material

benefits and burdens, resources and costs, and whether how they are distributed

amongst some group unfairly excludes some individuals. Distributive justice is a

matter of who gets what and whether everyone is getting their fair share. If

distributions are fair, and no one experiences an unfair share of burdens without

compensation, then one who is only concerned with distributive justice would likely

view the system underlying the distribution as just.

On the other hand, those more concerned about participative justice are less

concerned about endpoints and are more concerned about process. Rather than

focusing on specific distribution of valued and disvalued things, participative justice

focuses on how differences in power or recognition between different individuals

and communities lead to those distributions. For one adopting a more participative

1 Further discussion of the distinction between participative and distributive justice can be found in

Shrader-Frechette (2002), Schlosberg (2004), and Young (1990).

C. Loo

123

approach to justice achieving justice is not only a matter of redistributing goods, it is

a matter of correcting disparities in social, political, and economic standing to allow

those who have been historically underprivileged to advocate for their concerns. In

other words, one who favors a more participative understanding of justice would

require more than distributions be fair, they would require that the procedures

underlying those distributions fairly include all relevant parties in deciding how

benefits and burdens are shared.

There have been a number of reasons given for framing justice in participative

terms. One that is suggested by Young (1990) is that people are heterogeneous when

it comes to their preferences and their understanding of what counts as a fair

distribution of benefits and burdens. If people have differing understandings of

fairness in regards to distribution then it is unlikely that any given distribution

would be universally accessible. Further, unless one includes an adequately broad

range of perspectives in decisions regarding distributions, distributions would tend

to favor those included in decisions and disadvantage those excluded.

Indeed, some, such as Fraser (2000), Shrader-Frechette (2002), and Schlosberg

(2004) have argued that distributional inequalities are often the result of

participatory inequalities. As Fraser (2000) puts it:

(E)conomic inequalities are simple expressions of cultural hierarchies—thus,

class oppression is a superstructural effect of the cultural devaluation of

proletarian identity (or, as one says in the United States, of ‘classism’). It

follows from this view that all maldistribution can be remedied indirectly, by a

politics of recognition: to revalue unjustly devalued identities is simulta-

neously to attack the deep sources of economic inequality; no explicit politics

of redistribution is needed.

While Fraser—in claiming that an explicit politics of redistribution is unneces-

sary—makes a stronger argument than one I would endorse, there is reason to

believe that there is an important relationship between participation within decision-

making processes and exposure to risk or harm. Shrader-Frechette (2002) offers a

good example of this in her discussion of the strategy employed by Louisiana

Energy Services (LES) to obtain approval for the construction of a uranium

enrichment facility known as the Claiborne Enrichment Center (CEC) despite public

opposition.

According to Shrader-Frechette (2002), in the 1990s LES recognized that all the

enriched uranium used as fuel in nuclear power plants within the United States came

from public sources. They believed that they would be able to develop a privately

operated facility that could enrich uranium more cheaply and efficiently and thus be

able to corner the market on nuclear fuel (Shrader-Frechette 2002). However, one

difficulty that LES encountered was that communities in general are reluctant to

have nuclear facilities, including uranium enrichment plants, sited nearby (Shrader-

Frechette 2002). This on its own is not relevant to environmental justice, what is

relevant is how LES overcame this public resistance to a facility such as the CEC.

One of the key elements to the LES strategy regards the sites that it chose as

potential locations for the CEC. LES only considered potential sites near lower-

income communities. According to Shrader-Frechette (2002) LES was aware that,

Towards a More Participative Definition of Food Justice

123

given perceptions of the risk of accidents and exposure to radioactive wastes, in

general communities would be reluctant to accept the nearby development of a

facility such as the CEC. Such being the case, the LES sought to identify

economically depressed areas where the need for employment was so pressing that

the potential risks of the CEC would be obscured by the desire for its potential

economic benefits (Shrader-Frechette 2002). It was believed that in such counties

the desperation for economic activity and potential alleviation of poverty would act

to silence any voices of protest (Shrader-Frechette 2002).

Indeed this turned out to be the case. In the end the site that was selected,

Claiborne parish Louisiana, was one were the population was predominantly

African-American, low-income, and had an unemployment rate in excess of 50 %

(Shrader-Frechette 2002). As the result of such poverty local municipal govern-

ments embraced the project and the NRC concluded that while the CEC might be

associated with some environmental risk for local communities those risks would be

‘‘minimal’’ relative to the CEC’s socioeconomic benefits (Shrader-Frechette 2002).

What this example shows then is that at the root of distributive injustices (such as

the higher incidence of low-income communities of color being exposed to

environmental harms) often come hand-in-hand with participative injustices.

Distributional inequalities tend to result in marginalized communities living in

conditions that limit their choices. In the case of the CEC example, extreme poverty

resulted in communities being willing to accept risks they otherwise might not have.

Further, it resulted in federal agencies, such as the NRC, being sanguine about such

risks in the face of potential economic development. This in turn exposes the

already marginalized population to further distributional disparities (in this case the

additional risks of radiation exposure and nuclear accidents).

A general conclusion that might be drawn from the above example is that

marginalized individuals and communities tend to be less able to participate in

deliberations free from coercion. Having options constrained in such a way that

dissuades those individuals and communities from rejecting risks they otherwise

might results in harms to them not being adequately considered in cost-benefit

analyses. So even when there may be efforts made to avoid distributive injustices

(presumably the agencies deciding whether to grant permission for the CEC or not

were acting in good faith and did not intentionally target low-income communities

of color the way that the LES may have) when harms to those who have been

marginalized are not included in decision-making they may still be exposed to a

disproportionate risk of harm.

The environmental justice movement has since its inception recognized this

relationship between exclusion from decision-making and exposure to risk and

harm. Consider the example of the seventeen principles of environmental justice

drafted by the delegates of the First National People of Color Environmental

Leadership Summit that was held in 1991 (see Table 1). Though Young (1990) had

only published Justice and the Politics of Difference—where her arguments for

participative justice are outlined—only a year earlier, the delegates at the summit

included a number of principles explicitly calling for participative justice. These

include—but are not limited to:

C. Loo

123

5) Environmental Justice affirms the fundamental right to political,

economic, cultural, and environmental self-determination of all peoples.

The fifth principle, as the reader can see above, contains an explicit claim that

environmental justice involves not only a correcting of the maldistribution of the

environmental burdens but for political, economic, cultural, and environmental

empowerment for all.

The seventh principle, as seen below, makes a similar demand—calling for the

inclusion of all individuals and communities to be included in government.

7) Environmental Justice demands the right to participate as equal partners at

every level of decision-making, including needs assessment, planning,

implementation, enforcement and evaluation.

Further, in addition for calling for universal inclusion, the above principle goes

further and suggests that all be considered equal partners in decision-making. This is

a statement of a fairly radical sort of participative egalitarianism.

I have above only focused on two of principles, yet, a number of the others also

contain clauses that treat environmental justice as being importantly a participative

matter. I note this as a way of demonstrating how environmental justice has been

explicitly defined as involving participative justice. This is to be contrasted with

definitions of food justice, which do share a similar consideration of the importance

of participation.

Food Justice and the Focus on Distribution

In the last 15 years or so there has been a melding of environmental justice and food

security. Groups and individuals who had been concerned about environmental

disparities began to become interested in food security, availability, and access. This

resulted in the development of the notion of food justice. As Gottlieb and Joshi

(2010) point out this idea of food justice is a powerful one and has become the basis

of a movement in its own right independent from the environmental justice

movement.

Because of the importance and influential nature of the concept of food justice

there have been several attempts to define it. Offering a full accounting and

taxonomy of the definitions that have been offered for ‘‘food justice’’ is outside of

the scope of this paper but there are a manageable number of definitions that are

most often cited.

The first of these is that offered by Lang and Heasman (2004). They define food

injustice as follows:

….the maldistribution of food, poor access to a good diet, inequities in the

labour process and unfair returns for key suppliers along the food chain.

This definition, perhaps with the exception of the phrase ‘‘inequities in the labour

process’’—which is ambiguous, emphasizes distribution. It focuses on who gets

what food and how those producing food share earnings and profits.


123

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C. Loo

123

These are all distributive concerns. In regards to the production side of food systems

Lang and Heasman (2004), other than being a bit vague in their mention of disparities

within the labor process, focus primarily on the apportionment of earning and income

between different categories of individuals working within the food chain. On the

consumption side Lang and Heasman (2004) focus solely on how much and what food

various consumers have access to. There is no specific mention of the importance of

the participation of those subject to the adverse effects of the inequalities within the

food system for food justice.

Lang and Heasman (2004) are not unique in their focus on distribution. Gottlieb

and Joshi (2010) define food justice in fairly similar terms, saying the following:

….we characterize food justice as ensuring that the benefits and risks of

where, what, and how food is grown and produced, transported and

distributed, and accessed and eaten are shared fairly.

Again, there is a focus on distribution. The key difference between Gottlieb and

Joshi (2010) relative to Lang and Heasman (2004) is one of scope rather than type.

If one considers only the explicit definition that they provide, Gottlieb and Joshi

(2010) have perhaps an even more distributive definition than Lang and Heasman

(2004). Lang and Heasman (2004) could be perhaps interpreted—due to the

ambiguity of ‘‘inequities in labour processes’’—as suggesting that there are

participative elements to food justice in their recognition of inequities in the labor

process. This is not the case with Gottlieb and Joshi (2010).

While Gottlieb and Joshi (2010) recognize that there are wider range of food

justice relevant disparities than Lang and Heasman (2004), the additional disparities

that they identify are distributive. Gottlieb and Joshi’s (2010) definition only focuses

disparities in benefits and risks dependent upon the means in which food is grown,

produced, transported, distributed, accessed, or eaten. It says nothing about the

inclusion of those experiencing food injustices or how such inclusion may play a

role in addressing distributive inequalities.

This focus on distributive inequalities is also evident in the definitions of food

justice provided by activists. For example, the Community Alliance for Global

Justice (2013) defines food justice as follows:

Food Justice is the right of communities everywhere to produce, distribute,

access, and eat good food regardless of race, class, gender, ethnicity,

citizenship, ability, religion, or community. Good food is healthful, local,

sustainable, culturally appropriate, humane, and produced for the sustenance

of people and the planet.

While this definition frames various goods associated with food systems—for example:

just access to the means of agricultural production, ability to sell on markets, and food

itself—as a right, in the end it is still a definition that focuses on the distribution of

benefits. Framing food justice in terms of a right does suggest that the state may have an

obligation to recognize that historically marginalized individuals have a legitimate

claim to those benefits. Yet, while recognition is an important first step to achieve fair

participation in governance, the Community Alliance for Global Justice’s definition of

food justice does not call for a robust correction of participative disparities.


123

There are some definitions, such as that offered by Just Food (2010)—an

organization who’s stated mission is to create a sustainable food system for the city

of New York—that hints at the participative aspects of food justice but even these

definitions tend to place fair distributions as the central goal for food justice.

Consider the following definition:

Food Justice is communities exercising their right to grow, sell and eat healthy

food. Healthy food is fresh, nutritious, affordable, culturally-appropriate and

grown locally with care for the well-being of the land, workers and animals.

People practicing food justice leads to a strong local food system, self-reliant

communities and a healthy environment.

This definition recognizes that food justice requires that people should be allowed

exercise rights to grow and sell food, highlights the importance of community

perspectives (in recognizing that healthy food must be culturally-appropriate), and

emphasizes self-reliance as a good for communities. All these elements are

consistent with a more participative approach to food justice. Yet, this definition of

food justice perhaps only superficially addresses participative food justice.

It would be a good start to make land available for people to grow food and to

create the infrastructure to allow for the development of local food systems. Yet,

one could do this while largely excluding people from decisions and governing.

Many autocratic regimes such as the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia have redistributed

land and resources and built infrastructure that allowed for the development of local

food systems. However, it would be odd to say that those living under those regimes

achieved participative food justice. Participative food justice would require

something more; it would require that all individuals must be substantively

included in the governing of the food system that they are dependent upon. The

suggestion that justice requires that people can exercise rights comes closer but still

is too vague for an adequately participative account of food justice.

Alkon and Agyeman (2011b) come closest to defining food justice in a way that

appreciates its participative aspects when they make the following claim:

Essential to the food justice movement is an analysis that recognizes the food

system itself as a racial project and problematizes the influence of race and

class on production, distribution, and consumption of food. Communities of

color and poor communities have time and time again been denied access to

the means of food production, and, due to both price and store location, often

cannot access the diet advocated by the food movement. Through food justice

activism, low-income communities and communities of color seek to create

local food systems that meet their own food needs.

The important contribution offered by Alkon and Agyeman (2011b) is the

recognition that key to achieving food justice is to have communities who have

experienced injustices empower themselves to participate in the political process. In

suggesting that fair distributions are to be achieved by communities of color and

low-income communities making their voice heard in regards to decisions about

food systems, Alkon and Agyeman (2011b) are making a claim—whether they

intend to or not—that food justice has participative elements.

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However, Alkon and Agyeman (2011b) only recognize the importance of

participation orthogonally. They note that activism on the part of the individuals

living with low-income communities or communities of color have played an

important part in achieving food justice. But, the manner in which they suggest food

problems should be understood through the lens of food justice is still centered on

distribution rather than participation.

Alkon and Agyeman (2011b) suggest that through a food justice lens that

analysis of food systems should attend to the effect of race and class in the

production, distribution, and consumption of food. This only calls attention to

various categories that may be relevant when examining how benefits and burdens

within the food system are distributed. It does not suggest that the inequalities in the

food system should also be understood in terms of how communities of color and

low-income communities have had their perspectives excluded from decisions

regarding the governing of the food system.

The continuing emphasis on distribution in the definition of food justice is

somewhat surprising. As I will show below, even if one considers the work of those

who have defined food justice in the above distributive terms, there is a recognition

that the inclusion of marginalized perspectives has played a central role in undoing

distributional disparities and that the genesis of many distributional disparities is the

intentional exclusion of various groups from control of the food system. Given such

recognition, it seems that food justice ought to be defined with participation being at

least as important as distribution.

The Need for a More Participative Account of Food Justice

I will appeal primarily to Alkon and Agyeman’s (2011a) edited volume, Cultivating

Food Justice, and Gottlieb and Joshi’s (2010) book, Food Justice, to demonstrate

that many of the most important maldistributions2 in regards to food justice can

either be better understood or addressed by considering participative inequalities.3

2 It is worth noting that the maldistributions being considered in this paper all occur within the American

context. This should not be taken to suggest that participative justice is only important in the American

context. Indeed, it is important globally. I focus only on the American context because Gottlieb and Joshi

(2010), and the authors contributing to Alkon and Agyeman’s (2011a) (the two sources I am drawing

examples from) pay more attention to the American than the international context.3 Some might argue at this point that, while food justice tends to be understood in terms of distribution,

there is an extensive literature regarding food sovereignty (see Holt-Gimenez 2011; Wittman et al. 2010;

Holt-Gimenez et al. 2009; Patel 2007 for some examples). This literature on food sovereignty quite

clearly recognizes, and indeed emphasizes, the importance of the participation of historically

marginalized food workers, smallholder farmers, and others who have been excluded as means of

addressing inequalities within the food system. However, this does not eliminate the need for greater

recognition of the importance of more, and more inclusive, participation for food justice. This is because

food justice, as both a concept and a movement, is broader than food sovereignty. What I mean by the

above claim is that advocates of food sovereignty are advocates of a very specific sort of radical re-

orienting of food systems that involves eliminating agribusiness in favor of more local and democratic

control of the growing and distribution of food. The food justice movement, on the other hand, is broader.

Rather than calling for a specific approach to reorganization of food systems in the manner of the food

sovereignty movement, those concerned with food justice are more concerned with broad questions


123

More specifically, I will appeal to these two texts to illustrate how inequality in

regards to social standing and influence affect (1) the distribution of benefits and

burdens amongst different parties involved in the growing and (2) disparities in

access to healthy food across race and class.

There are three reasons why I constrain my focus to these two texts. First, they

are widely recognized as two of the most comprehensive treatments of food justice

and hence are quite influential within both food justice scholarship and advocacy.

Second, both texts cover a range of problems relevant to food justice; these include

poor working conditions for farm and food workers, the disenfranchisement and

dispossession of farmers, and disparities in access to healthy food attributable to

class and/or race.4 Finally, Gottlieb, Joshi, Alkon, and Agyeman—as was noted

earlier in this paper—are amongst those that define food justice in primarily

distributive terms. As such, if their own work suggests that there is reason to

reframe food justice to also capture its participative aspects, it would be particularly

suggestive that food justice in general ought to be framed in more participative

terms.

Participative Justice and Conditions for Farm Workers

One category of disparities that are of concern for both food justice activists and

scholars are those affecting agricultural workers. Particularly in the context of the

United States those who experience the benefits associated with the food system,

such as cheap produce and the profits garnered from the sale of food products, are

not those who bear the associated burdens. On one hand, purchasers of food benefit

Footnote 3 continued

regarding a range of inequalities within the food system and exploring a range of possible approaches for

addressing those inequalities. Thus being so, while I applaud proponents of food sovereignty for

appreciating the importance of participation and laud their goal of developing a more democratic food

system, I contend that the both food justice scholarship and the food justice movement must be more

careful to consider the importance of participation in decision-making in regards to distributive

inequalities.4 It should be made clear that while this paper focuses on individuals belonging to a handful of groups—

including farmers, farm workers, those living in rural areas or areas with lower average incomes, and

individuals of color—I do not intend to suggest that only these individuals are excluded from fully

participating in food systems. Rather the emphasis on the above-listed is simply an artifact of the

literature that this paper is responding to. I am only mirroring the authors that I am responding to. Indeed,

it may be worth noting that, if my arguments in the remainder of this paper are correct, it may be that a

fairly broad swathe of the population should be recognized as not being fairly included in decisions

affecting their food systems.

A common trope—particularly in the popular literature regarding food—is that a large portion of the

population has relatively limited awareness regarding agriculture, food processing, the distances and

manner in which their food is shipped, the nutritional value of their food, and a host of other matters that

are relevant to their choices regarding food. If such literature is correct then it might be said that many are

not in a position to give informed consent in regards to their food systems. As I will suggest later,

informed consent is the minimum that would be required for just participation.

The above being noted, given that the goal of this paper is just to demonstrate that even their own work

suggests that the definitions of food justice offered by Alkon, Agyeman, Gottlieb, and Joshi do not

adequately recognize the importance of participation, I will not discuss the potentially much broader

range of participative injustices further.

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from low prices and agribusiness firms receive tens of billions of dollars worth of

profit each year. On the other, to achieve such low prices and high-profits, farm

workers experience poor working conditions, exposure to harmful agricultural

chemicals, low pay, and employment insecurity (Brown and Getz 2011; Gottlieb

and Joshi 2010).5

According to the United States Department of Agriculture (1999) since the

beginning of the twentieth century there has been a steady decline in the proportion

of disposable income that Americans must spend on food. While a century ago the

average American household spent almost 20 % of its income on food, today the

average American household spends \8 %. At the same time agricultural profits

have skyrocketed. In California alone agricultural sales approach $35 billion per

year (as of 2007) (Brown and Getz 2011). Indeed, agriculture in the United States

has become so productive that though the amount of land being farmed has been

halved and the population has more than tripled that the amount of food

commodities available for export has increased eightfold in the last 100 years

(United States Department of Agriculture 2005). However, all this has come at a

price, a price that has largely been paid by farm workers.

According to Brown and Getz (2011), in California between 1991 and 2001, the

average annual income of an agricultural worker employed directly by a farmer was

$8,500; for an agricultural worker employed by a contractor the average annual

income was even less: $5,000. With so little pay, those who performed most of the

labor necessary to grow the majority of the food for the American food system are

unable to adequately feed themselves or their families. Indeed, almost one-in-two

farm workers have been found to be food insecure at some point in any given year

(Brown and Getz 2011).

In addition to such low-income, farm workers also experienced both poor

conditions and unstable work schedules. While farm workers are often routinely

exposed to hazardous chemicals and perform strenuous physical labor exposing

them to risk of injury, they often have no access to health care (Brown and Getz

2011; Gottlieb and Joshi 2010). For example, Gottlieb and Joshi (2010) point to

events such as farm workers being housed in crowded unsanitary conditions, forced

to work at gunpoint, made sterile from exposure to pesticides, and being at much

higher risk of asthma, Parkinson’s disease, and cancer due to various chemical

exposures.

Finally, given that agriculture is seasonal and that there is only intermittent need

for labor during the growing season, farm workers have little assurance that they can

routinely get work. Brown and Getz (2011) report that the average farm worker in

California works only 1,000 h over the 34.5 week growing season. This averages to

approximately 28 h of work per week. However, it is unlikely that workers in fact

work a consistent 30-h workweek. Rather, they likely work very long hours during

planting and harvest and then must find alternative sources of income during the

interim.

5 While I focus on farm workers, many others such as farmers, slaughterhouse employees, truck drivers,

restaurant workers, and those employed within food related industries also pay the cost for the cheap

readily available food that many Americans enjoy.


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So far, as they have been described above, the disparities experienced by farm

and food workers may seem prima facie to be distributive ones. They seem, and are,

inequalities regarding who receives benefits and who experiences the burdens

associated with those benefits. However, the above-discussed distributive dispar-

ities—even if one only considers what those offering distributive accounts of food

justice have written about them—are attributable to participative disparities.

Further, while they define food justice in terms of distribution, scholars such as

Gottlieb and Joshi (2010) and Alkon and Agyeman (2011a) tend to suggest that

eliminating the disparity between who benefits and who bears the cost of how food

is produced, transported, and distributed would involve improving the ability of

food and farm workers to participate in governing the food system.

Accounts of the poor conditions experienced by farm workers seem to suggest

that those conditions are often associated with factors that limit the ability of

workers to make choices or self-advocate to pursue their interests. Of these factors

there are four that appear to particularly contribute to the poor conditions

experienced by farm workers: (1) misleading recruitment practices, (2) the use of

threats and violence, (3) the willingness of employers to accept high attrition rates

amongst unskilled laborers, and (4) the hiring undocumented immigrant workers

who are unable to protest poor conditions due to a lack of legal recognition. Their

case-studies also suggest that the poor working conditions of agricultural laborers

only improved after those laborers were able to organize to better negotiate with

their employers.

From the narratives within the United States Department of State (2013)

Trafficking in Persons Report 2013 it seems that human smugglers and contractors

mislead undocumented workers in a number of ways. First, workers are often

recruited in their home countries under false pretenses regarding the locations where

they will be transported. While the workers may request to be brought to specific

locations within the United States (such as in locations near family members) they

are often brought to locations where they can be hired out by the smugglers. Second,

human smugglers often suggest to potential undocumented workers that their jobs

will be less laborious or unpleasant and that their wages will be much higher than

will in fact be. Workers are thusly led to believe that it would be much easier for the

workers to repay the debts they incur during the emigration process. Being

misinformed in such a manner makes it difficult for workers to make informed

decisions regarding whether the offered work conditions and remuneration are

acceptable. Such misinformation then serves as a manner in which workers are

coerced into working in subpar conditions and for wages that keep them

impoverished.

However, unscrupulous landowners and contractors often employ far more direct

and forceful means of coercing farm workers than misleading recruiting and hiring

practices. There are numerous reports of workers to negotiate being forced into what

amount to slavery through threats and acts of violence (Gottlieb and Joshi 2010). One

such example can be found in the treatment of tomato pickers in Immokalee, FL.

According to Gottlieb and Joshi (2010), the contractors providing farmers with

workers consistently illegally brought in workers from Mexico under false pretenses

then through financial coercion and threats of deportation and violence forced those

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workers to pick tomatoes for 12 h a day, 6 days a week while being paid less than

$20 a week and being housed in crowded, dirty conditions, without running water

and basic utilities. In a number of instances when workers attempted to escape from

such conditions they found themselves held at gunpoint or worse (Gottlieb and Joshi

2010).

Gottlieb and Joshi (2010) note that there are three instances where agricultural

employers in Florida were convicted of slavery charges in 1997, 2000, and 2002. In

these three cases witnesses reported that contractors held workers smuggled from

Mexico and Guatemala under constant armed watch. It was also reported that the

employers used threats of violence to force workers to comply with directions and to

prevent them from leaving worksites. And, in at least one case, a witness claimed

that a contractor in fact killed at least one worker who tried to escape. While

Gottlieb and Joshi (2010) seem primarily concerned with highlighting the ill

treatment of the workers, their account also highlights how forceful coercion by

employers limits worker choice play key roles in the poor conditions that workers

experience. Being held at gunpoint under threats of violence prevents workers from

choosing either to leave their jobs or even to refuse to carry out tasks that are

unpleasant or dangerous.

In the instances where they occur, misleading recruiting practices and threats of

violence combine to severely limit worker choice in a way that substantially

increase their risk of being mistreated by their employers. By not providing workers

with a full understanding of the actual work, pay, and housing conditions they will

experience contractors limit workers ability to make informed decisions about

whether to accept a position or not. In addition, by using fear of reprisal to prevent

workers from making decisions to leave when conditions are worse than expected,

contractors limit workers choices about their continuing employment and eliminate

much of the leverage that workers have to negotiate for better conditions. Workers,

when they discover that the jobs they assigned to are not the jobs described to them

when they were recruited, can do very-little. They can neither quit nor refuse to

comply with their employers.

Another, less lurid but likely more pervasive, participative factor contributing to

the poor conditions faced by farm laborers is the ease in which employers can

replace any given worker. To highlight the unpredictability that farm workers

experience in regards to consistent employment, Gottlieb and Joshi (2010) and

Brown and Getz (2011) note the relative surplus in supply versus demand of

unskilled agricultural workers and the willingness of employers to capriciously hire

and fire employees.

This, in addition to contributing to a lack of employment security for farm

workers, also interferes with their ability to negotiate with their employers for better

conditions. Because there are so many more potential workers than available

positions attempts to unionize, protest, or strike in an attempt to achieve better

conditions can be met by wholesale firings. This makes it clear that for conditions to

improve there must be legal protections to allow farm workers to negotiate with

their employers without fear of losing their jobs or facing other forms of retribution.

The importance of legal protections supporting workers’ ability to negotiate and

organized is further highlighted by the final manner in which participative injustices


123

contribute to distributive inequalities for farm workers. Specifically, I refer to the

recent trend of agricultural employers actively recruiting undocumented immigrants.

Gottlieb and Joshi (2010) point out that since World War II there has been a

concerted effort to recruit undocumented immigrants for farm labor in the United

States. According to Gottlieb and Joshi (2010), at present the importing of

undocumented laborers from Asia and Central and South America has become so

rampant that upwards to 90 % of the farm laborers (and more than 30 % of all those

employed within agriculture) in the United States are undocumented. This is one of

the key underlying reasons that farm workers often face such terrible conditions as

describe above.

First, undocumented workers, because they are undocumented, often do not

receive the basic legal protections enjoyed by other workers. Because there is no

official recognition that they are employed by their employers they do not receive

the benefits ensured by minimum wage laws, child-labor laws, workplace safety

regulations, and so on. Second, because undocumented immigrants are subject to

arrest, detention, and deportation, undocumented workers are unable to report

employers for mistreatment. This gives contractors employing undocumented

workers license to mistreat their employees in ways that other employers could not

without facing legal consequences.

The above three factors (direct coercion on the part of employers, the

replaceability of agricultural workers, and the trend of hiring undocumented

immigrants) in conjunction result in a wide gulf between the ability of employers

and employees to affect working conditions. Employers, because they oversee

workers who are cowed by violence and often cannot effectively protest poor

conditions because of lack of legal recognition and precarious employment, can

often treat workers in any manner they wish. Workers on the other hand, for the

same reasons, cannot influence their conditions—often being unable even to walk

away.

Indeed in all the above-discussed sorts of cases, the only instances where

conditions for workers improved were the cases where workers were eventually able

to organize to effectively protest poor treatment or negotiate for better conditions.

For example, in the case of the Immokalee tomato pickers, it was not until the

workers organized to form the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) to expose

worker abuse and to advocate for reform in the agricultural system that worst of the

contractors were prosecuted and that the conditions began to improve. Because

workers were able to create the CIW they were able to begin to participate in both

the public discourse regarding the agricultural system of Florida and have their

perspectives be considered by public agencies charged with overseeing the system.

This resulted in at least seven operations where over a 1,000 workers were being

kept as near slaves being exposed and addressed.

In light of examples such as the CIW, Brown and Getz (2011) make the

suggestion—which I would echo—that activism in the United States concerned with

food security must also consider questions regarding agricultural labor relations.

Specifically, they suggest that it requires recognizing to that such relationships have

an impact upon the poor conditions experienced by workers to address those poor

conditions. This I contend is the first reason why the definition of food justice must

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contain a more participative component. Having a more explicitly participative

component in the definition of food justice will make it clear that food justice

requires the rebalancing of power between employers and employees within

agriculture such that workers can better advocate for their interests and respond

when working conditions are egregiously poor.

Participative Justice and Access to Healthy and Sustainable Food

Another category of disparities that have been seen as of primary importance in the

arena of food justice are disparities in access to food between different populations.

The example of this that is most often cited can be found in the food deserts that are

found within communities of color and low-income communities.

According to Gottlieb and Joshi (2010) the term ‘‘food desert’’ was first coined in

the England to describe communities or neighborhoods where there were no full-

service grocery stores and little fresh food available. In the context of the United

States, the majority of food deserts are found in two sorts of communities: lower-

income and communities of color in inner-cities and rural communities. In these

areas available food is generally heavily processed and sold at fast food restaurants,

liquor stores, and bodegas (Gottlieb and Joshi 2010; Ornelas 2010).

For example, within the city of Chicago more than half a million residents of

primarily African-American neighborhoods have very-little or no access to a market

selling fresh produce (Gottlieb and Joshi 2010). Gottlieb and Joshi note that most

African-Americans living in Chicago had to travel twice as far to get to a grocery

store than to get to a fast food restaurant. A study carried out and published by the

Food Empowerment Project (FEP) (Ornelas 2010) found that similar was true in

Santa Clara County in California.

The FEP study found that not only were there proportionally far fewer grocery

stores relative to liquor stores, fast food restaurants, and convenience stores in

lower-income neighborhoods when contrasted to higher-income neighborhoods—it

also found that the quality of food was much poorer in the few available full-service

grocers in the lower-income areas. Specifically it found that grocery stores serving

lower-income populations were—when compared to stores serving higher-income

populations—only half as likely to carry fresh non-organic fruit and vegetables,

about 12 % as likely to carry fresh organic fruit, and never carried fresh organic

vegetables (Ornelas 2010). Even when it came to frozen or canned produce, stores

in lower-income areas were much less likely to carry stock when compared to stores

in higher-income areas (Ornelas 2010). This pattern was repeated for all products

with the exception of tobacco products, which were substantially more likely to be

sold in stores serving lower-income communities (Ornelas 2010).6

While much of the research regarding food deserts has focused on the inner-city

context, a growing body of work suggests that food deserts are also quite common

6 It should be noted that while all food products were less likely to be available in low-income

communities and communities of color, the gap was widest in regards to fresh fruit and vegetables. The

gap between the availability of ‘‘junk foods’’ was much smaller; often with only single digit differences in

the percentage of stores carrying them.


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within rural communities as well (McEntee 2011). For example, recent studies

contrasting rural populations to urban populations in New England found that those

living in the country in general have to travel much further to purchase food (McEntee

2011). Indeed, across the United States those living in rural communities often have to

travel at least 10, and often as far as 30, miles to get to a supermarket (Gottlieb and

Joshi 2010). With limited public transportation in rural areas, lower-income

individuals are often unable to routinely travel such distances to purchase food from

full-service grocers (McEntee 2011). The isolation and barriers regarding transpor-

tation in rural areas also results in higher prices for fresh foods, this—in combination

with lower-incomes—further limits the ability of those living in rural communities to

purchase fresh produce (McEntee 2011). These factors have contributed to the

development of diets in rural populations that are calorically denser but are yet far less

nutritious relative to diets eaten by non-rural Americans (McEntee 2011).

The limited availability of fresh food in food deserts has a number of adverse

effects on community health (Gottlieb and Joshi 2010; Ornelas 2010). According to

Ornelas (2010) within populations living in food deserts there are much higher rates

of a number of diet-related diseases and conditions. These diseases and conditions

include, but are not limited to: cardio-vascular disease, diabetes, obesity, and gastro-

intestinal disorders (Ornelas 2010).

African- and Latino-Americans living in food deserts in California are twice as

likely than Caucasian-Californians to have diabetes (Ornelas 2010). Further,

African-Americans, Latinos, and American Indians are twice as likely to be

diagnosed with diabetes before the age of 40 and are much more likely to die due to

complications associated with their diabetes in comparison to whites (Ornelas

2010). One also finds similar trends in rural communities, the other category of

communities that tend to be within food deserts (McEntee 2011). Within rural

communities across the United States one again finds rates of obesity and diabetes

that are much higher than the national average (McEntee 2011).

The relationship between the disparity and the presence of food deserts in many

rural communities, low-income communities, and communities of color may not be

immediately apparent to the reader. However, organizations such as the Centers for

Disease Control and Prevention (2013) suggest that one of the most important

means to both prevent and limit the impact of chronic conditions such as diabetes is

through a diet rich in fresh fruits and vegetables. As was noted above, it is fresh

fruits and vegetables that are most difficult for those living in food deserts to access.

It would be a mistake to conclude from the above that it is the presence of food

deserts are a contributing factor to higher rates and worse outcomes in regards of

diabetes in low-income communities, communities of color, and rural communities.

However, it is reasonable to conclude that—if people of color, those living in rural

areas, and the poor experience higher rates of diabetes and experience much worse

health outcomes when they are diagnosed with diabetes and diets high in fresh fruits

and vegetables play an important role in preventing and ameliorating the effects of

diabetes—the presence of food deserts likely interferes with efforts to reduce the

impacts of diabetes for the people most vulnerable to it.

On the surface it may seem that the problem of food deserts and disparities in

access to fresh food across communities of color, rural, and low-income

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communities is primarily a distributive justice matter. One might mistakenly think

that food deserts are primarily a matter that can appropriately be framed as a matter

of how resources are shared between individuals and communities. However, the

problem of food deserts is also very much a participative justice problem. This

becomes clearer when one considers what is generally recognized as the root causes

of the rise in food deserts in the last 20–30 years and the reasons why food deserts

often have such pronounced effects on some communities.

Much of the available literature regarding food deserts, including Gottlieb and

Joshi (2010) and Alkon and Agyeman (2011a; McClintock 2011; McEntee 2011),

argues that one of the most central factors in the development and spread of food

deserts in the last 30 years is the growing dominance of large chain supermarkets. In

the past the most food was purchased at small locally owned grocery stores. This is

no longer the case. Rather, a handful of chain supermarkets and big box stores now

control the vast majority of the market share (Gottlieb and Joshi 2010; Ornelas

2010; McClintock 2011; McEntee 2011).

This has largely been due to the ability of the big box stores and chain

supermarkets, with efficiencies gained through vertical integration and economies of

scale, to undercut smaller grocers and force them into insolvency (Gottlieb and

Joshi 2010; McClintock 2011). However, the business model that allowed the chain

markets to win the price war against independent small grocers also results in them

being poorly suited to both inner-city and rural markets.

To achieve the necessary economies of scale requires that big box and chain

supermarkets be quite big. While historically grocers operated stores that were

smaller than 20,000 square feet, contemporary big box and chain supermarkets often

exceed 200,000 square feet in floor space (Gottlieb and Joshi 2010). This

contributes to the development and spread of food deserts in two ways. First, in

urban areas, where real estate is often at a premium, the land required for both floor

space and parking makes large supermarkets and big box stores is prohibitively

expensive. Second, to operate a store that has a floor space exceeding 200,000

square feet requires the ability to maintain a large clientele. Something, that is

impossible in rural areas where population densities are quite low. Because of the

two above-described factors, the shift from small grocers to large chain markets has

resulted in a shift of food availability from urban grocers and rural farm stands to

suburban supermarkets.

This shift from local to chain grocers illustrates a key participative element of the

development of spread of food deserts. Specifically, it demonstrates that the

distributive problem of there being a lack of availability of fresh produce in inner-

cities and rural areas is due to a large part to control of food distribution—as the

result of market conditions—being taken away from members of local communities

and centralized in the hands of a number of national and international firms.

Because economic structures favor large chains to the detriment of independent

grocers and other small-scale distributors various vulnerable communities are

denied ready access to fresh food.

The participative aspect of food deserts is further borne out by the sorts of

programs that scholars and activists tend to advocate as solutions that can improve

the availability of food. Indeed, to address the ill effects of food deserts, even


123

authors (such as those discussed earlier in this paper: Gottlieb and Joshi 2010; Just

Food 2010; Alkon and Agyeman 2011a; The Community Alliance for Global

Justice 2013) who define food justice primarily in distributive terms argue for

interventions that empower communities to control their own food systems.

Specifically, they (Gottlieb and Joshi 2010; Just Food 2010; Alkon and Agyeman

2011a; The Community Alliance for Global Justice 2013) each endorse some

combination of three schemes: (1) locally owned and operated farmers markets in

communities within food deserts, (2) community-supported agriculture (CSAs), and

(3) alternative local agriculture (such as urban gardens).

Each of the above-listed schemes are ones that—regardless of the intent of their

advocates—revolve around improving the ability of those living in food deserts to

participate in controlling and managing how their food us distributed. They are not

simply redistribution programs. They fundamentally involve individuals living

within food deserts taking the reins of their food system to ensure that they have

affordable fresh food available to them on their own terms. Farmers markets take

some of the control of market share away from supermarket chains and return it to

the hands of local growers who are more likely to be members of the communities

that they are serving. CSAs allow consumers and growers to enter into direct

relationships where the consumers themselves then provide the capital investments

for each crop and hence have a greater ability to influence what farmers grow and

what food is made available for purchase. Finally, community gardens, urban

gardens, and other alternative agriculture directly place the production of food into

the hands of consumers so that they themselves become both the producer and

distributor of food.

As such, though their supporters tend to not acknowledge it, all the above

interventions suggest that there is an unspoken and perhaps unrecognized

participative component to the maldistribution of food. However, those concerned

with food deserts go further than to suggest that there must be development of

farmers markets, CSAs, and alternative agriculture. In addition to improving the

availability of food through the development of local community operated markets,

another often-suggested intervention that highlights the importance of participation

for minimizing the impacts of food deserts: education regarding healthy diets (Lang

and Heasman 2004; Gottlieb and Joshi 2010; McClintock 2011; McEntee 2011).

While for some of those living in food deserts the distance of supermarkets serves

as a physical barrier preventing access to fresh food, in many cases the distance is

merely an inconvenience and it is only a preference for convenience that prevents

people from eating healthier diets (Gottlieb and Joshi 2010). Further, the effect of

food deserts is magnified by enculturated preferences for the high calorie low

nutrient foods that often remain available even in places where fresh produce is rare

(McEntee 2011).

The solution to both of the above is education. Interviews with those living

within food deserts make it clear that often individuals hold a number of

misconceptions in regards to their food (McEntee 2011). For example, those living

in lower-income areas often perceive fresh produce as being more expensive

relative to processed foods than it in fact is (McEntee 2011). Indeed, McEntee

(2011) notes that often in rural areas where gardening is quite common informal

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markets where fresh produce is sold cheaply often abound. Though local traditional

diets were based on fresh, locally sourced, and organically grown foods—many

have the perception that fresh, locally sourced, and organic produce is intended for

others who are wealthier (McEntee 2011). Finally, there is often ignorance

regarding whether food products are local, healthy, or otherwise meet stated

desiderata held by those living in food deserts themselves (McEntee 2011).

McEntee (2011) notes that while those living in rural areas tend to express a desire

to purchase locally grown and environmentally sustainable produce and support

local farmers they tend to fail to recognize that such goals can be achieved through

purchasing food at farmers markets and instead tend to buy from big box stores.

Such failure to fully understand facts relevant to decisions regarding food

purchases and diet limit the ability of individuals to make informed choices.

Ignorance regarding which choices and actions would more likely result in the

achieving of salient goals serves to prevent individuals from actively pursuing their

interests. Calls for education then are calls for improving the ability of marginalized

individuals to participate in the food system in a way that allows them to pursue

their own interests. So there is a second manner in which a prima facie distributive

problem for food justice turns out to be at least in part a participative problem.

It is clear then that there are participative elements in both the causes of and

solutions to food deserts. It was the exclusion of community members from

participating in food distribution through the rise of chain supermarkets that is

arguably the most important factor underlying the recent spread of food deserts.

And, it is through community participation—through the development of farmers

markets, local urban farms and gardens, and better education about food—that the

problem of food deserts will be addressed. Indeed, if distribution were the only

concern, one would not appeal to those solutions.

If distribution were the only important factor it would be much easier to provide

chain supermarkets and big box stores with subsidies to develop operations in areas

where there are currently food deserts. Yet, this is not the sort of solution being

advocated for. Further, I would venture to guess that the suggestion that such a

solution, which continues to centralize control of food distribution in a small

number of large firms, ought to be adopted would be met by jeers by most of those

concerned with food justice. Such being the case, it seems that for two of the most

central food justice problems—though those problems have been often understood

in distributive terms—have important (albeit underappreciated) participative

elements. This I suggest makes it clear that definitions of food justice ought to be

revised to better address the role of participation.

Why Participative Justice Requires More Recognition: A Summary

In the above two sections I have made the argument that two of the central

problems—poor working conditions for farm workers and food deserts—for the

food justice movement and food justice scholarship are ones that are the result of

participative disparities. Further, it is widely acknowledged that the solutions of

both problems would involve remediation of those participative disparities. This I


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suggest demonstrates the need for a redefining of the concept of food justice to

better capture the importance of participative equity in addition to the importance of

distributive equity. To again paraphrase Allen (2010), those who are interested in

promoting food justice must have clear goals to contextualize their efforts. This

requires a comprehensive understanding of food injustices and an understanding of

forces that result in those injustices. This further requires reflection and consid-

eration of the economic, political, and cultural forces and other participative

inequities that result in the material and distributive inequities that are of concern.

Further, framing food justice in participative as well as distributive terms does

more than simply recognize the fact that many problems of distribution can be

understood in terms of participation. Thinking about food justice in terms of

participation also can be useful for thinking about specific practical steps that can be

taken to address unfair distributions. Given that participation at least minimally

requires consent,7 defining food justice in more participative terms highlights

potential roles for improving education, disclosure, outreach programs, and other

programs aimed to strengthen the ability of individuals and communities to

contribute to governing food systems as steps to achieve food justice.

What Would a More Participative Definition of Food Justice Look Like?

If I am correct in the previous sections of this paper, there is reason to think that

there is a need for a more participative definition of food justice. Food justice ought

to be defined in such a way that recognizes disparities in ability to participate as well

as disparities in distribution. However, this invites a new question: how could food

justice be redefined such that it would be adequately participative?

One way one might start thinking about this is to think about what is required for

participation. Following Shrader-Frechette (2002) and Elliott (2011), I suggest that

participation in governing or decision-making minimally requires similar criteria be

met as informed consent. Specifically, it requires that those with a stake in some

decision: (1) have the likely benefits and risks of a decision disclosed to them, (2)

are provided resources and information such that they can adequately understand the

implications of those likely consequences, (3) are competent to make that decision,

and (4) are able voluntarily assent (or refrain from assenting) to the choice at hand.8

There are two reasons why I suggest consent as a potential framework to start

thinking about participative food justice. First, it is a relatively well-theorized

concept. Because of the importance of informed consent in medicine, biomedical

ethicists have spent a great deal of time and attention considering what is required

for one to be able to provide consent (Elliott 2011). Second, participating in

governance and decision-making—at the very least—requires that one would be

7 Because without consent it would seem that whatever actions one takes or decisions one makes would

be taken or made under coercion and it seems rather strange to accept coerced actions or decisions as

legitimate cases of participation.8 Given that there is an extensive body of literature on the previously listed condition for consent I will

not explain them in detail here. I will simply consider how they may be applicable for redefining food

justice.

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able to offer consent for some choice or act. While a fully comprehensive concept of

participative food justice may eventually require more than consent, at the very least

consent is necessary for participation. As such, one way to start thinking about how

fair participation is to be achieved is to think about what minimally is required for

individuals and communities to consent to decisions or activities that may affect

their food system.

Including consent (understood in terms of meeting the above-listed conditions)

within the definition of food justice suggests three things. First, both the

understanding and competence conditions for consent suggests that food justice

requires that people have an understanding of the foreseeable or likely conse-

quences—both good and bad—of decisions or activities affecting the food system.

What this may mean practically is that food justice would require education

(whether that be formal education through school systems or improved availability

of information in publicly accessible formats and language) about food systems and

their relationships with the environment, health, and human welfare. People should

understand what the consequences of the choices they make regarding food are.

Second, the disclosure condition would require that all those taking actions that

may potentially affect a person or community’s food system to make it clear to that

person or community what the likely effects of those actions are. This would require

greater transparency regarding the foreseeable effects of agricultural technologies,

the transport and trade of food, legislation and regulation such as the farm bill or

requirement to include ethanol in gasoline, and so on. Those who propose

modifying or acting upon food systems in various ways have a responsibility to

make it clear to stakeholders what the potential consequences—both desired and

collateral—of the proposed modifications or activities will have.

Third, and finally in the context of this paper, the voluntariness condition would

require that obstacles to people making uncoerced choices regarding food systems

must be removed. This may have a broad range of practical implications in different

economic, social, and political contexts. It may mean that a historically excluded

group must be included in setting food and agricultural policy. In other contexts this

condition may require that resources be made available so that choices regarding

food are not constrained by economic consideration and instead be made in terms of

concerns of taste, health, environmental sustainability, or cultural tradition. In yet

other contexts, it may mean that agricultural workers be allowed the opportunity to

organize to negotiate for better working conditions or that food activists provided

support (or—in both the case of labor organizers and food activists—at the least not

have their activities interfered with).

While I cannot here provide a comprehensive list for what the voluntariness

condition would specifically require, those requirements may be summed up as

follows: The voluntariness criteria requires that any systematic barriers to

individuals or communities fairly participating in making choices regarding where,

what, and how food is grown, produced, transported, distributed, accessed, and

eaten are removed. Further, it may require that for communities and individuals that

have historically been marginalized or excluded that supports must be made

available to support the ability of those individuals and communities to make

uncoerced choices.


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Incorporating the notion of informed consent as a means to better capture

participation would add some—perhaps a substantial amount—of complexity to the

definition of food justice. It is unlikely that one would be able to provide a single

sentence definition of food justice that captures both its distributive and participative

aspects. However, though one may lose some brevity, one would gain a more

comprehensive concept of food justice that may better get at the source of

inequalities and better guide the way to strategies for dissolving those inequalities.

Conclusion

Above I have argued that food justice has been defined primarily in distributive

terms. However, while food justice has been understood in terms of distribution, it is

quite clear that many of the most pressing food justice problems involve some

participative component. Further, it is clear that even those who endorse distributive

accounts of food justice tend to argue for interventions that are in essence strategies

to improve the ability of vulnerable individuals to participate in decision-making

and the governing of food systems. This suggests that the definition of food justice

must be refined to better recognize the importance of participation. One way to start

thinking about how to redefine the concept of food justice is to appeal to the notion

of informed consent and consider how the conditions required for informed consent

might be embedded within a concept of food justice.

Hopefully this will be a first step to the development of a more comprehensive

and robust conception of food justice. Having a fuller understanding of food justice

that better appreciates the participative disparities underlying the distributional

disparities within food systems may improve goal setting for those concerned with

food justice. This in turn, may lead to even more effective interventions and better

outcomes.

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Towards a More Participative Definition of Food Justice

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