Where's the Food Fight? EMOs and their Choice of Targets in the Struggle for Good Food

All across Europe a wide range of EMOs are increasingly involved in campaigning for food that is 'fair', 'sustainable' and 'animal friendly'. But who should they target? Because also in the case of food politics the capacity for national governments to translate demands into policies has been decreased, we should expect EMOs to search for additional and alternative venues to make these demands. Despite the fact that much policymaking has now moved to European and international levels, most of these campaigns are still taking place within national contexts. This paper seeks to better explain the choices EMOs make when deciding on the targets and strategies for such campaigns, in the wake of the reduced capacity of governments to make policies themselves. While existing scholarship increasingly acknowledges market actors (Schurman 2004) and consumers (Stolle and Micheletti 2013) as possible alternative targets, these literatures so far have remained somewhat isolated. I argue that movement tactics are the result of the interaction between organizational goals and the perceived opportunities provided by politics, the market and consumers. This paper thus extends the logic of political opportunities to include the market and ‘civic’ opportunities in the calculation EMOs make when deciding on their campaigns. Who do they target and why do they do this? Do some targets effectively function as proxies for other targets for example with a view to getting those targets to take appropriate measures? (Young and Schwartz 2014). Do we witness a certain sequencing in choosing targets? I illustrate my findings through a comparative case study of two Dutch better food campaigns by two Dutch EMOs to improve livestock farming: the campaign against Booster Broilers by Wakker Dier and the campaign against Megastables by Milieudefensie, using campaign-documents, annual reports and interviews with campaigners.