Food Governance

Increasing public and academic attention to food, its politics and problems results in intense political statements and academic studies about food governance. Food governance involves many conflicting values and dimensions. It is linked to international trade, environmental problems, agricultural (EU) policies, human rights, poverty reduction, and health problems. It is multi-actor: e.g. private and public actors set up labelling systems to monitor food safety. It is multi-level: NGOs and different layers of governments express intentions about food trade, and develop ideas of fighting hunger and climate change on global and local level. And, finally, food governance is a politically strategic issue: should sovereign states be dependent on foreign powers for their food supply? Given the many different actors, levels, and domains, food governance brings about framing conflicts and scaling problems. It poses challenging questions to those involved in food politics, in terms of complex and transboundary interactions and adaptive governance structures. Although food has ‘moral, economic, and security imperatives’ (Obama, May 18 2012), attention to food in political science remains limited. With this section we intend to put food governance more firmly on the agenda of the political science.