Book of Abstract (incl. addendum) - IFSA symposium 2012

Workshop 4.1 ‘Civic food networks’ as driver for sustainable food and farming systems
Trustworthy food – “a cheesy example”. Enacting trust and credibility in
the Danish dairy food sector
Kasper Ostrowski and Chris Kjeldsen
Aarhus University, Denmark
Imvko@hum.au.dk
Short food chains, local food networks and other networks are typically attributed with positive notions
like community, trust and credibility. These attributes are supposed to an emergent property of
‘alternative’ forms of organization, such as community-based forms of organization, which extends the
conventional market setting. Departing from a case study on the Danish dairyscape and in particular
the Danish dairy company Thise and their cheese product ‘Vesterhavsosten’, the paper traces the
different ways by which credibility and trust are enacted with regards to this particular cheese. It is a
case of different actors, consumers as well as producers, actively deploying different strategies when it
comes to evoking a sense of credibility and trustworthiness. Different elements and notions of quality,
site specificity (terroir) and nostalgia seem pivotal – but how are they set in motion? The paper
examines how elements of credibility and trust are attributed, stabilized, objectified and arranged – or –
enacted in the Danish dairyscape. It is discussed how the enactment of these producer-consumer
relations might transcend established distinctions between ‘conventional’ and ’alternative’ food
networks.
The presentation will include an interactive ‘cheese moment’.
Reframing Food: Understanding Trends in Consumer Food Purchasing and
Implications for Agri-food Movement Mobilization in the Northwestern
U.S.
Marcia Ostrom
Washington State University, U.S.
Mrostrom@wsu.edu
This paper examines trends in attitudes and behaviors surrounding food consumption in the
Northwestern United States. Research across the full spectrum of food system participants suggests
promising opportunities to reshape conventional agri-food market relationships, however, it also
reveals a complex array of motivations for participation in alternative food networks and key
vulnerabilities and obstacles. The results of random sample consumer telephone polls, farmer surveys
and focus groups, and analysis of direct marketing initiatives conducted over an eight-year period in
Washington State indicate a proliferation of alternative food distribution and marketing initiatives and
steady growth in the numbers of consumers, farmers, retailers, and institutional food buyers engaged in
such efforts. Nevertheless, despite vast agricultural production capacity and an apparently sympathetic
public, only a tiny fraction of the Northwest food supply chain is currently sourced regionally. Current
theoretical understandings of the globalization of the food system and the role of social movements
provide a basis for investigating the configurations, tactics, and effectiveness of locally driven
strategies to reembed market relationships in civic and environmental value-systems. Particular
attention is focused on the potential of various mobilizing frameworks to transform the meanings that
consumers and farmers ascribe to “food” and thus inspire individual and collective action to overcome
substantial structural barriers to enhancing food system sustainability.
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