Resistance to the Neoliberal Agri-Food Regime

A Critical Analysis

Alessandro Bonanno, Steven A. Wolf

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138723375
• eBook ISBN: 9781351755061
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sozialwissenschaften
• Subtopic: Ökologie

This volume explores the contents, forms, and actors that characterize current opposition to the corporate neoliberal agri-food regime. Designed to generate a coherent, informed and updated analysis of resistance in agri-food, empirical and theoretical contributions analyze the relationship between expressions of the neoliberal corporate system and various projects of opposition.

Contributions included in the volume probe established forms and rationales of resistance including civic agriculture, consumer- and community-based initiatives, labor, cooperative and gender-based protest, struggles in opposition to land grabbing and mobilization of environmental science and ecological resistance. The core contribution of the volume is to theorize and to empirically assess the limits and contradictions that characterize these forms of resistance. In particular, the hegemonic role of the neoliberal ideology and the ways in which it has 'captured' processes of resistance are illustrated. Through the exploration of the tension between legitimate calls for emancipation and the dominant power of Neoliberalism, the book contributes to the ongoing debate on the strengths and limits of Neoliberalism in agri-food. It also engages critically with the outputs and potential outcomes of established and emerging resistance movements, practices, and concepts.

Part I
The corporate domination of agri-food

1
Is resistance futile? How global agri-food attempts to co-opt the alternatives

Lawrence Busch

It is frequently argued that capitalism is a chameleon-like object that morphs into different forms in response to changes in the socioeconomic environment (Gibson-Graham 2006). If this is the case, then we must ask whether capitalists cannot simply incorporate the products, production processes and perhaps even some of the social relations promoted by Alternative Agri-Food Networks (AAFNs) into their framework for operation. Alternatively, some argue that capitalism is by definition plural, that it is not a single thing to begin with but that it is a sometimes convenient summary of a multitude of organizational forms (Boyer 1997). Either way, there is little dispute that AAFNs are attempting to challenge the large-scale, multinational supply chain-based approaches of the mainstream actors (i.e., large farms, integrated processors, supermarket chains, fast-food restaurants, institutional suppliers). There is also little dispute that the mainstream actors have already begun to adapt to some of the challenges posed by the AAFNs. They have done this both by changing practices within their respective operations as well as by managing the complex and ever-changing supply chains they control.

In this chapter I briefly discuss five ways in which mainstream agri-food companies have responded to AAFNs. In particular – and often unrecognized by both supporters and critics – mainstream companies have been able, by careful planning and/or bricolage, to successfully position themselves so as to incorporate many of the strategies used by AAFNs into their own operations. They have done this both as individual firms and by creating new governance structures built on, but largely independent of, the State. Five aspects of this process can be identified: (1) the construction and use of the Tripartite Standards Regime (TSR), (2) the incorporation of assembly line–like processes into agri-food supply chains, (3) the New Taylorism, (4) the use of Big Data to control people and things, and (5) using AAFNs as testing grounds for new products and processes. I conclude by arguing that, barring a disastrous collapse of the mainstream agri-food network, AAFNs will need to better understand these tactics if they are to do more than arrange themselves around the fringes of the mainstream. Let us examine each of these in turn.

The rise of private governance: the Tripartite Standards Regime

Today, as part of the neoliberal turn, in most nations and globally, in addition to the governance provided by the State, a (quasi-) private system of governance has been established: the Tripartite Standards Regime (TSR; Loconto, Stone, and Busch 2012). The TSRs consist of three interrelated parts: standards, certification and accreditation.

Standards

Most standards are established by Standards Development Organizations (SDOs). These organizations support themselves through the sales of their standards. They may specialize in particular products and processes (e.g., the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements, or IFOAM) or they may be general organizations that establish standards across sectors (e.g., the International Organization for Standardization). In some instances, standards developed in the private sector have been written into law (e.g., Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points). In some other cases, governments have developed standards that are mandatory if one wishes to use a particular term (e.g., in the US, the term ‘organic’ can be used only if one conforms to standards developed by the US Department of Agriculture). However, in most instances standards are enforced by the market. For example, standards for palm oil production are enforced through the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) in that major buyers of palm oil now insist on these standards as a necessary condition for entering the marketplace.

Importantly, standards are usually set by the major (mainstream) actors in agricultural supply chains or by non-governmental organizations (NGOs); smaller producers and processors usually have little or no control over standards design. Since mainstream actors often adopt NGO standards as a marketing tool for at least some of their products (e.g., Unilever’s adoption of Rainforest Alliance standards for its tea), they are able to capture what might otherwise be a market share left to AAFNs. Of course, one might argue that this is an example of success in changing the behavior of mainstream actors. However, as compared to AAFNs, such changes are motivated largely by maintaining or enhancing profits; they invite conformity to a set of formal rules rather than commitment to change.

Certification

The second element in the TSR is certification. The task undertaken by certifiers is to check regularly that products or processes conform to the standards developed by SDOs. However, in the agri-food sector, certifiers are usually paid by those they inspect; therefore, there is a built-in conflict of interest (Busch 2011). To deny a certification is to lose a customer. Like SDOs, certifiers range from small firms that specialize in a particular type of certification to enormous multinational firms that certify to thousands of different standards. For example, Oregon Tilth focuses entirely on organic certification, while the Société Générale de Surveillance (SGS) claims that “[w]herever you are in the world, in whatever industry, you can rely on our international teams of experts” (SGS 2015). SGS boasts that it has 85,000 employees in 1,800 offices and laboratories around the world.

Accreditation

The third and final element in the TSR is accreditation. Accrediting agencies certify the certifiers. They attempt to ensure that certifiers are competent to certify conformity to a given set of standards. Regional and national accreditors are themselves accredited through two private-sector international organizations: the International Laboratory Accreditation Commission (2015) accredits laboratories that engage in tests necessary to ensure conformity with standards while the International Accreditation Forum (2015) accredits national accreditation bodies with respect to all other aspects of their operations. However, as with certifications, a conflict of interest often exists between certifiers and their accreditors.

What must be emphasized here is that TSRs allow dominant actors in agri-food supply chains to impose a variety of rules – rules that often have the force of law even though they are technically ‘voluntary’ – upon weaker actors in the chain. Thus, through the use of this relatively new form of governance (Loconto and Busch 2010), the three key groups of actors in agri-food supply chains – retailers (whether supermarkets or fast-food restaurant chains), processors and institutional suppliers – are able to organize the entire mainstream agri-food sector in such a manner as to optimize their profits while squeezing other actors in the chain.

Moreover, in the days of small greengrocers, consumers who did not find a given fresh product would simply go down the street to another greengrocer’s store. Today, supermarket chains find that they lose customers if their shelves are not well-supplied with certain fresh or packaged items (e.g., tomatoes, Coca-Cola). Simply put, if a customer finds that the product in question is out of stock once, they will buy it at a competitor’s store. After several such incidents, customers will simply abandon the first store and shop elsewhere. In a highly competitive market with relatively low margins, permanently losing customers is a costly affair.

Yet, paradoxically, the continued existence of actors who do not meet the standards that supermarket chains impose on upstream actors actually allows them to grapple more effectively with shortages or oversupply of fresh produce (Raymond 2013). For example, when faced with a shortage, a supermarket chain may purchase the needed produce either in the ‘telephone market’ (i.e., they call a wholesaler who has a standard product for sale) or by direct purchase in wholesale wet markets that normally serve smaller supermarkets and grocery stores as well as chefs in upscale restaurants. In contrast, when for whatever reason the supermarket chain is faced with an oversupply, the telephone and wet markets offer places to offload the unneeded product. At the same time, the continued existence of such markets allows the large chains to avoid violation of the anti-trust laws: their national market shares remain below the radar and their prices are often lower than that of smaller competitors. In short, the existence of TSRs allows larger, better-capitalized actors to govern much of the food supply chain and to do so in a manner that offers them substantial flexibility even as it limits that of suppliers.

Assembly line and continuous process technologies

Although Ford is usually given credit for the creation of the first assembly line, it was the food industry that was in the forefront. As early as 1833 biscuits were manufactured in Britain using assembly lines (Giedion 1975 [1948]). Pork processing in Cincinnati was also subject to (dis)assembly line technology during the nineteenth century. But, importantly, assembly line technologies work well only when the inputs to the process are standardized. Today, one finds assembly line technologies throughout the mainstream agri-food sector, made possible in large part by standardized plants, animals and equipment.

In pioneering work, Friedland and Barton (1975) noted how tomato harvesting is now accomplished by moving the (dis)assembly line through the field. At the other end of the agri-food supply chain, fast-food restaurants have developed the technologies necessary to make for rapid assembly line-like production of entire meals. Subway, the world’s largest fast-food restaurant chain, with nearly 45,000 restaurants worldwide, allows customers to watch the assembly of their sandwiches and makes that into a selling point for its products. For more complex meals, McDonald’s and other hamburger restaurants have developed specialized equipment that allows workers both to cook and compile meals through a complex assembly line process.

Continuous process technologies can be found at about the same time in the history of food and agriculture. Oliver Evans (1795) had developed a continuous process grain mill by 1785. The first ‘perpetual’ oven (a tunnel oven with a mesh conveyor belt) was developed as a means of baking ‘sea biscuits’ in 1810 (Giedion 1975 [1948]). Today, nearly all harvesting of grain and oilseeds as well as some fruits and vegetables for the mainstream agri-food sector is done through continuous process harvesting equipment. Breakfast cereal manufacturers similarly use continuous process approaches to the manufacture of their products. A significant segment of the food industry uses Tetra Pak packaging, which allows the construction of factories in which there are no production workers; instead, the product flows in a continuous process from raw material to final consumer packaging. All that is required are several maintenance personnel who remain ever-ready to respond to alarms that stop the production process if a malfunction occurs.

At the retail level, supermarkets have made considerable inroads in using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chips to reduce the need for handling and to maintain records of inventories. In addition, fully automatic checkouts are now commonplace in supermarkets. Recently a former CEO of McDonald’s warned that the move to a $15 minimum wage would provide an incentive to that company to replace workers with robots (Haworth 2016).

Both assembly line and continuous process technologies require standardized inputs so as not to slow the production process. They require standardized equipment as well. Both contribute to minimizing production costs, thereby helping mainstream agri-food companies to compete successfully with AAFNs.

At the same time, more and more, food processors and retailers are able to use those ‘Fordist’ technologies to differentiate their products rather than merely to standardize them (Allaire and Wolf 2004). Despite standardized production processes, products can be differentiated with respect to appearance, packaging, taste and texture. They can also be differentiated with respect to class, status, ethnicity and other demographic characteristics. Even consumer complaints about wastage of ‘ugly’ produce – produce that does not meet uniformity standards usually insisted upon by supermarkets – has been met with supermarket purchase and sales of such produce at discount prices.

Finally, it is important to note that the growth areas for supermarkets today are to be found in the global South. As Reardon and his colleagues (Berdegue, Reardon, Balsevich et al. 2007; Reardon, Timmer, Barrett et al. 2003; Weatherspoon and Reardon 2003) have noted, supermarkets are making rapid inroads in Africa, Asia and Latin America. In those places, the mainstream approach they offer is often seen by middle class consumers as a massive improvement over traditional markets, offering greater safety, higher quality and lower prices. Indeed, Reardon (2016: 39) argues that “[s]uper-market chains using distribution centers can reduce transaction costs by 30 to 40 percent, thereby reducing food prices to consumers.” In many instances, that means bypassing smaller producers and introducing mainstream practices on larger scale farms.

The New Taylorism

But the efficient operation of assembly line and continuous flow technologies also requires that labor be organized in certain ways. Meat and poultry processing plants (Gray 2014), as well as large-scale vegetable production (Friedland, Barton, and Thomas 1978) employ Taylorist practices of the sort used in industrial production a century ago. The speed of production is set by the pace of the machinery. Workers must adapt to the line speed or risk being fired. Worker health is also often compromised by this style of production (e.g., Lloyd and James 2008).

But, more and more, the mainstream agri-food industry has also adopted the New Taylorism. That is, it has applied Taylor’s dictums not only to line workers but also to those engaged in other types of tasks, reducing worker autonomy in an attempt to enhance standardization, reduce costs and increase efficiency. Consider some aspects of the New Taylorism across the mainstream.

Fast-food managers

Managers of fast-food outlets at one time had considerable latitude in running the restaurant. Today, hourly sales of each product, volume of inputs from hamburgers to napkins and number of employees on each shift are monitored from a central office. Inadequate sales, hiring more than the centrally determined number of workers and non-conformity to other minutiae of store operation can be grounds for dismissal.

Truck drivers

In the past, truck drivers in the employ of mainstream agri-food companies could to a great extent determine their route and the time it took to move goods from warehouses to supermarkets. Today, in contrast, much of that autonomy has been removed. Trucks are commonly outfitted with both Geographical Positioning Systems and Geographical Information Systems that allow the central office to keep track of each vehicle and to monitor the actions of the driver.

Cashiers

Supermarket cashiers once had to examine the price tag on each item and enter it in the cash register. They had to separate taxable from non-taxable items. They had to calculate the change to be given to each customer. Today, cashiers merely wave products over a bar code reader (Hicks 1975) that (1) automatically registers the price (which likely is no longer written on the item’s packaging), (2) determines if it is taxable and (3) sums up the cost of the overall order. The machine also calculates the change due to the customer automatically. When the customer leaves, they likely r...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgement
• List of contributors
• Introduction
• PART I The corporate domination of agri-food
• PART II Resistance and/through the state
• PART III The diversity of resistance
• Index