Cultivating carrots and community: Local organic food and sustainable consumption

Seyfang, G ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4696-0798 (2007) Cultivating carrots and community: Local organic food and sustainable consumption. Environmental Values, 16 (1). pp. 105-123. ISSN 1752-7015

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Abstract

This paper examines the social implications of sustainable consumption through an empirical study of a local organic food initiative. It sets out an analytical framework based upon Douglas's Cultural Theory to categorise the range of competing value perspectives on sustainable consumption into ‘hierarchical', ‘individualistic’ and ‘egalitarian’ worldviews, and considers how these various worldviews might each adopt locally-grown organic food as a sustainable consumption initiative. Tensions between the paradigms are evident when attention is turned to a case study of a local organic food producers’ cooperative. Research with both producers and consumers reveals that the values embedded in its practice are both partisan and pluralistic, but are principally ‘Egalitarian'. Its interactions with policy regimes and social and economic institutions are examined, to illustrate the value conflicts inherent, and understand the barriers it faces in operation and the institutional factors inhibiting the growth of grassroots ‘bottom-up’ sustainable food initiatives of this kind. In addition to addressing these barriers, the policy implications of these findings for sustainable consumption policy and practice are discussed.

Item Type: Article
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment (CSERGE)
Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Science, Society and Sustainability
Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Resources, Sustainability and Governance (former - to 2018)
Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Environmental Social Sciences
Depositing User: Rosie Cullington
Date Deposited: 28 Feb 2011 15:38
Last Modified: 17 Dec 2023 01:41
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/25341
DOI: 10.1177/096327190701600107

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