June 27th, 2017

Whose problem? Fixing our food systems

Published by IDS,

In this blog, Santiago Ripoll from the Institute of Development Studies argues that consumer action is not enough to change the food system, since while some individual purchasing behavior have had positive effects, these alternative market channels only compose limited market shares. He argues that consumer action can only thrive when it is combined with personal and collective political action to ensure a fairer food system. He elaborates in his blog on the limits on the ability of consumers to make ethical choices since the knowledge required to make these choices is immense, ranging from knowledge on carbon and methane emissions, to food miles, to water footprints and to the use of agricultural inputs. In addition, he argues that producers are often hardly able to become part of market value chains, since the market-space is taken up by large players and large scale produces.

Curated from ids.ac.uk