Flaminia Paddeu, a lecturer and researcher in geography at the university of Paris XIII, is working on the associative involvement of environmental and food in France and the United States. She is the author of the ” Eat local. Lures and promises, ” published in the journal Vacarme (no. 81, October 2017).
The Salon de l’agriculture held in Paris until Sunday 4 march. “Eat local” is still a track to solve the problems posed by the agricultural system (pollution, impoverishment of the soil, etc) ?
At the origin of the idea of eating local, there’s a project and radical alternative that opposes the production systems of the agro-industry and large distribution. It is to strengthen the links between producers and consumers, support the local economy by fostering exchanges between people of the same territory, to avoid the dependency of the systems globalized, and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases related to the transportation of food.
However, in spite of the virtues that are associated with it, the local is not a scale inherently progressive. Two examples show. First, the “eat local” is recovered by the trends of opposite political : during the presidential campaign of 2017, all candidates, including far-right, have taken a position in favor of the short circuits, with some pledging to support the producers, other consumers. Also, eating local is more systematically cleaving politically. Secondly, this word order is recovered by the retailers. They capture the positive values associated with the eating local : the near, the link with the producers, the ecology. Now, the actors of the capitalist economy make a new front profit, while capturing significant benefits for their image. It is, as well as supermarkets to set up urban agriculture on the roof : a Crossroads in…
