IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v4y2012i9p2146-2175d19997.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Empowering the Citizen-Consumer: Re-Regulating Consumer Information to Support the Transition to Sustainable and Health Promoting Food Systems in Canada

Author

Listed:
  • Rod MacRae

    (Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, 4700 Keele St., Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada)

  • Michelle Szabo

    (Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, 4700 Keele St., Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada)

  • Kalli Anderson

    (Department of Liberal Studies, Humber College, 205 Humber College Boulevard, Toronto, ON M9W 5L7, Canada)

  • Fiona Louden

    (Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, 4700 Keele St., Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada)

  • Sandi Trillo

    (Graduate Program in Interdisciplinary Studies, York University, 4700 Keele St., Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada)

Abstract

Both health and sustainability are stated public policy objectives in Canada, but food information rules and practices may not be optimal to support their achievement. In the absence of a stated consensus on the purposes of public information about food, the information provided is frequently determined by the marketers of product. No institution or agency has responsibility for determining the overall coherence of consumer food messages relative to these broader social goals of health and sustainability. Individual firms provide information that shows their products to best advantage, which may contradict what is provided about the product by another firm or government agency. Individual consumers do not have the resources to determine easily the completeness of any firm's messages, particularly in light of the size of food industry advertising budgets. Government rules confound this problem because there is also little coherence between the parts of government that have responsibility for point of purchase, advertising rules, and labelling. The healthy eating messages of health departments are often competing with contradictory messages permitted by the regulatory framework of other arms of government. Investments in programs that successfully promote environmental stewardship in agriculture are undercut in the market because consumers cannot support those efforts with their dollars. This problem exists despite the emergence of “citizen-consumers” who have a broader approach to food purchasing than individual maximization. Only recently have some health professionals and sustainable agriculture proponents turned their attention to these factors and designed interventions that take them into account. In this paper, which builds upon earlier work by MacRae [1], we outline key short, medium and long term initiatives to facilitate the citizen-consumer phenomenon and better support consumers in their efforts to promote health and sustainability in the Canadian food system.

Suggested Citation

  • Rod MacRae & Michelle Szabo & Kalli Anderson & Fiona Louden & Sandi Trillo, 2012. "Empowering the Citizen-Consumer: Re-Regulating Consumer Information to Support the Transition to Sustainable and Health Promoting Food Systems in Canada," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 4(9), pages 1-30, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:4:y:2012:i:9:p:2146-2175:d:19997
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/4/9/2146/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/4/9/2146/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fiona Louden & Rod MacRae, 2010. "Federal regulation of local and sustainable food claims in Canada: a case study of Local Food Plus," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 27(2), pages 177-188, June.
    2. Derek H. Lynch & Rod MacRae & Ralph C. Martin, 2011. "The Carbon and Global Warming Potential Impacts of Organic Farming: Does It Have a Significant Role in an Energy Constrained World?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 3(2), pages 1-41, January.
    3. Theresa Selfa & Joan Qazi, 2005. "Place, Taste, or Face-to-Face? Understanding Producer–Consumer Networks in “Local” Food Systems in Washington State," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 22(4), pages 451-464, December.
    4. Tegtmeier, Erin M & Duffy, Michael, 2004. "External Costs of Agricultural Production in the United States," Staff General Research Papers Archive 12659, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    5. Jack Kloppenburg & John Hendrickson & G. Stevenson, 1996. "Coming in to the foodshed," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 13(3), pages 33-42, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Anke Brons & Peter Oosterveer, 2017. "Making Sense of Sustainability: A Practice Theories Approach to Buying Food," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(3), pages 1-15, March.
    2. Elvira Molin & Michael Martin & Anna Björklund, 2021. "Addressing Sustainability within Public Procurement of Food: A Systematic Literature Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(23), pages 1-21, December.
    3. Angelo Corallo & Maria Elena Latino & Marta Menegoli & Alessandra Spennato, 2019. "A Survey to Discover Current Food Choice Behaviors," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(18), pages 1-17, September.
    4. Tindale, Sophie & Vicario-Modroño, Victoria & Gallardo-Cobos, Rosa & Hunter, Erik & Miškolci, Simona & Price, Paul Newell & Sánchez-Zamora, Pedro & Sonnevelt, Martijn & Ojo, Mercy & McInnes, Kirsty & , 2023. "Citizen perceptions and values associated with ecosystem services from European grassland landscapes," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    5. Paul Hebinck & Henk Oostindie, 2018. "Performing food and nutritional security in Europe: claims, promises and limitations," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 10(6), pages 1311-1324, December.
    6. Manuel Alonso-Dos-Santos & René Quilodrán Ulloa & Álvaro Salgado Quintana & Diego Vigueras Quijada & Pablo Farías Nazel, 2019. "Nutrition Labeling Schemes and the Time and Effort of Consumer Processing," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-10, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sini Forssell & Leena Lankoski, 2015. "The sustainability promise of alternative food networks: an examination through “alternative” characteristics," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 32(1), pages 63-75, March.
    2. Joshua Sbicca & India Luxton & James Hale & Kassandra Roeser, 2019. "Collaborative Concession in Food Movement Networks: The Uneven Relations of Resource Mobilization," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(10), pages 1-21, May.
    3. Sarah Bowen & Tad Mutersbaugh, 2014. "Local or localized? Exploring the contributions of Franco-Mediterranean agrifood theory to alternative food research," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 31(2), pages 201-213, June.
    4. Paola De Bernardi & Alberto Bertello & Francesco Venuti, 2019. "Online and On-Site Interactions within Alternative Food Networks: Sustainability Impact of Knowledge-Sharing Practices," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-14, March.
    5. Katy Giombolini & Kimberlee Chambers & Sheridan Schlegel & Jonnie Dunne, 2011. "Testing the local reality: does the Willamette Valley growing region produce enough to meet the needs of the local population? A comparison of agriculture production and recommended dietary requiremen," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 28(2), pages 247-262, June.
    6. Fiona Louden & Rod MacRae, 2010. "Federal regulation of local and sustainable food claims in Canada: a case study of Local Food Plus," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 27(2), pages 177-188, June.
    7. Rebekah Paci-Green & Gigi Berardi, 2015. "Do global food systems have an Achilles heel? The potential for regional food systems to support resilience in regional disasters," Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Springer;Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences, vol. 5(4), pages 685-698, December.
    8. Clare Gupta & Tamar Makov, 2017. "How global is my local milk? Evaluating the first-order inputs of “local” milk in Hawai‘i," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 34(3), pages 619-630, September.
    9. J. Valiente-Neighbours, 2012. "Mobility, embodiment, and scales: Filipino immigrant perspectives on local food," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 29(4), pages 531-541, December.
    10. Anetta Barska & Julia Wojciechowska-Solis, 2020. "E-Consumers and Local Food Products: A Perspective for Developing Online Shopping for Local Goods in Poland," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(12), pages 1-17, June.
    11. Ghimire, Narishwar & Woodward, Richard T., 2013. "Under- and over-use of pesticides: An international analysis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 73-81.
    12. Jongeneel, Roel & Polman, Nico & van der Ham, Corinda, 2014. "Costs and benefits associated with the externalities generated by Dutch agriculture," 2014 International Congress, August 26-29, 2014, Ljubljana, Slovenia 182705, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    13. Gilbert Gillespie, 2010. "2009 AFHVS presidential address: the steering question: challenges to achieving food system sustainability," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 27(1), pages 3-12, March.
    14. Adrian Sadłowski & Wioletta Wrzaszcz & Katarzyna Smędzik-Ambroży & Anna Matras-Bolibok & Anna Budzyńska & Marek Angowski & Stefan Mann, 2021. "Direct Payments and Sustainable Agricultural Development—The Example of Poland," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(23), pages 1-20, November.
    15. Duffy, Michael, 2012. "Value of Soil Erosion to the Land Owner," Staff General Research Papers Archive 34959, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    16. Tait, Peter R. & Cullen, Ross, 2006. "Some External Costs of Dairy Farming in Canterbury," 2006 Conference (50th), February 8-10, 2006, Sydney, Australia 109595, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    17. Kathryn Teigen De Master & Jess Daniels, 2019. "Desert wonderings: reimagining food access mapping," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 36(2), pages 241-256, June.
    18. Alejandro Rojas & Will Valley & Brent Mansfield & Elena Orrego & Gwen E. Chapman & Yael Harlap, 2011. "Toward Food System Sustainability through School Food System Change: Think&EatGreen@School and the Making of a Community-University Research Alliance," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 3(5), pages 1-26, May.
    19. Zaman, Khalid & Moemen, Mitwali Abd-el., 2017. "Energy consumption, carbon dioxide emissions and economic development: Evaluating alternative and plausible environmental hypothesis for sustainable growth," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 1119-1130.
    20. Matthias Schlipf & Bastian Striegl & Tobias Gaugler, 2024. "Climate true‐cost analysis of industrial goods and its regulatory implications on value chains and global competition," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 28(3), pages 589-602, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:4:y:2012:i:9:p:2146-2175:d:19997. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.