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Standard fare or fairer standards: Feminist reflections on agri-food governance

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  • Martha McMahon

Abstract

In 2007 new meat inspection regulations standardizing meat production throughout the Province of British Columbia (BC), Canada came into effect moving food for local consumption closer to continentally harmonized production standards. Critics argue that the economic viability of small-scale livestock farmers is threatened. Small-scale women farmers are central to the creation of alternative local agri-food networks in BC. Using gender as an analytically enabling tool this paper argues that public food-safety regulation can create the conditions for the dominance of private agri-food governance. The discursive creation of a feminized privileged consumer legitimates much non-democratic agri-food governance. The paper argues that more just and ecologically sustainable futures require a ‘gender troubling’ of agri-food governance in which the privileged identity of the food consumer is reconstructed as global citizen in the context of the food sovereignty of the farmers who produce their food. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

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  • Martha McMahon, 2011. "Standard fare or fairer standards: Feminist reflections on agri-food governance," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 28(3), pages 401-412, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:agrhuv:v:28:y:2011:i:3:p:401-412
    DOI: 10.1007/s10460-009-9249-y
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Tad Mutersbaugh, 2005. "Fighting Standards with Standards: Harmonization, Rents, and Social Accountability in Certified Agrofood Networks," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 37(11), pages 2033-2051, November.
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    3. Julie Guthman, 2004. "Back to the Land: The Paradox of Organic Food Standards," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 36(3), pages 511-528, March.
    4. Patricia Allen & Julie Guthman, 2006. "From “old school” to “farm-to-school”: Neoliberalization from the ground up," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 23(4), pages 401-415, December.
    5. Freidberg, Susanne, 2004. "French Beans and Food Scares: Culture and Commerce in an Anxious Age," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195169614.
    6. Elizabeth C Dunn, 2003. "Trojan Pig: Paradoxes of Food Safety Regulation," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 35(8), pages 1493-1511, August.
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    Cited by:

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    3. Nathan Clay & Alexandra E. Sexton & Tara Garnett & Jamie Lorimer, 2020. "Palatable disruption: the politics of plant milk," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 37(4), pages 945-962, December.
    4. Geovana Mercado & Carsten Nico Hjortsø & Benson Honig, 2018. "Decoupling from international food safety standards: how small-scale indigenous farmers cope with conflicting institutions to ensure market participation," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 35(3), pages 651-669, September.
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    6. Olga De Marco Larrauri & David Pérez Neira & Marta Soler Montiel, 2016. "Indicators for the Analysis of Peasant Women’s Equity and Empowerment Situations in a Sustainability Framework: A Case Study of Cacao Production in Ecuador," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(12), pages 1-18, November.
    7. Jennifer A. Ball, 2020. "Women farmers in developed countries: a literature review," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 37(1), pages 147-160, March.
    8. Jenderedjian, Anna & Bellows, Anne C., 2021. "Rural poverty, violence, and power: Rejecting and endorsing gender mainstreaming by food security NGOs in Armenia and Georgia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    9. Gachukia, Martin Kang'ethe W., 2016. "Value Chain Governance and Governmentality of Horticultural Exporters by Developing Economies: A perspective of Kenya’s Fresh Fruits and Vegetable Export Sector," International Journal on Food System Dynamics, International Center for Management, Communication, and Research, vol. 7(1), pages 1-10, January.
    10. Agatha Herman, 2019. "Assembling Fairtrade: Practices of progress and conventionalization in the Chilean wine industry," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 51(1), pages 51-68, February.
    11. Martha McMahon, 2013. "What Food is to be Kept Safe and for Whom? Food-Safety Governance in an Unsafe Food System," Laws, MDPI, vol. 2(4), pages 1-27, October.

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