Call for Papers: Cooperatives, Food and Agriculture

Posted by on January 07, 2013

Cooperatives, Food and Agriculture
Special and Joint Sessions

June 4, 2013
Congress 2013, University of Victoria
Victoria, British Columbia

With 2012 being celebrated around the world as the United Nations International Year of Cooperatives, the time is ripe to reflect on the role of cooperatives in agriculture, food systems and community development in Canada. The Canadian Association for Studies in Cooperation and the Canadian Association for Food Studies are convening a series of special and joint sessions that explore cooperatives and alternative agri-food networks at 2013 Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities.

Session 1: Paper session
Now accepting abstracts

Cooperatives have historically been, and still are, important institutions in the global economic landscape, and have strong roots in food and agriculture. Conventional agriculture cooperatives work to increase the marketing power of farmers by pooling products to achieve economies of scale. Traditional consumer cooperatives focus on increasing buying power to meet member needs. However, there has been a recent surge in cooperative alternative agri-food networks in the form of cooperative food hubs, cooperative local food initiatives, cooperative farmers markets and box schemes, worker-owned food cooperatives, cooperative value-chains, buying clubs and cooperative food buying clubs. These initiatives represent new forms of collective engagement of consumers, producers and other actors as ‘food citizens’ within ‘civic food networks’, the social/solidarity economy and a ‘civic agriculture’.  These cooperative AFNs are differentiated from conventional cooperatives in that they: a) reconnect farmers and consumers in more direct and meaningful ways; b) sell through alternative community-based distribution networks such as CSAs, farm-to-school programs and farmers markets and/or; c) promote food production, distribution and consumption processes that are environmentally sound and socially just. They are organized either by farmers (producer co-ops, farmer groups), by consumers (buying clubs, consumer cooperatives) or both (multi-stakeholder co-ops) or by workers and through cooperation pursue social, economic and political ends that are challenging to realize as individuals.

Papers could include topics related to:

• Consumer cooperatives, farmer cooperatives, worker cooperatives, cooperative food hubs, fair-trade cooperatives, multi-stakeholder cooperatives
• Challenges and barriers, best practices, key tools and strategies
• The role of technology (e.g. websites, new media, video, RID tags, etc.)
• Innovative organizational structures and governance
• Policy, advocacy or regulatory issues
• The relationships between farmers, consumers and workers in and across cooperatives
• Economic viability, new institutional economics
• Gender, race, culture, class, justice in cooperative development
• The relationship between cooperatives and food democracy, food justice, food sovereignty
• Social capital, social embeddedness
• Cooperation amongst cooperatives and cooperatives support organizations
• Transformative learning and social innovation in cooperatives.

Email session organizer, Colin Anderson, at c_anderson@umanitoba.ca with questions, comments or suggestions. Please send 150 word abstracts with names and affiliations of authors to c_anderson@umanitoba.ca by January 13, 2013.

Special Journal Issue: The Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems and Community Development will be accepting submissions for a special issue on Cooperative Approaches to Alternative Food and Farm Initiatives. Authors presenting at either the CASC or the CAFS session are encouraged to use this panel as an opportunity to exchange ideas, strengthen individual papers and to generate submissions for the special issue.  Details about this call will soon be available at: http://www.agdevjournal.com/

Session 2: World Cafe:  “Cooperative Approaches to Alternative Food and Farm Initiatives. This is Democracy?”

In this session, we will critically interrogate the cooperative model in a dialogue around how food and agriculture co-ops converge with the pursuit of an alternative/cooperative economy-society. Do cooperatives promote inclusivity, democracy, sovereignty and transformation? This interactive world café will begin with four short presentations (4 minutes each) by practitioners and researchers who will orientate the session by providing their perspective on the role of the cooperative model in fostering food democracy. Next, we will interact around these ideas in facilitated café-style small-group conversations. These will occur in two 20-minute ‘rounds.’ Participants will be encouraged to change tables in between rounds to stimulate the cross-fertilization of ideas. Finally, the facilitators of each table will report back to the larger group as we weave together the threads of our cooperative conversations. This session will be documented to inform a publication that identifies opportunities for cooperative innovation and coalition building.

Session 3: Brown Bag Lunch and Keynote Speaker

Guest speaker TBA.

Congress 2013: http://www.congress2013.ca/congress2013
CAFS: http://cafs.landfood.ubc.ca/en/
CASC: http://www.coopresearch.coop/