Browsing by Author "Scott, Steffanie"

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Diverse forms of market engagement: Grounding food sovereignty in the experiences of Ontario's ecological grain farmers
(University of Waterloo, 2016-09-20) Mann, Emily; Scott, Steffanie
In contrast to food movements’ enthusiasm towards localized fruit, vegetable, dairy, and meat production, grains are often the missing link in the local food equation. As grains begin to find a place in local food movements, producers and processors exhibit the environmental and socioeconomic value in growing grains ecologically. However, challenges exist in furthering ecological farming practices; one of these challenges is marketing. With its emphasis on sustainability, the ‘local’, and the rights of producers, food sovereignty serves in this research as a lens to examine the challenges and opportunities that Ontario’s ecological grain farmers experience when bringing their products to market. As food sovereignty is a relatively young movement it is important to remain critical of it in order to understand how it may best continue forward as a means of challenging dominant agri-food systems. As a complementary framework, the concept of diverse economies is also explored in this research. This concept recognizes the role played both by the capitalist and non-capitalist forms of market engagement within enterprises and communities. This recognition can serve as a way to empower producers and processors engaged in alternative forms of market relationships. This thesis explores the marketing challenges ecological grain farmers encounter with respect to regulatory regimes; questions of scale; access to infrastructure and resources; market trends; human resources; and production. Through the use of semi-structured interviews and the social constructivist research, the findings demonstrate that although many food sovereignty principles resonate with the needs and actions of the research participants, there is a lack of consensus amongst Ontario’s ecological grain farmers regarding marketing practices and the principles promoted by the food sovereignty movement. Despite the stakeholders’ innovative techniques for overcoming these challenges, many of the barriers are structural and require engagement from the public sector. This research provides novel insight into the localization and globalization of grain chains in Ontario, the ability of food sovereignty to promote a sustainable livelihood for ecological grain farmers, and the potential contributions of a diverse economies framework in food studies. In addition, this research consolidates the lived experiences of ecological grain farmers in Ontario, as a means benefiting participants by exhibiting best practices and common challenges amongst counterparts.
Imagining Shared Food Futures: honouring Canada's obligations towards Anishinaabek foodways
(University of Waterloo, 2025-02-20) Koberinski, Jodi; Scott, Steffanie
Sustainability scholars characterize climate breakdown and biodiversity loss as converging crises tied directly to settler colonial ‘resource management’ regimes. Canada gestures toward mitigating these crises by ‘including’ Indigenous knowledges in environmental impact assessments and policy. Canada prioritizes commodity market profitability over mitigating these crises by excluding Indigenous knowledges in resource management decisions when acting on that knowledge would disrupt industry-favoured practices. One such practice is glyphosate use in forest ‘management.’ Glyphosate is a broad-spectrum agricultural herbicide repurposed to ‘manage’ regrowth after clearcutting forests. Banned by Quebec in 2001, Ontario embraced this practice. In 2013, Anishinaabek Elders along the north shore of the Great Lakes formed the Traditional Ecological Knowledge Elders to campaign for a moratorium on glyphosate use, which is counter to Anishinaabek environmental governance. Proponents claim herbicide use speeds stand regeneration, yet that regeneration converts food-bearing forests to pine plantations. Ontario legislators are not seeing the forest for the trees. This dissertation contributes to radical food geographies scholarship by characterizing the cumulative impacts of forestry policies on Indigenous foodways. Foodways include economic, material, linguistic, spiritual, intergenerational, scientific, ceremonial, and social dimensions of a culture’s food governance. This study concludes that efforts to imagine shared food futures in Canada’s settler colonial context require reframing ‘renewable’ resource extraction as Indigenous foodways disruption. Applying case study and participatory action research methods, I offer three manuscripts that together characterize the limitations of settler colonial knowledge in imagining shared food futures that meet settler treaty obligations. These three studies conclude that converting Anishinaabek food-bearing forests to pine plantations undermines the conditions required for Canada to meet treaty obligations to protect Anishinaabek foodways. In the first manuscript, I adapt Vivero Pol’s multi-governance framework to Canada’s settler colonial context to analyze customary and contemporary Indigenous food initiatives through a food commons lens. This study reveals the limitations of settler colonial frameworks for imagining shared food futures. The second manuscript seeks to overcome these limitations by centring an Anishinaabek research paradigm in collaboration with Traditional Ecological Knowledge Elders of the North Shore of Lake Huron. Our case study examining the cumulative impacts of changes to forestry legislation on Anishinaabek foodways centres TEK Elders’ efforts to stop glyphosate use in forestry. Reflecting on Ontario’s Bill 197, we characterize the limitations of settler colonial knowledge systems for understanding the impacts of forest ‘management’ decisions on settler treaty obligations. To better understand the limitations raised in the first two manuscripts, I apply participatory action research methods in the third manuscript to analyze transcripts from the Canadian Society of Ecological Economics’ bi-annual conferences I co-organized between 2019 and 2021. I ask what Indigenous knowledge holders have to say about the repackaging of Indigenous concepts by sustainability researchers within colonial knowledge systems. Despite gestures towards ‘inclusion’ of Indigenous knowledge, settler colonial frameworks depoliticize Indigenous resistance and resurgence, often reinforcing colonial narratives of land cessation and dispossession. Without addressing the underlying settler colonial assumptions and structures, sustainability scholars and settler governments relying on their research risk replicating the violence inherent in food policy frameworks built on settler supremacy. Collectively, these manuscripts identify actions settler colonial scholars have the responsibility to take up, beginning with transforming settler colonial narratives.
Intra-urban agriculture in Nanjing, China: Practices, motivations, and challenges
(University of Waterloo, 2019-05-24) Luehr, Geoffrey; Scott, Steffanie
China has experienced strong economic growth in the last three decades through urbanization and economic transitions. However, increasing population and rapid urbanization have resulted in profound social, economic, and ecological challenges, which have also affected China’s food system. These challenges, which include the rapid loss of farmland, environmental degradation and pollution, and the changing and more resource intensive diets of affluent urban citizens, have often been overlooked in favour of economic development. China’s economic focused policies have resulted in criticisms of the country’s food system and concerns surrounding food safety and food scandals have created a high level of mistrust among consumers and producers. As a result, opportunities exist to re-examine how urban spaces in China are being developed and how urban inhabitants are being fed. One promising avenue to ensure the sustainability of urban food systems may be the expansion of urban agriculture into cities. Urban agriculture is a practice that is seen by many scholars as beneficial socially, economically, and environmentally in both post-industrial and developing cities due to its localized food system and urban food production focus. Moreover, urban agriculture can be seen as a pragmatic response to current environmental global discourse about the conventional agricultural system. However, current urban agriculture discourse in China has largely been a state-defined project dominantly concerned with growing food for the city, rather than within it. Amidst these pressures and the noted lack of empirical research on the perceptions and benefits of intra-urban agriculture in China, the purpose of this research is to better understand the motivations of residents practicing urban agriculture and what role it may have in dealing with food-related issues in an urbanized China. This research utilized semi-structured interviews and questionnaires to achieve the following research objectives: (1) to assess the demographics of small-scale, individual intra-urban agriculture practices within Nanjing and where it is taking place, (2) to identify the various modes of intra-urban agriculture in Nanjing, (3) to determine the motivations of populations engaging in small-scale intra-urban agriculture, and (4) to identify how China’s evolving socio-political and economic context and increasing integration within global institutional and market networks affects urban agriculture development. This study found that intra-urban agriculture in China remains largely an informal practice, dominated primarily by older, working-class individuals growing vegetables on yards, balconies, rooftops, in “empty” non-built-up spaces in the around the city and on areas of ceased development. Moreover, participants mentioned several social wellbeing/health benefits. Lastly, non-monetary values associated with growing included freshness, food safety and recreation. Challenges among participants included: space limitations, weather, soil quality, age, confrontations with construction crews and other city officials. Based on the literature and interviews with government officials in Nanjing, it would appear that within a Chinese context the government sees or defines intra-urban agriculture as a means of modernization, with mixed high-tech plans of urban integration and rural revitalization (multifunctional) of peri-urban agriculture projects. This is juxtaposed with growing civic agriculture movements around China that continue to align more with urban agriculture movements seen in the Global North (e.g.,food sovereignty, against industrial agriculture) and opposes what is happening informally on the ground in Nanjing. In sum, the notable diversity of motivations for urban farmers that exist within Nanjing challenges many of the assumptions about urban agriculture as being a dominantly urban poor activity in the Global South.
Nature connection across the curriculum: Resources for post-secondary educators
(2025-01-07) Scott, Steffanie; Fu, Jenny
This resource has been designed for educators in any discipline who are looking to either begin or further explore nature connection in post-secondary environments. With contextual and academic background on related topics, the authors layer in interview testimony from real educators to showcase the diversity of approaches and experiences. The practical component of the resource outlines activity facilitation based on key educational themes related to nature. We hope this resource can support you in your journey of sharing nature with your students for learning beyond the classroom!
Seeking Middle Ground: Reconciling two trajectories for food system relocalization
(University of Waterloo, 2018-09-25) Glaros, Alesandros; Scott, Steffanie
As food systems expand in scale and scope, the sources of their negative externalities are less effectively identified. Globally, this diffusion has resulted in a plethora of paradoxes, as well as a decrease in overall food system resilience to socio-economic and ecological drivers of uncertainty. Relocalizing food production is a potential strategy to address the challenges of conventional food systems. However, relocalization is an umbrella term, with two distinct food production trajectories. One vision for local food system development seeks to holistically integrate human agency with natural agro-ecosystem processes. For example, some activists, scholars and policy makers discuss community-managed organic gardens or agro-ecological farms as critical components of sustainable and just urban food systems. Conversely, several engineers and researchers are seeking to (semi)-separate agricultural activity from an increasingly capricious biosphere, through the development of capital-intensive vertical farming and meat-synthesis technologies. As proponents of both trajectories attempt to construct more localized foodsheds, it is important to consider their potential opportunities, as well as their underlying values and practices, in hopes of enacting broad food system change. The paradigmatic and practical differences between conventional and alternative food systems have been well-elucidated within geographic literature; however, a growing body of scholarship is adopting a more nuanced approach to discuss the multiplicity of alternative agriculture developments. This thesis contributes to this body of literature, through: (1) comparing the outlooks of two distinct local food trajectories for attaining resilient, just food systems; and (2) assessing their underlying values and paradigms. To accomplish this, a thorough review of the literature on local food systems was carried out, in addition to an analysis of twenty-six interviews with stakeholders involved in local food production projects in China as well as Canada. A further twelve publicly-available interviews were selected for analysis. Interviewees included farm managers, researchers, urban planners, urban designers, and community food program managers. The results of this study suggest that the two local food production trajectories have conflicting outlooks for realizing food system justice and resilience. Capital-intensive approaches to local food production have huge productive potential and capacity for resilience-building, through disrupting and optimizing energy-capture processes in agricultural systems, while liberating vast tracts of agricultural land. However, several scholars critique current operations for perpetuating the central tenets of conventional food production, including: commodification, global commodity trade, and the further dis-embedding of consumer relationships with producers and nature. In contrast, more ‘traditional’ approaches to local food production often strengthen community relations and offer opportunity for traditional knowledge sharing and environmental virtue development. However, these operations are time and labour dependent, and are fundamentally dependent on a relatively stable biosphere. These findings suggest that both trajectories, if combined, may address the shortcomings of one another. In terms of underlying paradigms and practices, the results of this study align with an array of literature arguing that local food production projects act in both alternative and conventional ways. Interviewees from both trajectories engaged in multiple forms of economic exchange, and viewed their operations as part of a broader system of local, regional and global, and small to large-scale food production actors. Interviewees from both trajectories differed in their normative commitments to agro-ecosystem management, suggesting that food production is a complex process that cannot be separated from its natural environment, or that food production can be isolated and optimized. To transform conventional food systems, local food production operations must engage with, and work within, broader socio-political institutions. Creating an environment in which local food production projects can experiment with alternative values and practices is critical for their development, in face of increasing socio-economic and ecological uncertainty.
The State as a High Modernist Planner: Planning of Food System Transitions in Nanjing, China
(University of Waterloo, 2022-02-23) Dai, Ning; Scott, Steffanie
Food system planning is a nascent concept in both food studies and planning studies. Recent food planning studies point out that food issues have been mostly left out in modern planning practices and research, despite the fact that food makes up a critical aspect of urban development, economic growth, and public health. Only in the last two decades have scholars begun to advocate for the inclusion of food, and very little research attention has been paid to the theories and practices of food system planning in China. Zhong et al. (2021) bring to light the subject of food system planning in the Chinese context. They showcase the assets Chinese cities have for conducting food system planning with an example of food security planning in Nanjing. However, municipal governments’ focus on food system planning goes beyond food security and is entangled with the goal to modernize the cities. This thesis inspects this entanglement by revealing the pursuit of modernization among Nanjing’s food system planning practices. Drawing on James Scott’s concept of high modernism, I argue that the local governments in Nanjing’s regional food systems could be characterized as high modernist planners. In the high modernist approach, the design and the implementation of food system planning prioritizes industrial standardization, visual order, and technological progress over diverse traditions, functional order, and social innovations. The outcomes of such planning, however, are often at odds with the intended food security and sustainability goals due to a disconnect with the needs of food producers, vendors, and consumers. This thesis consists of three case studies on food system planning in Nanjing, China. Case study one (Chapter 4) reveals the recent rise of new retail businesses and the government support that fueled their growth. The rapid growth of new retail businesses, however, undermined the stability of the local food supply and food security. This finding shows the danger of pursuing high-modernist models in the remaking of food retail environment. Case study two (Chapter 5) focuses on the government planned transformation of the wet markets. This chapter finds that the high-modernist transformation measures, albeit intended to improve wet market appearances and functions, have negatively impacted the livelihoods of vendors and failed to make any actual contributions to food security/food safety goals. Case study three (Chapter 6) examines the evolution of the authorities’ approach to agricultural modernization, I argue that large agribusinesses maintain advantages in accessing government support because they fit with the high-modernist vision of modern agriculture. At the same time, a diverse group of new farmers independent from government planning attempt to address food safety and sustainability concerns in a less modern-looking fashion. This research adopts a qualitative approach in data collection and processing. Data applied in this thesis consist of semi-structured interviews, food policy documents and social media posts. Qualitative data are analyzed through thematic analysis and a two-step coding process. Overall, this thesis proposes using the concept of high-modernism to interpret the governance logic within China’s food system planning. Specifically, China’s food system planning prioritizes the techno-scientific logic that focuses on infrastructure and technology development and the aesthetic logic that focuses on replacing traditional, “backward” appearing food activities with modern, orderly businesses that appeal to developmentalist aesthetics. The high-modernist planning has two most evident flaws: fixation with technological progress leads to the oversight of grassroots social innovations; fixation with middle-class optics lead to a disconnect with the needs of marginalized communities. Adopting the lens of high modernism leads to a better understanding of the priorities, rationale, and pitfalls of government planning in China’s food system transitions. Research findings of and proposed concepts in the thesis have implications for food security and sustainability policies in Nanjing and other Chinese cities with comparable socio-economic parameters.
Sustainable Diets, Population Growth & Regional Food Production: A Case Study of Waterloo Region, Ontario
(University of Waterloo, 2021-09-24) Bass, Emily; Scott, Steffanie
The industrialized food system poses significant human health challenges, while simultaneously compromising planetary boundaries that we depend on for human flourishing. In 2019, the Canada Food Guide was updated to represent a more nutritious and environmentally sustainable diet, consistent with the 2019 EAT-Lancet Report’s Planetary Health Diet recommendations surrounding the human and planetary health nexus. Both recommendations notably put less emphasis on meats and dairy, and more emphasis on plant-based protein and fresh vegetables and fruits. One way to encourage the transition to more nutritious food consumption is to develop and enhance the regional food environment. The food environment determines in part what the population eats, and in turn, drives demand. ‘Food environments’ are created by social environments and are the physical, social, economic, cultural, and political factors that impact the accessibility, availability, and adequacy of food within a community or region (Rideout et al., 2015). They are often responsible for affecting how consumers make food decisions. COVID-19 exposed vulnerabilities in our industrialized just-in-time system, including challenges in food security and optimal nutrition as import-dependent foods faced risks in supply due to labour and supply chain disruptions. Increased political attention on local and regional self-sufficiency at regional and national scales may offer a solution to enhance resilience within socio-ecological systems. An optimum nutritional environment (ONE) assessment bridges nutritional needs with environmental sustainability through regional planning. For this thesis, a case study foodshed analysis of Waterloo Region (WR), Ontario, was conducted in order to understand the potential for regional sufficiency in nutrient-dense food (according to the 2019 Canadian Food Guide guidelines). The nutritional requirements were then compared to the local production capacity for the population in 2020 and the projected population in 2040 and 2060. The research objectives were (1) to estimate the quantity of locally grown vegetables, fruits, legumes, and whole grains needed to meet the Region of Waterloo population’s optimal nutritional requirements in 2020, 2040, and 2060; (2) to estimate how much of these healthy food requirements for the WR population could realistically be produced through regional agriculture by the year 2040 and 2060. This study used Canadian databases to quantify and predict the opportunities and potential for WR to meet its growing population's nutritional needs within regional boundaries. The results show that consumption and production levels in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and plant-based protein are insufficient in 2020, 2040 and 2060. There were changes in comparison to the 2006 and 2019 Canada Food Guide’s recommendations, specifically a reduction in starchy vegetables, wheat and oats, and an increase of tree nuts and meat alternatives. Agricultural land requirements that align with nutritional recommendations could be met with a 4% conversion of current agricultural land in use in 2040 and 6% in 2060. One possibility to meet these recommendations is converting land that is currently dedicated to soy and corn production. One limitation of the study is the exclusion of livestock and dairy, which contributes to a large proportion of land use. This study contributes to current foodshed analysis research, providing a replicable case study methodology for other regions to identify the current status of local food provisioning and its relationship to nutritional needs, as well as to predict and plan for future scenarios with an enhanced food environment. This research suggests that collaborative and simultaneous effort from various stakeholders is needed to support the transition to sustainable diets in Waterloo Region.
Taking the Pulse of Canada's Industrial Food System
(University of Waterloo, 2019-01-31) Koberinski, Jodi; Scott, Steffanie
In the context of catastrophic climate change, reducing climate implications of food systems is a central challenge. Shifting diets away from meat towards protein-rich pulses reduces climate change-related pressures while offering myriad agronomic benefits. Yet how we produce pulses and not just that we produce pulses matters if those benefits are to be realized. Despite rapid growth, little research on industrial pulse sustainability exists. This research explored connections between world views and food systems in order to assess sustainability claims made by Canada’s industrial pulse sector. First, I distinguished the underlying productivism rooted in mechanistic models and ecologism rooted in holistic models, distinguishing food science from food systems paradigms and how they affect evidence. After contextualizing Canada’s pulse sector, I conducted a discourse analysis revealing shortcomings of conventional narratives on the concepts of choice, efficiency and safety. Next, I analysed eight lock-ins driving Canada’s industrial food system. Finally, I tested two Pulse Canada sustainability claims -- low carbon foot print and soil health—finding these claims ignore the reliance of industrial food systems on 1) petrochemicals and other mined inputs, and 2) excessive fossil energy. Canada’s pulse sector is vulnerable to both ecological shocks associated with industrial production and to social shocks associated with climate unrest and with policy changes that could curtail access to certain pesticides. By forcing pulses to conform to the economics of industrial production, Canada’s farm community bypasses pulses as transition crops toward a truly regenerative agriculture. Given the reality of unavoidable catastrophic climate breakdown, scholars must confront the elephant in the room that is globalized corporate capitalism driving unsustainable approaches to food systems. This paper calls for a radical re-orientation of the economy in the direction of food commons.
Transitions to Ecological Agriculture in Nanjing, China: Farm Types, Social-Political Networks, and Rural Communities
(University of Waterloo, 2020-12-09) Qi, Danshu; Scott, Steffanie
China’s rural and agricultural sector has been undergoing a dramatic transformation in the form of three major trends. First, the modernization and capitalization of agriculture has significantly modified traditional agriculture and exacerbated path-dependency towards an agro-industrial paradigm. Second, the Chinese government at various levels has been promoting an ‘ecological civilization’ that highlights science and technology to address environmental problems. Third, changes that have emerged in the agri-food sector vary from state certification scheme of organic agriculture to grassroots initiated alternative food networks. By delineating the structural changes, previous studies argue that these changes open up possibilities for innovative and sustainable food practices to challenge the mainstream agro-industrial paradigm, and that China stands a chance of witnessing a new post-productivist era in the agri-food sector. Yet, it is unclear how a transition to sustainable agriculture could be formed at the farm-level under the three trends and how the transition is interpreted and implemented by various farmers. This dissertation investigates the ecological agriculture sector in Nanjing, China. It sheds light on the various stakeholders who are the major proponents and leading forces of ecological agriculture, and their practices as shaped by the three interwoven trends. It answers the questions of what ecological agriculture is from the perspectives of Chinese farmers, and what barriers are facing this sector. The notion of ecological agriculture covers a wide range of farming practices, including organic agriculture, natural farming, biodynamic farming, and other chemical-free farming styles. The first manuscript (Chapter 3) explores ecological agriculture at the farm level. It creates a typology of ecological farms and farmers in Nanjing. This analysis contributes to a conceptualization of ecological agriculture as a range of dynamic practices, evidenced in the evolving farming and management practices. It argues that understanding farmers’ varied attributes is of central importance to elucidate the complexities of ecological agriculture. The second manuscript (Chapter 4) explores the institutional and socio-cultural reasons for the emergence of the ecological agriculture sector in Nanjing. It reveals the vertical relations between farmers and governmental and institutional actors, and the horizontal relations between various farmers. It documents the shifting focus on support for ecological agriculture from local governments and public institutes, and unveils the challenges for different farmers to develop ecological agriculture in the current political and socio-cultural settings. The first two papers suggest a significant urban-rural inequity in opportunities to participate in ecological agriculture, and point out the lack of perspectives from small-scale farmers who join (as labourers), rather than initiate (as farm operators), ecological agriculture. Therefore, the third paper (Chapter 5) compares the transitions to ecological agriculture, through a case study in two villages. It highlights how these transitions are accompanied by varied spatial, economic, and social changes that significantly alter rural social patterns. The findings suggest that although both villages have seen land consolidation and income improvement, farmers’ autonomy and relations to land are different. This research thus calls for recognition of the socio-economic values of ecological agriculture in addition to environmental improvement. In addition, this chapter also shows that the current conceptualization of rural restructuring in China overemphasizes the roles of the agro-industrial regime. More work should be added to the rural restructuring concept to uncover the implication of ecological agriculture. The three papers explore pathways for developing ecological agriculture from different perspectives, i.e., the farm level, the network and relational level, and the village community level. The thesis as a whole argues that ecological agriculture should not be considered as merely governmental schemes to improve environments or initiatives by grassroots actors who seek for food system transitions. Instead, ecological agriculture represents the dynamic outcomes of how different stakeholders are driven by opportunities and confined by barriers. Enabling forces in the development of this sector are associated partly with the governments’ ecological civilization framework that directly changed policy settings by attaching great importance to environmental protection, and partly with growing awareness in the production side that recognize the multiple benefits of ecological agriculture. However, this dissertation also identifies challenges for moving ecological agriculture towards a stronger version of sustainability. The tensions and disconnections between new farmers and rural established farmers should be noted as a structural barrier for ecological agriculture to reach a broader population of producers and consumers. Furthermore, the current business model of promoting ecological transition in the countryside suggests further commercialization of rural land and labour resources. Therefore, the associated processes of altering rural spatial and socio-economic patterns have reinforced the agro-industrial regime and have made it harder for agroecological initiatives to grow. As a result, this thesis from a sociological and human geographical stance illuminates the structural challenges of advancing ecological agriculture in the Chinese context. It calls for critical theorizations of individual-level experiences into studies of ecological agriculture and asserts and applauds key contributions made towards sustainability.