What can be learnt from dumpster diving in Australia about the potential of “food activism” to politicise the creation of waste in the modern agri-food system?
By Jamil
Introduction
According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), approximately one third, or 1.3 billion tons per year, of all food produced for human consumption is wasted (FAO 2022a). This occurs whilst approximately one third (29%) of the world’s population experiences moderate or severe food insecurity (FAO 2022b). This simultaneity, between food waste and global hunger, is not indicative of a problem of global food scarcity, but rather emphasizes a narrative of distributive injustice and structural violence within the modern global agri-food system (Plank 2023). In a global agri-food system contradicted by immense food waste production parallel to human undernourishment, understanding how food waste is created invites exploration and critique of the hegemonic structures perpetuating food injustice.
Food waste is not equally distributed, but instead accumulates around wealth, being a common problem in all affluent societies. Australia is no exception, wasting 34% of food intended for consumption (Fial 2021). Understanding how such immense wastage occurs is first to understand the role of food within the modern agri-food system. In the neoliberal social order, food is not a nutritional need, but rather a commodity for surplus profit. In this system waste is the political other of capitalist “value”, the de-valuation of commodities that cannot produce this surplus value (Edwards & Mercer 2013). As such, food waste in this system is any commodity that cannot serve to maximise surplus capitalist value, rather than goods that cannot be used for human nutritional need. This wasteful agri-food system is being challenged by the dumpster diving movement. Dumpster diving, the practice of foraging through dumpsters for edible or other reusable goods disposed by the commercial supply-chain, is the re-valuation of waste (Plank 2020; Vaughan 2018). By doing so, dumpster diving challenges the conception and creation of waste within the modern agri-food system as a food activist movement. Food activism refers to the efforts by people to resist and change the global food system by modifying the way they produce, distribute, and/or consume food (Siniscalchi & Counihan 2014). By doing so, the food activist movement takes aim at the capitalist system of production, distribution, consumption, and commercialisation, in aim to create a more just food system (Siniscalchi & Counihan 2014). Dumpster diving perpetrates this narrative, allowing critical analysis and politicisation into the creation of waste within the modern agri-food system.
This study will critically analyse the hegemonic structures that create food waste within Australia’s modern agri-food system, before exploring how dumpster diving, as a form of food activism, challenges these structures, whilst simultaneously inviting alternatives.
The unjust production of food waste
Food waste distribution within the Australian agri-food system can be understood through the interlinks between producers and consumers in the food supply-chain. Although food waste creation prevails amongst all sectors within this supply-chain, this waste creation is disproportionately governed by the retail sector. In the last century, the Australian supply-chain has undergone a mass restructure as a result of the emergence of large food retail chains, i.e., supermarkets, and then their increasing dominance following neoliberal reform (Lawrence & Dixon 2015). In Australia, the food retailer sector of the supply-chain is amongst the most highly concentrated in the world, with the duopoly Coles and Woolworths holding over 70 % of the market share (Devin & Richards 2016). This immense control that supermarkets have over Australia’s modern agri-food system is through their role as a bottleneck between producers and consumers (Gascón 2018). Instead of food being traded on a more direct scale between producers and consumers, or in local scales in “mom and pop” stores, the
rise of supermarkets following neoliberal reform makes them a dominating middleman in this transaction. Supermarkets, as privately-owned enterprises within the Australian free-market economy have a primary object to maximise economic profit. Food waste creation emerges out of this profit maximisation, as a representation of the oppression exercised by these private corporations. This oppression is exercised through discursive strategies used by supermarkets on both consumers and producers, of which three prominent, interrelated discursive strategies emerge; (1) supplier determination, (2) private standards, and (3) increasing profit margins
(1) The increasing domination of Coles and Woolworths and the subsequent decline of local “mom and pop” stores, mean that producers often have little choice but to be suppliers to this duopoly. In simultaneity, this domination also results in consumers having little choice but have these supermarkets as their supplier (Lawrence & Dixon 2015). Supermarkets thus form a one-way domineering relationship over producers and consumers. This is often subversive, as consumers have an abundance of choice when visiting the supermarket, but yet remain slaves to a system that does not benefit them. (Vaughan 2018).
(2) Australian supermarkets have strict private standards for food in the form of “food quality standards”, such as Woolworths Quality Assurance or the British Retail Consortium for Coles (Devin & Richards 2016). Producers/suppliers are audited against these standards if they wish to access Australia’s supermarket duopoly. These standards are stricter than governmental regulations and have a hyper-focus on near-perfect aesthetic appearances for produce (Devin & Richards 2016). Any produce deemed unworthy of this near-perfect appearance is rejected, entrenching food waste (Devin & Richards 2016). These near-perfect aesthetic standards are often claimed as consumer-enforced, with retailers arguing that consumers demand near-perfect produce – a narrative that prevails in discussions of food waste (Devin & Richards 2016). What is often amiss is these discussions is why this near-perfect consumer demand exists. An example by Devin & Richards (2016) describes how specifications for bananas represented a tactic to sell more to consumers, with bananas and banana bunches becoming larger over time in order to sell more, concurrent with subsequent rejection of smaller or single bananas. The specifications of “food quality standards” are then not food safety measures, but rather specifications imposed by supermarkets to increase profit margins.
(3) In pursuit of perpetual capital increase, supermarkets continually find ways to increase profit margins on their food products. This is exercised on both consumers, and producers. Supermarkets obtain produce cheaper by undercut payments to produces, exercised through the aforementioned supplier determination domination (Devin & Richards 2016). These food products are then continually increased in price, overpricing consumers. This results in food becoming increasingly wasted just because consumers cannot afford it, a capitalist contradiction that is still economic because of the meagre wholesale purchase price, and the cheapness of waste disposal (Devin & Richards 2016). This occurs because of the highly concentrated market power between Coles and Woolworths, which acts in denial of the neoliberal capitalist logic of corporate competition driving down costs. This power concentration means that Coles and Woolworths do not need to compete, and instead, through jointly implementing discursive strategies, profits can be maximised through oppression of producers and consumers.
Dumpster diving for food justice
Dumpster diving in Australia is typically characterised by small groups of ‘divers’ scavenging for food in the dumpsters of large food retailers after closing hours (Edwards & Mercer 2013). This act, as a form of food activism, politicises the waste creation in the modern agrifood system by exposing and combating supermarket discursive strategies, as well as challenging supermarkets within the broader hegemonic structures of the neoliberal agri-food system in Australia. A useful framework for exploration of this politicisation is provided by Shreck’s (2008) typological of activism, which includes (1) acts of resistance composed of people’s explicit nonparticipation in hegemonic systems and their challenges to it, (2) redistributive acts aimed at more equitable distribution of resources that are steps toward future change, and (3) radical social action seeking positive structural transformation of the system to result in a qualitatively different and more equitable system.
(1) In Australia, the majority of dumpster diver dive out of discontent with the current agri-food system, rather than purely for need (Vaughan 2018). To scavenge through dumpsters to eat “waste” is to go against the societal cultural consciousness, rebelling against fundamental norms within the modern agri-food system in an act of food activism (Shantz 2005). In doing so, the state of the agri food system is challenged, bringing into light the broader food injustices of such a wasteful system. This challenges the agrifood system through the reconceptualisation of waste. By rooting through dumpsters, dumpster diving invites reconceptualisation into what the label of food waste actually means. Food waste is not what cannot be used for human nutritional need, food waste is what cannot be used for capitalist profit. Dumpster diving highlights the commodification of food, at the same time that it unsheathes it from such commodification, re-valuing food in terms of nutritional need instead of profit. In doing so, this challenges the legitimacy of the “food quality standards” sanctioned by the Australian supermarket duopoly, reframing from consumer benefit back to corporate profit. It also invites consumers to rethink their own relationship with food, away from a being a disposable commodity, and back to being a valuable nutritional need.
(2) Dumpster diving rebels against the conventional food distribution pathway of the retail supply chain. Instead of a capitalist transaction between supermarket and consumer, dumper divers’ provision their own food. In addition, the dumpster diving movement is characterised by food sharing, both between divers, but also from diver to local community (Edwards & Mercer 2013). Every dumpster diver than becomes their own food distributor, an anti-consumer, providing bottom-up food distribution. This has a two-fold implication. This invites reflection as to the current agri-food system, centred around linear distribution of income upwards to powerful corporations. But this also serves as a reminded that this food distribution need not exist in linear isolation. Food production and distribution for profit needs to be shifted to production and distribution for need (Vaughan 2018). To do so, producers need to be brought back closer to consumers, closing the gap that was cleaved by supermarkets.
(3) Dumpster diving is not only an act of radical food reconceptualisation and distribution but challenges the social conceptions of the modern agri-food system. Dumpster divers tend to follow the loosely defined “diving etiquette”, which includes taking only what will meet their needs, assisting other divers, and sharing foods (Vaughan 2018). In addition, dumpster diving is typically done collectively as a social activity (Edwards & Mercer 2013). These social values amongst the dumpster diving community, of reciprocity, equitable distribution, and the treatment as food as a social good, provides a stark contrast to the values entrenched in our current agri-food system (Vaughan 2018). And the sense of solidarity and community among the diving community and their fight for a common cause reveals the need to embed democratic values in our current industrialised agri-food system (Vaughan 2018).
Conclusion
Dumpster diving is a radical and rebellious act of food activism in the way it challenges all conventional narratives of food waste and food consumption in the modern agri-food system. By doing so, dumpster diving becomes a powerful tool in the politicisation of supermarkets, the large food retail corporations, that create these narratives. Dumpster diving invites consumers to rethink these narratives, and to reconsider the modern agri-food system through food waste, exposing the hegemonic structures, and their oppressive role in perpetuating food injustice for the pursuit of profit. In simultaneity, dumpster diving provides alternative narratives, towards food as a common good for human need.
References
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