Is Resistance Futile? How Global Agri-Food Attempts to Co-opt the Alternatives Paper presented at the XIV World Congress of Rural Sociology, Toronto, August 2016

Most Alternative Agri-Food Networks (AAFNs) have been developed to counter the mainstream agri-food network dominated by huge multinational corporations. They have attempted to challenge the mainstream network on grounds of sustainability, nutritional value, local control, fair trade and the like. However, they have largely ignored the capacity of the mainstream to absorb, mimic, re-package and otherwise co-opt the goals of the various AAFNs. Without an understanding of those processes, AAFNs become merely marketing tests for the next wave of food products. In this paper I examine how the mainstream is maintained and co-opts approaches developed initially by AAFNs. One can distinguish five components to this approach to mainstream network management: First, the de facto Tripartite Standards Regime of standards, certifications and accreditations, designed by the major actors, governs the entire network. Conformity is enforced through systems of audit that extend from the behavior of CEOs to janitors, from farm supply companies to farmers to processors to retailers. Second, assembly line technologies initially developed in animal slaughtering but perfected by Ford a century ago have been extended to much of the agrifood chain. Hence, poultry processors and fast food restaurants now share the same technical approach to production. Third, the mainstream has created a New Taylorism, in which something akin to time and motion studies has been extended to all occupations. The professions are no longer excepted. Fourth, Big Data, made possible by advances in information technologies, now permits all of this to become real by making it possible to monitor everyone and everything in real time. Finally, the mainstream agri-food companies have developed a variety of tactics for co-opting, incorporating and subverting alternative agri-food movements. In conclusion, I argue that only by understanding these tactics can AAFNs transform the current food regime.