ABSTRACT

Proclaiming these resources as ‘heritage’ has been adopted as a strategy to call attention to the problems that capitalism is causing us. Heritage critiques capitalism but is also profoundly shaped by it. Ways of knowing, ideas about value and responsibility are shaped by it. All heritage vegetable discourses claim to protect diversity. In critiquing capitalism’s destructive impact on human food systems through a framework of anti-globalization and the local, heritage vegetable discourse has adopted a framework that remains compatible with individualist, consumer capitalist society while demonstrating visible variety. Another characteristic of heritage as a way of thinking about food is of course its preoccupation with loss and endangerment. Ex-situ conservation is problematic; divorcing seeds from the rest of the food system provides a reservoir or safety net but does not contribute to the successful propagation and reintroduction of the varieties concerned.