ABSTRACT

With its abundant farmers’ markets and CSAs, a vibrant urban agriculture scene, food carts, and farm-to-table restaurants, many consider Portland to be a heaven for “foodies” and sustainable food system advocates alike. Most participants in this alternative network of food production, processing, distribution, and consumption situate their activities squarely in opposition to the dominant industrial agrifood system and its deleterious impacts on the environment and public health. But despite such an ostensibly progressive orientation, many participants and supporters of local and sustainable food may be blind to the ways in which systems of oppression are potentially reproduced from within. A brief anecdote illustrates this point. At a community event in March 2012 organized by Portland State University (PSU) and People’s Food Co-op to promote the release of the Cultivating Food Justice reader (Alkon and Agyeman, 2011), the first comment from the audience was: “I’ll say what I know we all are thinking... poor people are just ignorant about good food!” This comment unfortunately set the tone for a long discussion dominated by calls for missionary-style strategies to educate low-income populations assumed to be disinterested in or ignorant of the virtues of eating well. Ultimately, the tone of the discussion suggested a peculiar disconnect between the good intentions behind the vision of “good food for all,” and the thinking and action involved in implementing this vision.