ABSTRACT
This chapter is about the imagination of a regenerative system based on premises and values that differ from the mainstream considerations of sustainable capitalism and that forget both history and equality. At the center of the contribution there is the idea that food systems shall be rooted in history and in the need for social and environmental reparation. To achieve this goal, we shall think of food systems through the lenses of the commons (a web of interconnected human and non-human actors that are mutually interdependent and produce utilities and values that go beyond the market price) and commoning (as the process of interacting with each other, nurturing nature, and – more importantly – moving towards socio and environmental justice). Once commons, commoning, and reparatory ecology are assumed as the guidelines of a regenerative vision of the food systems, food stops being a commodity and food practices (from farming to losses and waste management) are embedded into an ecological organization structured around the principles of anti-colonialism, anti-patriarchy, equality, social justice, and on the recognition of the inherent co-construction of nature and society as intrinsically connected. Mainstream visions of food and sustainability accept that we have to aim towards the Pareto optimal in the context of the current distribution of resources and power. Commons, commoning, and reparatory ecology challenge this assumption and can provide the political legitimacy and the imaginative horizon to rethink premises, assumptions, and discourses of commodification, price signals, unlimited growth, market efficiency, and extractivism that are too often perceived as inevitable and undisputable.
