BRIGHT CONFERENCE 2009 Working group 1.

Leena Pihlajamki leena.pihlajamaki@helsinki.fi University of Helsinki

Consumer and food democracy. Is the market to influence the choices of the consumer or is the consumer the key element that directs and addresses the market? Are the strategies of marketing able to influence the consumer and market choices?

The idea of food democracy is that everyone has the right to safe, nutritious, high quality and sustainable food. It has its roots in the discontent of individuals to the level of hunger in a global system where food is plentiful. Hunger can be seen as an embodiment of the lack of democracy.

Food democracy as a term is fairly new. It is not quite established yet in the larger scale, so its definitions are a bit vague. It also links many different ideas from various sectors under the same umbrella: ecological and small-scale production of food, health issues, and every persons democratic right to have an influence on his or her own life and circumstances. From political sciences point of view this is interesting, because it is one sign of peoples awakening to the lack of global democratic structures.

The configuration between consumers and the market are naturally dependant on the issue. Through its ethical aspect food democracy is an issue that is strongly consumer-bound. As long as the Companies Act in many countries define highest return to the shareholders as the primary function of a company, it is rather difficult to expect the companies to start acting ethically without a serious impact from the consumers. There is, of course, the possibility that the company starts acting ethically inspired by internal reasons. Unfortunately companies of this kind have been rarities, and consumer demand for ethically justifiable products and services has been the trigger for larger-scale ethical consciousness in the market.

Democratic consumer movements have reached excellent accomplishments trying to bend both the market and the consumers to more aware action. Critical consuming has also changed quite a bit during the last couple of decades. There can be seen a trend from passive means such as boycotting towards more active influencing. Another trend is that movements are seeking for a positive approach instead of former battle against evil market and companies. A good example for a

movement of this kind is the Carrot Mob with an operating principle of rewarding the ethically aware companies by consuming their products or services. Being a critical consumer has also become more and more mainstream.

Even though the ethical responsibility cannot be landed on the consumer in full, it does not mean the consumer would not have a crucial role in the food democracy. It is the consumer who creates demand and public policies by making the final decisions to buy or not to buy and voting or creating political pressure.

There is also an important actor in the food democracy not mentioned above: political organs. Concerning the democracy of food and who carries the responsibility, it is absurd to expect the consumer to be the only stakeholder. The ideal would be to have a world full of critical, globally thinking consumers, who would direct the market with their ethically justifiable decisions. It is very natural, that in reality many consumers also the ones with economical room for manoeuvre watch the prices instead of the general effects of the purchase.

The importance of the interference from the public sector and politicians comes up especially when ethically justifiable actions have unwanted influences on an individual or a nation. Taxation, tolls, national and international policymaking, edification of people and public decisions all affect both the market and the consumer. Public policies aiming at food democracy are important means in achieving the goals faster and in a wider scale than just acting at the marketconsumer axis. Global food democracy is impossible to achieve without global politics, especially because of the numerous structures maintaining the unhealthy food and market imbalance in the world. The customs frontiers between developed and developing countries are a good example for this.

The global economical crisis has changed the attitudes towards regulation of the global market. This may create new chances for democratising the food market as well. Though in the same time the rapid increase in food prices is working the other way around, creating pressure to prevent further surge of prices.

The strategies of marketing have diverse effects regarding the purpose of the campaign. It can be a powerful instrument in the democratisation of the food market: edification of the consumers has an important role in spreading grass root level food democracy. However, it also works the other way around: the marketing strategies of companies aim at selling their own products, and they have

enormous amounts of money to invest at their marketing campaigns, compared to the limited resources of food democracy movements. Efficient marketing can easily lure a consumer to purchase items he of she has no need for. This has led to (at least from the environmental point of view) unhealthy consuming habits in the Western world and increasingly in the Asiatic countries as well.

It can be stated that the post-agricultural consumer lost track of the value of food, and started to find the low prices of food self-evident. Instead, the post-modern consumer has in the average the luxury of being economically able to make decisions that are not based on merely prices. This has led to a situation with ethically and globally aware consumers, who have acted as the protagonists of a more aware world food market. The critical mass has slowly been achieved, and the food democracy movement has begun to influence the market on a wider scale.