Food democracy and meta-organizations

The purpose of the project is to create a consortium of researchers from the Upper Rhine (UHA, UdS, Basel and Fribourg), to respond to an INTEREG and ANR project contributing to the "food and food systems" axis (environmental sciences field) and "innovation/inequality, discrimination" (human and social sciences field). A group of ten researchers from four EUCOR universities (UHA, UdS, Basel and Freiburg) are already collaborating on research about food democracy issues: how actors (citizens, social movements, institutions, urban farmers, associations, consumer activists, agricultural producers, business foundations) are mobilizing and organizing to promote an alternative agri-food model (Deverre & Lamine 2010). Meta-organizations are new meeting places in which these actors try to restore a social link, responsibility and justice between producers and consumers (i.e., fair prices for both parties, maintenance of peasant agriculture) and towards the environment (Allen, FitzSimmons, Goodman, 2003).